CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN INDIA. 29 



•AscB then took to themselves the names of the an- 

 cient ones : and gave themselves to be the real Asir, 

 or Gods." Odin was one of them, and advancing 

 towards the north, Gylfe surrendered his kingdom 

 to him. In coHsequence of these notions of a change 

 in this sublunary world, a new system of religion in 

 Britain, was set up in opposition to the old one, ac- 

 cording to the ingenious Mr. Cleland : and this, he 

 thinks, must have happened some time B. C. but, I 

 think it happened later; for Hengist and Horsa 

 were in the tenth degree of lineal descent from this 

 new Odin; who, of course, was contemporary with 

 Trenmor, who was deified by Fin-Gal his great 

 grandson, who appointed him an Elysium, from 

 which the sons of the feeble were excluded, and 

 priestsalso, I believe. That Fingal and his followers 

 held in contempt the old religion, is obvious from the 

 ancient Galic Poems. Probably the defeat of the 

 druids in Ajiglesea, for so we may call it in spite of 

 their spells, and holy texts churned ^xom. their sacred 

 Vedas, accelerated their ruin, and that of their reli- 

 gion : this, with some obscure prophecies, foretelling 

 that a total change in civil and religious matters, 

 was going to take place, induced many clever and 

 enterprising persons to avail themselves of all these 

 circumstances; and to give out, either, that they 

 were this expected divine being, or to deify their 

 own ancestors. Fingal succeeded most completely : 

 for, till very lately, many of the Irish, among the 

 poorer class, believed, that the souls of the departed 

 went into the Elysium of Trenmor and Mac 

 CowAL, according to the industrious inquirer J. 

 Good, who lived above ^100 years ago : and, if the 

 Christian religion had not prevailed soon after, 

 Trenmor would have been considered, in time, 

 as the supreme being. In the same manner, the 



