The advanced lesson book, by E.T. Stevens and C. Hole

in'-ter-dict, to forbid; a decree forbid
ding the performance of certain actions
Sa'-rum, the Roman name of Salisbury
Sil'-ches-ter, a Roman city in the West
of England, not now in existence
dis-sem'-i-na-tor, one who makes any-
thing known

con-cil'-i-a-ted, reconciled

art or science

un-scru'-pu-lous, not caring whether
one's actions are right or wrong
pro-pi'-tious, favourable

Di-od'-o-rus Sic'-u-lus, an historian of
Sicily who wrote a history of Egypt,
Persia, Syria, Media, Greece, Rome,
and Carthage, B.C. 44

Am-mi-a'-nus Mar-cel-li'-nus, a Roman
soldier and historian

THE account which Julius Cæsar gives of the Druids of Gaul, marked as it is by his usual clearness and sagacity, may be received without hesitation as a description of the Druids of Britain; for, he says, the system of Druidism is thought to have been formed in Britain, and from thence carried over into Gaul; and now those who wish to be more accurately versed in it for the most part go thither (i.e. to Britain) in order to become acquainted with it. Nothing can be more explicit than his account of the mixed office of the Druids: They are the ministers of sacred things; they have the charge of sacrifices, both public and private; they give directions for the ordinances of religious worship. A great number of young men resort to them for the purpose of instruction in their system, and they are held in the highest reverence. For it is they who determine most disputes, whether of the affairs of the state or of individuals: and if any crime has been committed, if a man has been slain, if there is a contest concerning an inheritance or the boundaries of their lands, it is the Druids who settle the matter: they fix rewards and punishments: if anyone, whether in an individual or public capacity, refuses to abide by their sentence, they forbid him to come to their sacrifices. This punishment is among them very severe; those on whom this

interdict is laid are accounted among the unholy and accursed; all fly from them, and shun their approach and their conversation, lest they should be injured by their very touch; they are placed out of the pale of the law, and excluded from all offices of honour.' After noticing that a chief Druid, whose office is for life, presides over the rest, Cæsar mentions a remarkable circumstance which at once accounts for the selection of such a spot as Sarum Plain for the erection of a great national monument, a temple, and a seat of justice :-These Druids hold a meeting at a certain time of the year in a consecrated spot in the country of the Carnutes (people in the neighbourhood of Chartres), which country is considered to be in the centre of all Gaul. Hither assemble all from every part who have a litigation, and submit themselves to their determination and sentence. At Stonehenge, then, we may place the seat of such an assize. There were roads leading direct over the plains to the great British towns of Winchester and Silchester. Across the plain, at a distance not exceeding twenty miles, was the great temple and Druidical settlement of Avebury. The town and hill-fort of Sarum was close at hand. Over the dry chalky downs, intersected by a few streams easily forded, might pilgrims resort from all the surrounding country. The seat of justice, which was also the seat of the highest religious solemnity, would necessarily be rendered as magnificent as a rude art could accomplish. Stonehenge might be of a later period than Avebury, with its mighty circles and long avenues of unhewn pillars; but it might also be of the same period, the one distinguished by its vastness, the other by its beauty of proportion. The justice executed in that judgmentseat was, according to ancient testimony, bloody and terrible. The religious rites were debased into the fearful sacrifices of a cruel idolatry. But it is impossible not to feel that at the bottom of these superstitions there was a deep reverence for what was high and spiritual: that not only were the Druids the instructors of youth, but the preservers and disseminators of science, the proclaimers of an existence beyond this finite and material world-idolaters, but nevertheless teaching something nobler than what belongs to the mere senses, in the midst of their idolatry. We give entire what Cæsar says of the religious system of this remarkable body of men :

'It is especially the object of the Druids to inculcate thisthat souls do not perish, but after death pass into other bodies; and they consider that by this belief more than anything else men may be led to cast away the fear of death, and to become courageous. They discuss, moreover, many points concerning the heavenly bodies and their motion, the extent of the universe and the world, the nature of things, the influence and ability

of the immortal gods; and they instruct the youth in these things.

'The whole nation of the Gauls is much addicted to religious observances, and, on that account, those who are attacked by any of the more serious diseases, and those who are involved in the dangers of warfare, either offer human sacrifices or make a vow that they will offer them; and they employ the Druids to officiate at these sacrifices; for they consider that the favour of the immortal gods cannot be conciliated unless the life of one man be offered up for that of another: they have also sacrifices of the same kind appointed on behalf of the state. Some have images of enormous size, the limbs of which they make of wicker-work, and fill with living men, and, setting them on fire, the men are destroyed by the flames. They consider that the torture of those who have been taken in the commission of theft or open robbery, or in any crime, is more agreeable to the immortal gods; but when there is not a sufficient number of criminals, they scruple not to inflict this torture on the innocent. "The chief deity whom they worship is Mercury; of him they have many images, and they consider him to be the inventor of all arts, their guide in all their journeys, and that he has the greatest influence in the pursuit of wealth and the affairs of commerce. Next to him they worship Apollo and Mars, and Jupiter and Minerva; and nearly resemble other nations in their views respecting these as that Apollo wards off diseases, that Minerva communicates the rudiments of manufactures and manual arts, that Jupiter is the ruler of the celestials, that Mars is the god of war. To Mars, when they have determined to engage in a pitched battle, they commonly devote whatever spoil they may take in the war. After the contest they slay all living creatures that are found among the spoil; the other things they gather into one spot. In many states, heaps raised of these things in consecrated places may be seen nor does it often happen that anyone is so unscrupulous as to conceal at home any part of the spoil, or to take it away when deposited; a very heavy punishment with torture is denounced against that crime. All the Gauls declare that they are descended from Father Dis (or Pluto), and this, they say, has been handed down by the Druids: for this reason they distinguish all spaces of time, not by the number of days, but of nights; they so regulate their birth-days, and the beginning of the months and years, that the days shall come after the nights.'

The precise description which Cæsar has thus left us of the religion of the Druids-a religion which, whatever doubts may have been thrown upon the subject, would appear to have been the prevailing religion of ancient Britain, from the material

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