By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



127 



been unacquainted with the knowledge of the true God, and the 

 more essential principles of religion : undoubtedly that knowledge 

 soon became corrupted, mixed with much that was false; overlaid, 

 and in some measure, obscured by additions and inventions, until 

 at length it became a gross superstition. Still, there was no 

 sharp line between the true and untrue religions : there was a true 

 religion, 1 when the untrue began to gather upon it, and encrust it : 

 and though the human element was gradually imported into the Di- 

 vine, yet traces of the original truths might long remain discernible 

 in the adulterated system : 2 and thus, I submit that the religion of 

 the earliest inhabitants of this island probably contained remnants 

 of the primitive religion, as known to Noah and his sons. More- 

 over, they held opinions in common with other kindred orders of 

 philosophers in various parts of the globe: thus, the Druids of 

 Britain and Gaul, the Magi of Persia, the Chaldeans of Assyria, 

 the Brahmins of India, and the priests of Egypt, are all proved to 

 have had a great similarity, 3 if not an identity in many of their 

 customs and institutions, though living under such different 

 climates, and at so great a distance from one another, without 

 intercourse or communication. And does not this show that all 



1 Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Age, vol. ii., p. 1 — 23, 31. 



2 As an example of this, I would point to the tradition of the Noachian deluge 

 preserved among the Greeks in the fable of Deucalion ; and indeed among many 

 nations. [Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. ii., p. 604.] And again 

 we see traces of the truth in the false conceptions of the Persians with regard to 

 the good God Oromasdes, and the evil God Ahriman. [See Rollin, ii., 140, 165. 

 Dean Prideaux's connection of Old and New Testaments.] Again, the fable of 

 Ganymede embodies the true account of Enoch. [See Gladstone's Homer, ii., 171.] 

 Also, the governing Triad of classical mythology, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, 

 suggests a corrupted tradition of the Trinity. [Rawlinson's Herodotus, i., 587.] 

 "While in the present day, among the Hindoos, Brahma, Yishnu and Siva, (the 

 Creator, Preserver and Regenerator,) betoken traces of original truth even 

 amongst that degraded nation. [Rawlinson, ii., 296. Dr. Karl Scherzers 

 Voyage of the Austrian Frigate Novara, vol. i., p. 435.] So again we see truth 

 embodied in the traditions of the early Chaldees, of the Creation, the Deluge, 

 the Confusion of Languages. [Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., 

 pp. 180—188.] 



3 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. i., chap. 2, vol. ii., p. ii. 

 Rolliu's Ancient History, vol. ii., p. 139. 



Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii., p. 198, 552. 



