97 
in the beginning of Christianity, their language, arts, laws, and 
government, were lost and extinguished here in this land.’* In 
Ireland the case appears to have been otherwise. Our Draot, or 
Druids, at least in latter times, taught by writing; but in secret 
characters, and in a style of mysticism and allegory. Some frag- 
ments of their theology and ritual are still to be found in our ancient 
MSS. the originals of many of which were drawn up at different 
periods of paganism. For instance, in the Book of Lecan, now 
in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy, the Pythagorean doc- 
trine of the metempsychosis, which was the doctrine of all the Celts, 
is clearly given in an allegorical fragment. 
Doctor Parsons, urging the great antiquity of our records, ob- 
serves, that “several of them were written long before revealed 
religion was received in Europe, and others composed and handed 
down, by the fileas and bards, many centuries before the birth of 
Christ.” The Doctor, if referring to existing documents, must 
mean copies, not autographs, of the pagan records to which he al- 
' ludes. « The Druids of the continent,” he says, “ never committed 
their mysteries to writing, but taught their pupils memoritter ; 
whereas those of Ireland and Scotland wrote them, but in charac- 
ters different from the common mode of writing.’{ Indeed, there 
are many reasons for concluding, that this universal religion was 
practised on a far more liberal system in Ireland than in other 
countries. 
The Isles of Aran abound with the remains of Druidism—open 
temples, altars, stone pillars, sacred mounts of fire worship, mi- 
raculous fountains, and evident vestiges of oak groves. “ They 
P2 
® MS. in the Cotton Library, Vitel. E. v. 6. 
+ Remains of Japhet, p. 162. 4 Ibid, p. 144. 
