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Author : Ward Henry Dana
Title : History of the cross : he pagan origin, and idolatrous adoption and worship, of the image.
Year : 1871

Link download : Ward_Henry_Dana_-_History_of_the_cross.zip

In the Churches, especially of America, a fiood-tide of ritualism now threatens to overwhelm the gospel, such as in the fourth century deluged the primitive Churches with relies of martyrs, monkish legenda, lying wonders, pagan customs, and "the invention of the cross." The eye is taken with a curions pantomime, carried on by various actors. Any parade with bannera and sweet voices through the streets, or into the churches, is sure to attract a crowd. Excited by the mysterious movement, the rising generation are fired to see, to faU in, and to form a part of the brave show, dressed in colours, or white robes, with bannera and standard-bearers for the admiration of the beholders. The sign and image of the cross is now, as of old, in the forefront of the pagan assault upon the simplicity of the faith of God in Christ. Therefore it is timely to present to the public a history, showing the pagan origin of the image, with its entrance among Christians, and its final adoption in the Church Catholic and Universal. Not a few of my young readers have seen the accollnt of Constantine's vision of the cross, illustrated with the image, and signed, IN HOC VINCEB. Ail such will feel the indignation of the author, when, in riper years, he saw and learned that this image is a bold forgery, a pagan counterfeit of the emblem on Constantine's banner, if that may be called a counterfeit which, without the least likeness of a single feature, takes the name, and the place, and the office of another. ...