semicircular line, which contained within it the chapel; they marked out the boundaries of the sacred territory, within which an asylum was to be had; one of them, which we observed upon our landing, made the first point of the semicircle; there are few of them now remaining.” On the islet of Oronsay, immediately to the south of Colonsay, is a Celtic cross with a Latin inscription, erected in memory of a Prior who died in 1510. Some of the crosses from Iona are said to have been carried to the neighbouring island of Mull, and to the mainland of Argyle. At Campbelltown in that county is a handsome cross, carved from a monolith of blue granite, and now serving as a Market Cross, which is alleged to be one of the spoils of St. Columba’s isle.

Argyleshire has also preserved some interesting sculptured tombstones. The churchyard of Kilfinan has two such; one is adorned with a wheel-headed cross, the shaft of which is covered with scrolls, a wicker-pattern design running down either side of it; the other has a cross with deep hollows at the intersection of the arms. At Nereabolls, in Islay, is the upper portion of a crucifix, broken off beneath the arms of the figure; it is roughly carved, but has nothing of the grotesqueness of some very early attempts at the human form. All these stones date from the fourteenth or following century.

In certain districts several Celtic crosses have been suffered to survive, or have been brought forth from the concealment into which the neglect, or the violence, of past ages had thrown them; and they present perhaps the most valuable examples of runic inscriptions and of contemporary carving which we now have in Great Britain. Some of them are quadrilateral slabs on which the sacred symbol is cut, others are carved into the shape of a cross; most of them have a large amount of characteristic adornment. There are men riding and hunting, animals conventional, if not actually grotesque, interlaced chain designs, and intricate and often very graceful scrolls. Among other figures cut on these ancient monuments we find constantly repeated some of those Pictish symbols, the meaning of which is one of the apparently insoluble problems of archæology. The twin circles connected by three lines like a Z, or included within the arms of it, the crescent crossed by two lines forming a V, a grotesque somewhat distantly resembling an elephant; these and other forms constantly meet us. They are characteristic of the carving of a time not more than eight or nine centuries from our own, yet the very alphabet of the symbolic language which they speak is lost. They have been described as the work of Cymric Christians, as Gnostic, as magical, as derived from oriental Paganism, as learned from Scandinavian heathenism; but even if we could agree as to their origin, we should yet be in the dark as to their meaning. In Wigtonshire are several crosses, including some of this type: we find them at Kirkcolm, Kirkmadrine, Whithorn, Monreith, and St. Ninian’s cave. At Kirkcolm is an exceedingly rudely carved crucifix; beneath the figure of the Crucified is another human figure accompanied by two creatures meant apparently for birds; the whole being of the roughest description. The Monreith Cross stands seven and a quarter feet in height, and has a wheel head, with a shaft whose sides curve slightly outwards from top and bottom; an ingeniously contrived scroll covers the face. The Kirkmadrine example has incised upon it the sacred monogram XP conjoined, and arranged crosswise within a circle.

In Kirkcudbright is the splendid Ruthwell Cross, standing over seventeen feet in height. The shaft tapers gracefully towards the head, and has within panels upon it the effigies of several saints; the sides have a singularly fine scroll of conventional foliage with birds; and the head is light and elegant. It is altogether a very beautiful structure.

Other stones worthy of notice now are, or have been found, at St Madoes and Dupplin, near Perth; at Kirriemuir, and elsewhere, in Forfar; and in some other places, chiefly along the north-eastern coast of the country. It must be remembered that the Reformation progressed much more slowly in the Highlands than in the Lowlands, so that we might naturally expect that the demolition of the crosses would not be carried out quite so thoroughly in the north as in the south.

It was, however, in a southern town that we read of the last use, until recent times, of that ancient ceremony for Good Friday which our forefathers called “Creeping to the Cross.” On May 8th, 1568, Grindal, then bishop of London, writes to Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh: “Evans, who is thought a man of more simplicity than the rest, hath reported (as I am credibly informed) that at Dunbar, on Good Friday, they saw certain persons go bare-foot and bare-legged to the church, to creep to the cross; if it be so the Church of Scotland will not be pure enough for our men.”

In spite of the abolition of the sign of the cross in the ceremonial of the church, and the destruction, so far as possible, of the material cross in its buildings, even Presbyterian Scotland could not discard the emblem of St. Andrew from among its national devices. The Covenanters marched across the Border in the Great Civil War, under a flag which bore that symbol; the white Cross of St. Andrew lay athwart its field, charged at the centre with the thistle, while in the spaces between the four members of the cross was the motto, “Covenants for Religion, Croune, and Kingdoms.” Under the Commonwealth the royal arms, of course, dropt out of use, their place being taken by a shield, the first and fourth quarters of which were charged with St. George’s Cross (for England), the second with St. Andrew’s Cross (for Scotland), and the third with the Irish harp.

COVENANTER’S FLAG.

Some few folk-customs, involving the use of this sign have also lived on in the northern kingdom. At Borera, for instance, is a Celtic cross, now overthrown; and whosoever wishes for rain has but to raise this, according to the local belief at one time, and he will obtain his desire. It used also to be customary in some parts of the country, when a bridegroom arrived at the church door ready for his wedding, to unfasten the shoe-string on his right foot and to draw a cross upon the doorpost. Such usages, however, seem to have been rarer in Scotland than in England.

St. Margaret of Scotland, a queen worthy of everlasting remembrance, who died in the year 1093, gave to one of the churches in her husband’s dominions a splendid crucifix, on which was a figure of the Redeemer in pure gold. The one historic crucifix of the country, however, is the famous Black Rood of Scotland, round which gathers much both of legend and of history, and from which the royal palace and abbey in Edinburgh received its name of Holy Rood. The story of this ancient cross is recounted at length in the “Rites of Durham,” and is as follows.

King David Bruce was hunting in a forest hard by Edinburgh one Holy Cross Day, or Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th), and had become separated from his companions, when a wondrous hart, of great beauty and strength, suddenly appeared to him. The creature charged the king’s horse, and so terrified it that it took to flight; but the hart followed “so fiercely and swiftly” that it bore down both the horse and its royal rider to the