indebted for our gospel light and christian blessedness, are matters of which too many never concern themselves, and which are seldom, if ever, made the subjects of instruction in our schools. The history of England, as ordinarily known and read, is usually but the history of her kings, or the history of her wars. And after you have read through the most popular compendiums used, you have scarcely caught a glimpse of the great moral battle that has been going on amidst it all; the true history of the people rising up from their original superstition and barbarism into the light and polish in which you find them at its close.

It is to this, however, we would now direct attention. It would be folly in us, of course, to suppose we could give, in the pages of our little work, anything like a full and satisfactory history of the religion of the English. A deeply interesting volume of no small dimensions might be compiled, which should present a series of scenes and exploits, and bring out an army of heroes and great ones, that would far surpass in interest, as undoubtedly in importance, the ordinary histories of our kings and wars.

To this, however, we are not addressing ourselves, but shall be content if, in twelve chosen chapters from this history, we can present, as we hope to do, a tolerably fair view of the development, vicissitudes, and progress, of true religion in our country.

To many of our young readers it may seem almost incredible that Britain was once a pagan land, with its bloody sacrifices and superstitious priests. Looking out upon our happy villages; our busy towns; our crowded seaports, filled with ships from every quarter of the globe; our good government, under which we live so happily; our noble institutions for the elevation and blessing of the people; our churches and chapels, with their 30,000 ministers; our schools, with their quarter million teachers; our holy sabbaths, and our blessed christian privileges; it seems to us almost impossible that there was ever time when in this land the pagan altar stood, and the cruel rites of heathenism were performed; yet so it was. It is to the gospel, plainly and faithfully preached amongst us, we owe all our present greatness. Everywhere that gospel proves itself the truest civilizer, and it has done so here. It, and it alone, has thrown down our altars, uprooted

our groves, informed our minds, civilized our habits, and raised us amongst the nations. How this has been done is the theme of this and some following chapters.

The first authentic records of the state of Britain date back some 1,900 years, and begin with the invasion of Julius Cæsar, B.C. 55. At that time the people were in a state of barbarism, subsisting in the interior and north chiefly by hunting; along the coasts by fishing; and in the south, as Cornwall, by working their mines of tin and copper, and trading with the people of the continent of Europe.

Their religion was Druidism, even then a venerable and ancient system of worship, and apparently derived from the primitive doctrines and practices taught and followed by the first founders of the human race. Cæsar, in his account of the Druidism of the Gauls, gives the then received opinion that the system was first invented in Britain, and states that accordingly it was customary for youths intended for the priesthood to come over to this country to be more perfectly instructed in its doctrines. But we go much further back for its origin, and bring it from the Plains of Shinar, where the families of the children of Noah were dispersed, bearing with them the, as yet, unadulterated doctrines of the primitive religion of mankind. Some of those families, the great Japhetic division, moved towards Europe, gradually possessing themselves of all its countries, and finally establishing what formed the Celtic branch throughout this island. These brought with them their form of the patriarchal religion of Noah, and gave the first sentiments and rites, which ultimately came out in the superstitious forms of our ancient Druidism. In this system there was taught the existence of ONE GOD. By the Welsh he was denominated Hu; by the southern Britons, Dia, Dhia, or Dhe; and by the more northern, now the Scotch, Bi' al, or Bea' hil, "the life of everything."

Of this supreme being no images were made, but they associated his worship with the worship of the sun,-to them the most perfect emblem they possessed of his illuminating, quickening, and glorious attributes. Some have thought, and Cæsar so states, that the Druids worshipped many other deities. But this mistake appears to have arisen from the fact that they gave different designations to GoD, as they viewed him sustaining different offices, performing different operations,

and employing different agencies, and which, to a polytheist like Cæsar, appeared to involve the existence of so many separate gods.

Properly speaking, the Druids had no temples for the performance of their worship. Circles of generally very large stones, enclosing ground from twenty to as much as eighty yards in diameter, and in the centre of which stood an altar, constituted the only approach to a temple that existed amongst them. These circles generally stood near or in the centre of a grove of oaks, in which the Druids performed many of their rites, and met for meditation and worship. Many remains of these ancient circles are yet to be seen, both here and in Scotland (as Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, and at Holywood, in Dumfriesshire), but the "consecrated groves" have long since passed away.

Of the rites with which the Druids worshipped we are not well informed. The offering of sacrifices appears to have been one part of it, and the testimonies of ancient writers are many and distinct to the fact of human beings being frequently presented. These horrid sacrifices, however, appear only to have been made before dangerous wars, and under great calamities, or to remove disease from some prince or person of high rank.

Three great festivals, besides many minor ones, appear to have been observed by the Druids every year. The first was at the beginning of May, the second at Midsummer, and the third at the beginning of November. On each of these, large fires were kindled on some elevated spot, that in May being called "the fire of God," and that in November "the fire of peace." The evening before these festivals the people carefully put out all their fires in their dwellings, and re-kindled them again the next day by the fire provided by the Druids. Some remnants of these ancient customs may be found in the ceremonies carried on long after Christianity was introduced, at May-day, and especially at All Hallows Eve, which, till a very late period, was marked in some places by the extinction and rekindling of the fires in the houses of the people.

The new year, the new moon, and the sixth day of the new moon were also days of special festival and holy rite. On the feast of their new year, being our 10th of March, it is said they sought the mistletoe, a parasitical plant, growing on the

oak, and held in high veneration by them. It was gathered with great ceremony, being cut by a Druid in white robes by a golden sickle from the tree, and caught in a white mantle. Its virtues were considered very great; and Pliny, who gives an account of the ceremony, says they called it “heal-all,” believing that it cured almost every disease. Very many were the superstitious customs connected with all these feasts, and indeed with the old Druidic system: and it is only too plain that whatever may have been the original simple and true doctrines it involved, they were not long in being wrapped in various human inventions, fitted to work on the superstitious minds of the ignorant and credulous, and increase the power and interests of wicked and designing priests.

Of the orders of Druids we read of three-Druids, Bards, and Vates, or Faidhs. The Druids were the proper ministers of religion; the Bards were a sort of historians, who, by composing poems about the battles and other matters of historical interest, handed down the traditionary history of the people. The Faidhs, or Vates, were the prophets, predicting future events from certain omens, and from the study of the stars. Over all these orders an arch-Druid presided, who was believed to be endowed with peculiar authority from heaven, and was treated with great reverence. All ranks of Druids were free from the payment of taxes, exempt from services in war, and supported by the contributions of the people. Various schools, where the candidates for office were trained, were established in different parts of the country, and Anglesey and Iona, with other places, are thought to have been so dignified. Twenty years is stated as the term these students spent in becoming fully initiated in the mysteries of their orders. Many of the Druids lived together in little brotherhoods, but some appear to have acted the part of solitaries, and the "Druids' houses" still found in some parts of the Western Isles of Scotland, are thought to be the remnants of the dwellings of these hermits.

Besides their discharge of religious duties, the Druids acted as a sort of magistrates, lawgivers, and judges. They were, too, the sole educators of the people, and the men of science and learning in the land. All they taught, however, was by word of mouth. No remnant of any written document has

ever come down from their day, leading to the conclusion that they were wholly unacquainted with letters. Notwithstanding their disadvantages, they are reputed as being no mean astronomers in their time, while the remains of their circles, altars, &c., in the country, plainly show that their skill in the mechanical arts was by no means small.

Of the Bards we may observe that they were, at least many of them, genuine poets and fine performers on the ancient British harp. Many of their legendary songs were very fine. The Welsh Triads are a specimen of their moral teaching in their poems. So great was the power of their songs and music over the people, that they are said to have been able to arrest an army at the very point of battle by them, or rouse them up to terrible and bloody deeds.

Such is a brief glance at the ancient Druids of our land—in fact, the religion of our country, now barely nineteen centuries ago. We cannot close it without devoutly giving God thanks that such is not its condition now; but that, on the very spots where human sacrifices bled, and heathen altars stood, is to be seen the christian house of prayer; and that where the cries of the sad victims of a cruel superstition once were heard, the "church-going bell," the sweet song of praise, and the precious gospel mission, fall often on the ear.