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what was it better than the darkest periods of Romish superstition and debauchery?

On the other hand, perhaps some apology for Chrysostom's deluded adherence to monachism may be found in the grossly licentious manners of his native city and its environs. Splendour of equipage was the engrossing passion, and large retinues of slaves aided the nocturnal revels. It had been a famed seat of Pagan worship, of Syrian debauchery in the guise of Grecian ceremonial. The grove of Daphne had swarmed with worshippers, the priests were guardians of pollution, and their rites the basest sensuality. Female virtue became extinct, voluptuous dissipation was the universal pursuit: the favourite lounge was the theatre, race-course, and concert, where jaded passion was stimulated with fresh excitement. Both sexes went without a blush to amusements, whose low and loathsome nature had, during the past days of Hellenic worship, been shrouded in profound secrecy. Chrysostom had been unable to check such immorality: a third of the populace remained Gentiles, and Christian morals were neglected, while Christian honour and privilege were coveted and enjoyed. The customs of the place were a continual temptation to the followers of the new religion, the scenes of Baal-peor were often renewed, the daughters of Moab were faithfully imitated by the female choirs, who made lament

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'For Tammuz yearly wounded." Chrysostom's homilies form a dark and melancholy picture of the general morals of Antioch; and the Misopogon of the Emperor Julian, though prompted by vanity and replete with vengeful satire, confirms the statement of the Christian preacher. The havoc of Christian principle which Chrysostom must have so often witnessed, the blight which he must have beheld so frequently falling on juvenile purity and domestic felicity, no doubt contributed, along with the epidemic frenzy of his age, to confirm his views of the necessity of monastic retirement, in order to preserve that life unsullied, which was so liable to be corrupted by the ordinary intercourse and common practices of society. To be touched was to be infected; to be brought within the enchanted circle was fatal to mental repose; the Circean cup was so often presented, and courtesy was obliged to taste it so frequently as soon to become enamoured of the tempting draught. It is to be lamented that the church formed so ineffectual a barrier to abounding vice. The law of Constantine which allowed or encouraged legacies to the church had enriched and enervated it. The church of Antioch was richly endowed in every species of property which could supply the means of charity or minister to scenes of luxury. A young and ardent spirit, panting for a high degree of sanctity, would find no little discouragement in ecclesiastical usages and

practice, and could expect little sympathy in the life or language of clerical incumbents, whose affluence either led to ostentatious beneficence, or tempted to suspicious indulgence. Monachism attracted the sincere aspirant as well as the licentious drone. Its numbers were augmented both by Oriental indolence and ecclesiastical defection. The fame of its enjoyments and acquisitions was infectious-miracles, such as Fleury records and believes, were daily propagated-and a young disciple like Chrysostom was easily seduced. Egypt had by this time nigh fourscore thousand monks, and more than twenty thousand nuns, whose exploits, with those of their compeers, have been famed in the poetry of Prudentius, and in the prose of Palladius and Jerome, Athanasius and Sulpicius Severus.-Dr. Eadie.

BRIEF NOTICES OF BOOKS.

The Conqueror's Palm; or, Memorials
of the late Mrs. Stockdale, wife of
the Rev. C. Stockdale, Primitive
Methodist Minister; together with
Two Sermons preached in Improve-
ment of her Death, by JOHN SIMPSON.
London: W. Lister.

THIS little volume is an interesting
memorial of a truly excellent woman,-
a woman whose intelligence, gentleness,
and piety well fitted her to adorn the

public sphere upon which she had
entered as a minister's wife. That she
should be cut down in the early morn
ing of her wedded life is another
instance of God's mysterious dealings
with men.
The Two Sermons ac-
companying the memoir are in Mr.
Simpson's happiest style, earnest, evan-
gelical, and pathetic, well fitted to touch
the heart of the reader, and to admin-
ister consolation to the bereaved.

THE

CHRISTIAN AMBASSADOR

ART. I.-DRUIDISM.

AMONG the monuments of the past with which our island

abounds, none are more interesting than those immense circles of stones, supposed to have been connected with the worship. of the ancient Britons, the most remarkable of which for architectural form is Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, but the largest is that of Abury, in Wiltshire, which extends over an area of twentyeight acres.

These stone circles are the memorials of a race of people now almost extinct, or absorbed by other races, but who inhabited this country, who hunted over its hills, who fished in its streams, and worshipped in its forest glades centuries before the Roman legions invaded Britain, or our Saxon forefathers landed on its shores.

These circles and cromlechs are more interesting still when regarded as the monuments of religion-the temples and altars where the ancient Britons assembled for worship, and to offer bloody sacrifices to their gods. The religious sentiment is the distinctive, and notwithstanding its many degraded manifestations, the noblest sentiment of man's nature. Among all the tribes of the earth, in every stage of society, and in an endless variety of forms it has been developed. Hence, the study of the religions of mankind is the study of man in the highest developments of his nature, and nothing gives us such an insight into the essential character of any people as an examination of their religious faith.

While the various religions of men exhibit, in their essential principles, points of affinity, indicating the common origin of the faiths of the world, they have also followed the law of distribution into national and tribal forms. Brahminism, Buddhism, or Magism, has its sharply defined characteristics, and is confined to a certain section of the human race. In like manner

Druidism was a definite form of traditional religion, and was peculiar to the Celtic race. It spread over Western Europe as far as that race extended, but Britain was its chosen seat, and to this VOL. III.-No. 4.-NEW SERIES.

T

country the youth of other countries designed for the priesthood were sent to be instructed in its doctrines and ceremonies.

The term Druid is supposed by some to have been derived from the Greek word for an oak, which was the sacred tree of the Druids; by others, and with more probability, from the Celtic word Druidh-a sage, or magician.

The Druids were the priests of the religion, the sole depositaries of its doctrines, and the directors of its ceremonies, combining in themselves the functions of lawgiver, scholar, and physician, and having the direction of everything among the Celtic tribes except war. The hierarchy was composed of three orders or grades, each having different functions. The lowest order was that of the bards, who handed down orally the genealogies of the clans, and sang the warlike exploits of the chiefs, and the traditions of the nation, with harp and voice inciting their warriors to deeds of courage on the battle field by reminding them of the heroic deeds of their forefathers. So skilful were they in music, and such was its influence over the people, that it is said, "they could arrest an army on the very point of engaging in battle, whilst at other times their warlike, inspiriting strains added vigour and courage to those who were in deadly conflict with the foe."

The next class, the Vates, or Eubages, attended to the ceremonials of worship. They celebrated the sacrifices and rites of divination, and interpreted for the people the doctrines of Druidism.

The Druids proper were the crowning order of the priesthood. They were the source of all power and knowledge. Admission to this order was by election, and was open to men of all ranks. The training of youthful aspirants to the office sometimes lasted twenty years. In the remote depths of gloomy forests, where the Druids lived together, and celebrated their mystic rites, they passed their long novitiate, and were initiated into the order by a severe discipline and the acquisition of priestly lore. This powerful organisation was presided over by a chief, or Arch-Druid, who was elected for life, whose power was unlimited, and in whom was invested exclusively the terrible power of excommunication.

It is extremely difficult to ascertain correctly the doctrines of the Druids, and writers about them differ very much in their representations of them. 1. The Druids had their secret doctrines, which were only divulged to the initiated, and their open doctrines, which they taught to the public. 2. They had no sacred books, like the Vedas of the Brahmins, the Koran of Mahomet, or the Zendavesta of the Parsees, from which a knowledge of their doctrines can be obtained. Nothing was committed to writing, all had to be orally communicated and taught; and, 3, Druidism, like all traditionary religions, underwent considerable changes. There is reason to believe it was much purer in its earlier days, when nearer

its patriarchal source, than at the Roman invasion, and yet it is from the writers of this latter period, together with the Celtic traditions, our knowledge of Druidism is chiefly obtained. Our account of its tenets must therefore be regarded only as an approximation to the truth.

The Druids have been represented by some classical writers as Polytheists, who worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome under different names, and who, besides their superior deities, peopled every forest, mountain, lake and river, with genii, whom they were accustomed to invoke with sacrifice and prayer. But recent researches have shown that they worshipped one supreme, spiritual being, to whom they gave different names, descriptive of the different relations he sustained, and the various agencies by which he operated. Human reason, unable of itself, and unless supernaturally assisted, to grasp in conception the idea of an Infinite Spirit, creates, or seeks in nature some visible representation of deity; hence the sun, the most glorious and beneficent object in the universe was worshipped by the Druids as the symbol of deity. How far our ancestors relapsed into an idolatrous homage of the orb of day it is difficult to say; for when men begin to worship the things of heaven and earth as divine symbols, it is an easy step to regard them as veritable gods, and while this distinction might be kept up by the philosophers and priests, there is reason to think it would be too subtle and refined for the common people to preserve.

Creation out of nothing is too sublime a conception for unaided human reason to acquire or retain. The simple but sublime saying, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," invests with peerless glory the cosmogony of Moses. The Druids, like all Pagan philosophers, taught the eternity of matter and spirit, and regarded the Deity as the quickening, formative principle in nature. They taught that this world had passed through many changes, and would pass through many more, but would never be destroyed, that though there is a perpetual change of phenomena, the substance of the universe is eternal.

That man will survive the shock of death, and live hereafter in a state of conscious being, seems to be an universal and ineradicable belief of human nature. It appears as a fundamental principle in every form of religion, and has been held alike by the savage and the sage. The untutored Indian expects when he dies to go to the beautiful hunting grounds of his people. The refined and philosophic Greeks had their Elysium-a paradise of delights, and their Tartarus-an abode of misery and woe. This doctrine occupied a prominent place in the teachings of the Druids. They taught that in the future life the soul preserved its identity, its passions, and its habits, and that it comprehended two different

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