(i.e. Christos—Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end),
and similar forms, of which Münter (Sinnbilder der Alten Christen, p. 36 sqq.) has collected from ancient coins, vessels, and tombstones more than twenty. The monogram, as well as the sign of the cross, was in use among the Christians long before Constantine, probably as early as the Antonines and Hadrian. Yea, the standards and trophies of victory generally had the appearance of a cross, as Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Justin, and other apologists of the second century told the heathens. According to Killen (Ancient Church, p. 317, note), who quotes Aringhus (Roma Subterranea, II. p. 567) as his authority, the famous monogram (of course in a different sense) is found even before Christ on coins of the Ptolemies. The only thing new, therefore, was the union of this symbol in its Christian sense and application with the Roman military standard.
[C] Cicero says, pro Raberio, c. 5: 'Nomen ipsum crucis absit non modo a corpore civium Romanorum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus.' With other ancient heathens, however, the Egyptians, the Buddhists, and even the aborigines of Mexico, the cross seems to have been in use as a religious symbol. Socrates relates (H.E. v. 17) that at the destruction of the temple of Serapis, among the hieroglyphic inscriptions, forms of crosses were found which pagans and Christians alike referred to their respective religions. Some of the heathen converts, conversant with hieroglyphic characters, interpreted the form of the cross to mean the Life to come. According to Prescott (Conquest of Mexico, iii. 338-340) the Spaniards found the cross among the objects of worship in the idol temples of Anahnac.
CAUSES OF THE MINNESOTA MASSACRE.
If great public phenomena do not come by chance, then there were causes for the Minnesota massacres, by the Sioux, in 1862-'3, quite apart from the aboriginal cruelty and ferocity of the Indian nature. We all know that the carnal Indian man is a bad enough fellow at the best, and capable of dreadful crimes and misdemeanors, if only to gratify his whim or the caprice of the moment. And when he is bent upon satiating his revenge for some real or imaginary wrong, I would back him in the horrible ingenuity of his devices for torture, in the unrelenting malice of his vengeance, against any—the most fierce and diabolical—of all the potentates in the kingdoms of eternal and immutable evil!
But the white man has always had the advantage of the red man. He was his superior in knowledge, power, and intellect; and came, for the most part, of that lordly race, the issue of whose loins already occupy all the chief countries within the zones of civilization. He knew, therefore, when he first began to deal with the Indian, what manner of man he was, what his enlightenment was, and how far it reached out into the darkness where all is night! He knew that this wild, savage, untamable redskin could not be approached, reconciled, traded with, or stolen, from, by adopting, in his case, the usages and courtesies of civil life, as we understand them, but that his own peculiar laws, customs, and manners must be studied and conformed to, if any headway were to be made in his regard and confidence.
At no time, from the beginning to the present day and hour, has any white man been so fuddled in his wits as to suppose that the Indian could either act or talk like a clergyman of any recognized Christian denomination. It was too much, therefore, to expect from him that he should exhibit any of the fine charities and warm affections which distinguish the Christian character. He was a redskin, implacable in his hate, not altogether trustworthy even in his friendships, and jealous of his reputation and the traditions of his race. Nor was he without manhood either. A brave, bloody, mocking and defiant manhood! capable of the endurances of the martyr, exhibiting sometimes the sublimest self-sacrifice and courage.
Whether out of these wild and savage materials there lay anywhere, at any time, the human or divine power to mould a civilized community, does not appear upon the record. It is certain, however, that after all the far-too-late attempts to transfigure these savages into the likeness of a down-East Yankee, or, better still, into the similitude of a Western farmer, no permanent good results are likely to ensue.
The red man and the white are separated indeed by the prodigious distances (ethnologically speaking) not only of race and language, but of noble tradition and glorious history. They could never amalgamate in blood, or in the so-called natural sympathies of man. They seem to be born enemies! as their feelings and their instincts apparently reach them when they come into contact with each other. They cannot exist side by side. A mightier than they holds the destinies of both in His hands. He has tried the redskins. He has given them a good chance upon the earth, and they have failed to do anything but kill buffalo and breed like rats—often burrowing like rats—refusing to dig and plant the teeming, beneficent earth which had been committed to their charge; and preferring, generally, the life of a vagabond loafer to that of a thrifty, careful husbandman.