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vessels and ornaments for the Jewish temple erected by Solomon, had been obtained from Britain.

It was undoubtedly through the commercial connections of the Phoenicians, that the metallic and other products of Britain were first distributed, and obtained an early notoriety among the civilized nations of the world. A regular market appears to have been found for them by these enterprising merchants, in some of the most distant parts of the earth; both Pliny and Arrian have recorded the export of British merchandize to India, where the former writer says, they were wont to be exchanged for precious stones and pearls, and it is probable, almost certain, that British commerce was at one time carried on, in part at least, through the medium of ancient Palmyra, or Tadmor of the desert, (a) as it has since been called.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

We come now to consider "the Spirit of Druidism," and here we trace an exact resemblance with all the religions of antiquity, which however were not in reality different religions, nor had they different forms; and did our limits admit, it were easy to trace up the different names by which the same religion in various countries came to be distinguished. There never was, there never could be, any religion invented by man; we speak it advisedly when we say that no man is capable of such an effort. Here we take our stand, and defy contradiction; religion must be a subject purely of revelation from God, and so in the first ages we find it spiritual, and conveyed to the mind through the medium of natural things, the sun, the moon, the stars, the air, composed of fire, light, and spirit, which are styled the host of heaven; and rocks, trees, and plants on earth, were necessarily employed as the instruments and medium by which

(a) See Morris's Indian Antiq. vol. vi. p. 249, &c. A dissertation on the commerce carried on in very remote ages by the Phoenicians, &c. with the British islands, for their ancient staple of tin, and on their extensive barter of that commodity with those of the Indian continent; the whole confirmed by extracts from the Institutes of Menu. Universal History, vol. ii. p. 272.

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alone a knowledge of spiritual things could by possibility be communicated to the understanding of men.

The first corruption that was introduced into religion was a stopping short, a not looking through the thing to that which was signified by it, and paying divine honours to springs and rivers, and trees, and rocks, and all the host of heaven, which the Apostle calls a worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. This may be called philosophical religion, against which the Apostle warns us. "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit." (a) To that succeeded the gross and carnal state, when because they did not like to retain God in their thoughts, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to work all manner of uncleanness with greediness. (b) But yet in reality they are not so many different religions, but only a corruption of the one religion, and he who carefully and impartially investigates the heathen mythology, will discover in its doctrines and its rites, a mystery and a sublimity of theological sentiment, which can only be explained by a comparison of the same truths, but unsophisticated, as they are found in the bible.

CHAPTER II.

The objects reverenced will show that the spirit of Druidism was mystical; nothing was held more sacred by the Druids than the mistletoe of the oak whenever it was found growing upon that tree, and was an occasion of great rejoicing; accounting that it was sent by God to be the curer of all ills. The Germans to this day call the mistletoe of the oak, by the old name "Guthyl," or "Gutheyl," that is good heal, and ascribe extraordinary virtues to it, (c) which was equally reverenced and formed part of the creed of the Persians, Indians, Egyptians, and Chinese. In Britain it was gathered at a time of the year answering to our 10th of March, which Maximus Tyrius tells us was their New Year's Day. Having duly prepared their feasts and sacrifices under the tree, the Druids, drest in white surplices, formed a magnificent procession, attended by multitudes of the people, and leading with them two white bulls, whose horns were tied for the first time; then one of the Priests, dressed in a white

(a) Coll. ii. 8. (b) Rom. i. 28. (c) See Universal Hist. vol. xix. p. 24. Compare Mallett's Northern Antiq. vol. ii. p. 147.

robe, ascended the tree, and with a golden pruning hook, cut off the mistletoe, which another Priest, standing on the ground, received in a white sagum or sheet, amidst the loudest huzzas of the people. The sacrifice of the victims followed, and festive rejoicings, in which prayers were mingled, that God would bless his own gift to those on whom he hd bestowed t. Is it possible for a christian to read this account without thinking of him, who was the desire of all nations, of the man whose name was the BRANCH, who indeed had no father upon earth, but came down from heaven, who was given to heal all our ills, and after being cut off by the divine council, was wrapt in fine linen? Virgil, who was a diligent student of the poetry of old religions, speaks largely in the sixth book of the Æneis of the "Golden Branch," without which, he says, no one could return from the infernal regions

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The Druids rigid and austere manner of life won for them the reverence of the people, by whom they were held in the highest veneration, nor can we wonder that their word should be highly esteemed. The different stories of their pretended miracles and charms, are too many and ridicilous to be recorded; one only we shall mention,-in Ireland, they had what was called the fatal stone, on this stone their Kings were crowned, which was fixed for this purpose in the most sacred grove, on the top of one of their high places. This fatal stone was sent from Ireland to Scotland, which, as a charm, was to confirm the Irish colony that had settled in the north of Great Britain, when it continued to be used as the "Coronation" seat of the Scottish kings for many centuries, till A. D. 1300. Edward I., King of England, having defeated the Scotch in battle, brought this stone from Scone, placing it under the English coronation chair at "Westminster Abbey," and there it is at the present day. Interested ecclesiastics have given a different version, and say

PHILOSOPHY OF THE DRUIDS.

45

it is the stone that Jacob took for his pillow at Luz, (a) and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it. The above we believe is the real history of this stone, the design of which, according to old tradition, was to ensure the crown to the ancient Scottish dynasty

"Except old saws do feign

And wizard wits be blind
The Scots in place must reign.

Where they this stone shall find." (b)

CHAPTER III.

The absence of their studying philosophy has been the cause of that unmeasured abuse which has been poured upon the Druids, and that unreasonable abhorrence and detestation in which they have been held by many of their less erudite descendents. The Druids are accused of revering the oak in particular, but they did it philosophically, as the emblem of refuge, the ancient name of which is Asel, and signifies an asylum. The Jews have a tradition amongst them, that our first parents hid themselves in the middle of an oak. (c) Be this as it may, we find the oak was sacred among all nations. In Greece we meet with the famous oracle of Jupiter, at the oaks of Dodona (d); among the Greeks and Romans we have "Sacra Jovi Quercus," the oak sacred to Jupiter, even to a proverb; and in Gaul the same. From this tree may be derived the name of the famous asylum opened by Romulus, between two groves of oaks, at Rome, (e). And Abraham, no doubt agreeably to the patriarchal religion, planted an oak in Beer-sheba, and called on the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God (f); and Abraham dwelt in the oaks of Mamre (g); and Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the oaks of Mamre. The reverence paid to trees prevails among the most barbarous nations; hence Orpheus sings

"Boughs represent our mortal state below,
Like them we perish, and like them we grow;

Fate stands not still, nor lets things keep their ground

But runs one constant circulating round."

(a) Gen. xxviii. 11. phrase on Gen. iii. 8. cap. 52.58.

(b) See Lowland's Scots.
(d) See Homer Odyss, xix.
(e) Dionys. Halicarn. lib. ii. cap. 15.

(c) Targum of Onkelos in the Chaldee paralin. 327. Ib. xix. lin. 296. Herod, lib..ii (f) Gen. xxi. 33. (g) Ib. xiii. 18.

The oak was not the only tree reverenced by the ancients, but each deity had its own particular tree:

In time of yore the deities

Chose each their tutelary trees;

The spreading oak pleased mighty Jove,

The myrtle green, the queen of love;
The laurel Phœbus, and the pine
Conif'rous Cyble was thine;
The poplar, tall and upright tree,
Was sacred Hercules to thee."

CHAPTER IV.

The Druids worshipped the air, as a part of the material creation, under the name of Aub, which was subsequently changed into Jove and Jupiter. A relique we have of the old name in Aubury or Avebury, a town in Wiltshire, in which there are some gigantic remains of an ancient Druidical temple, as well as in Averingham, in this county, though here every vestige of Druidism has been swept away, except the name. But the worship paid to the elements by the ancients was purely philosophical, as we see by Orpheus, who taught the same in verse

"Jove is the spirit of all nature's fame,

Blows in the wind, and blazes in the flame;
The deep beneath, the radiant sun above,
The moon's reflected light, are parts of Jove."

The celebrated passage of Aratus, thought to be that to which the Apostle refers, when at Athens, teaches the same atheistical and philosophical doctrine

"From Jove we spring, shall Jove be then unsung;
Jove who to sing enables every tongue!
Where'er we mortals go, where'er we move,
Our forums, cities, streets, are full of Jove:
He flows the swelling ebb, the falling tide,
With him in harbour safe the vessels ride.

We seek him, breath him, taste him every where :
And all in common his kind influence share."

That such was a part of the philosophical idolatry of the ancient Druidical and Oriental nations which descended to Pythagoras,

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