nue fresh.' It was a beautiful thought, and one which
was not lost sight of in the ecclesiastical and architectural symbolism
of the middle ages. 'It is,' says FRIEDREICH (_Symbolik und Mythologie
der Natur_, Sec. 103), 'as an ever-greening plant, a type of life, of love,
and of marriage.' It is, therefore, with both truth and propriety that
the modern floral lexicons give the _vitis hedera_, or Ivy, as
expressing 'Female affection--I have found one true heart.'

As with all plants, or, indeed, with all natural objects known to the
ancients, the Ivy was the subject of a myth or religious allegory, and
in investigating this myth, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of strange
mystery. The ordinary works on mythology, indeed, inform the reader that
it was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, because, as Loudon
states, 'this wine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus,
and in no other part of India.' 'It is related,' he continues, 'that
when Alexander's army, after their conquest of Babylon, arrived at this
mountain, and found it covered with laurel and Ivy, they were so
transported with joy (especially when they recognized the latter plant,
which is a native of Thebes), that they tore up the Ivy by the roots,
and, twining it around their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus,
and prayers for their native country.'

But there is a deeper significance to the Ivy, even as there is a deeper
and more solemn mystery and might around the primeval Bacchus. To us he
is merely the wine-god, but to the ancient Initiated in the orgies and
mysteries he was--as were each of the gods in their turn--the central
divinity, the lord of light, and the giver of life. For, as it was
concisely said in the spirit of pantheistic abstraction: 'Nothing can be
imagined which is not an image of God;' so it was not possible to
conceive a divinity who was not in himself all the other divinities.
Thus we find that Bacchus was male, female, and at the same time an
absolute ONE without regard to sex; or, in other words, he was the
ancient trinity.

'Tibi enim inconsumpta juventus.
Tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto
Conspiceris coelo, tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas
Virgineum caput est.'

OVID, _Met._ l. 4.

For, as the great mystery of all religion, or of all being, is _life_,
and as life, like blood, is most aptly typified by reviving and
inspiring wine, it was not wonderful that renewed strength, gen