Among the nations of antiquity, it was common thus by peculiar plants to symbolize the virtues and other qualities of the mind.  In many instances the symbolism has been lost to the moderns, but in others it has been retained, and is well understood, even at the present day.  Thus the olive was adopted as the symbol of peace, because, says Lee, “its oil is very useful, in some way or other, in all arts manual which principally flourish in times of peace.” [187]

The quince among the Greeks was the symbol of love and happiness;[188] and hence, by the laws of Solon, in Athenian marriages, the bride and bridegroom were required to eat a quince together.

The palm was the symbol of victory;[189] and hence, in the catacombs of Rome, the burial-place of so many of the early Christians, the palm leaf is constantly found as an emblem of the Christian’s triumph over sin and death.

The rosemary was a symbol of remembrance, and hence was used both at marriages and at funerals, the memory of the past being equally appropriate in both rites.[190]

The parsley was consecrated to grief; and hence all the Greeks decked their tombs with it; and it was used to crown the conquerors in the Nemean games, which were of a funereal character.[191]

But it is needless to multiply instances of this symbolism.  In adopting the acacia as a symbol of innocence, Masonry has but extended the principle of an ancient and universal usage, which thus consecrated particular plants, by a mystical meaning, to the representation of particular virtues.

But lastly, the acacia is to be considered as the symbol of INITIATION.  This is by far the most interesting of its interpretations, and was, we have every reason to believe, the primary and original, the others being but incidental.  It leads us at once to the investigation of that significant fact to which I have already alluded, that in all the ancient initiations and religious mysteries there was some plant, peculiar to each, which was consecrated by its own esoteric meaning, and which occupied an important position in the celebration of the rites; so that the plant, whatever it might be, from its constant and prominent use in the ceremonies of initiation, came at length to be adopted as the symbol of that initiation.

A reference to some of these sacred plants—­for such was the character they assumed—­and an investigation of their symbolism will not, perhaps, be uninteresting or useless, in connection with the subject of the present article.

In the Mysteries of Adonis, which originated in Phoenicia, and were afterwards transferred to Greece, the death and resurrection of Adonis was represented.  A part of the legend accompanying these mysteries was, that when Adonis was slain by a wild boar, Venus laid out the body on a bed of lettuce.  In memorial of this supposed fact, on the first day of the celebration, when funeral rites were performed, lettuces were carried in the procession, newly planted in shells of earth.  Hence the lettuce became the sacred plant of the Adonia, or Adonisian Mysteries.