SECTION H.

Religious state of Britain--Illustrated by
Hindooism--Totemists--Polytheists--Druids--Bards--Seers--Druidic
Deities--Mistletoe--Sacred herbs--"Ovum Anguinum"--Suppression of
Druidism--Druidism and Christianity.


H. 1.--The religious state of the country seems to have been in no
less confusion than its political condition. The surviving "Ugrian"
inhabitants appear to have sunk into mere totemists and fetish
worshippers, like the aboriginal races of India; while the Celtic
tribes were at a loose and early stage of polytheism, with a Pantheon
filled by every possible device, by the adoration of every kind of
natural phenomenon, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds
and clouds, the earth and sea, rivers, wells, sacred trees, by the
creation of tribal divinities, gods and goddesses of war, commerce,
healing, and all the congeries of mutually tolerant devotions which
we see in the Brahmanism of to-day. And, as in Brahmanism, all these
devotions were under the shadow of a sacerdotal and prophetic caste,
wielding vast influence, and teaching, esoterically at least, a far
more spiritual religion.

H. 2.--These were the Druids, whose practices and tenets fortunately
excited such attention at Rome that we know more about them by far
than we could collect concerning either Jews or Christians from
classical authors. And though most of our authorities refer to
Druidism as practised in Gaul, yet we have the authority of Caesar for
Britain being the special home and sanctuary of the faith, to which