Annoying conversion assignment problem

error: cannot convert 'SDL_Surface' to 'SDL_Surface*' in assignment

#include <string>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <iostream>
#include "SDL/SDL.h"

#include "game.h"
#include "images.h"

using namespace std;

//attributes of the screen
const int SCREEN_BPP = 32;
//surfaces to be used
SDL_Surface *cross = NULL;
SDL_Surface *background = NULL;
SDL_Surface *screen = NULL;

Game::Game()
{
	initiate();
	
	Image *image = new Image();
	//create background
	setBackground(*image);
}

Game::~Game(void)
{

}

bool Game::initiate()
{
	//Initialize all SDL subsystems 
	if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING) == -1) 
	{ 
		return false; 
	}
	//set up the screen
	screen = SDL_SetVideoMode(600, 400, SCREEN_BPP, SDL_SWSURFACE);
	//If there was an error in setting up the screen 
	if( screen == NULL )
	{ 
		return false; 
	}
	
	//Set the window caption 
	SDL_WM_SetCaption("Residual Hope", NULL); 
	return true;
}

int Game::setBackground(Image image)
{
    background = image.load_image("Pics/background.jpg"); <<<ERROR IS HERE
    cross = image.load_image("Pics/cross.jpg");           <<<AND HERE
    image.apply_surface(100, 100, cross, background);
    //If there was a problem in loading the image
    if(background == NULL)
    {
    	cout << "Error loading image";
        return 1;    
    }
}

#include <string.h>
#include <iostream>
#include "SDL/SDL.h"
#include "SDL/SDL_image.h"

#include "images.h"

using namespace std;

SDL_Surface *load_image(string filename)
{
	//image to be loaded
	SDL_Surface* loadedImage  = NULL;
	//optimized image
	SDL_Surface* optimizedImage = NULL;
	//load the image
	loadedImage = IMG_Load(filename.c_str());
	//if the image loaded
	if(loadedImage != NULL)
	{
		//create optimized image
		optimizedImage = SDL_DisplayFormat(loadedImage);
		//free the old image
		SDL_FreeSurface(loadedImage);
	}
	//return the optimized image
	return optimizedImage;
}

void Image::apply_surface(int x, int y, SDL_Surface* source, SDL_Surface* destination)
{
	//temp rectangle to hold the offsets
	SDL_Rect offset;
	//give offsets to the rectangle
	offset.x = x;
	offset.y = y;
	//blit the surface
	SDL_BlitSurface(source, NULL, destination, &offset);
}