By the Rev. J. L. Ross. WL 
that though always deluded, yet they never recover from their pre- 
judices. The Druids, ’tis true, made some use of botany, but they 
mixed with it so many superstitious rites, that it is easy to see they 
were no great proficients in it.” Asa necessary preparation for 
gathering the plant called Selago, which is thought to have been 
_ the black Hellebore, those employed were obliged to be ‘‘clad in 
white, to be barefooted, and to offer beforehand a sacrifice of bread 
and wine.” 
After the introduction of Christianity into Britain, as is com- 
monly supposed by Lucius a British prince, a descendant of Carac- 
tacus, who had been taken with his family to Rome, the Druids 
very generally embraced the Christian faith, which many of their 
doctrines might predispose them to receive, and which, says Dr. 
Stukeley, “the Roman arms had been unable to destroy.” 
“They embraced,” says he, ‘that religion to which their own 
opinions and rites had so direct a tendency; this is the sentiment 
of Origen.! And it is sufficiently evident, if we consider, that 
the first planters of Christianity in Ireland immediately con- 
verted the whole island, without the blood of so much as one 
martyr. Nay, the Druids themselves, at that time the only 
national priests, embraced it readily, and some of them were very 
zealous preachers of it, and effectual converters of others. For 
instance, the great Columbanus himself was a Druid, the Apostle 
of Ireland and Cornwall,” &c. We need not be surprised 
at this, if we admit that these famous philosophic priests came 
hither, as a Phoenician colony, in the very earliest times, even as 
soon as T'yre was founded, during the life of the Patriarch Abra- 
ham or very soon after.” If this be admitted, they would neces- 
sarily bring with them the patriarchal’ religion, which,” says 
Stukeley, ‘‘was so extremely like Christianity, that in effect it 
differed from it only in this; they believed in a Messiah who was to 
come into the world, as we believe in him that is come. Further 
they came from that very country where Abraham lived, his sons 
‘Comm, Ezek. iv. 
