Birmingham.
_The Cross in Mexico and Alexandria._--In _The Unseen World; Communications
with it, real and imaginary, &c._, 1850, a work which is attributed to an
eminent divine and ecclesiastical historian of the English Church, it is
stated that--
"It was a tradition in Mexico, before the arrival of the Spaniards,
that when that form (the sign of the cross) should be victorious, the
old religion should disappear. The same sign is also said to have been
{549} discovered on the destruction of the temple of Serapis at
Alexandria, and the same tradition to have been attached to it."--P.
23.
The subject is very curious, and one in which I am much interested. I am
anxious to refer to the original authorities for the tradition in both
cases. It is known that the Mexicans worshipped the cross as the god of
rain. We have the following curious account thereof in _The Pleasant
Historie of the Conquest of West India, now called Newe Spayne_, translated
out of the Spanish tongue by T. N., anno 1578:
"At the foote of this temple was a plotte like a churchyard, well
walled and garnished with proper pinnacles; in the midst whereof stoode
a crosse of ten foote long, the which they adored for god of the rayne;
for at all times whe they wanted rayne, they would go thither on
procession deuoutely, and offered to the crosse quayles sacrificed, for
to appease the wrath that the god seemed to have agaynste them: and
none was so acceptable a sacrifice, as the bloud of that little birde.
They used to burne certaine sweete gume, to perfume that god withall,
and to besprinkle it with water; and this done, they belieued assuredly
to haue rayne."--P. 41.