regulations as these, the order soon lost much of their original preeminence.

A still more destructive crusade was carried on by Suetonius Paulinus, in the reign of Nero. Leading an army against Mona, the grand centre of the order, he made himself master of the island; drove away or destroyed its former possessors; cut down their sacred groves, and overturned their structures for religious worship. This was a vital stroke. The spirit of the order was broken; and their influence soon declined. They retired to certain sections of Wales and Ireland, where they retained for some centuries a feeble hold upon the native inhabitants. Little by little, like the state of society in which they lived, they faded away; until at length, in the introduction of a higher civilization, the very traces of their existence became extinct.

Some general thoughts, connected with the present investigation, will close this somewhat protracted Article. The vast extent of the influence exerted by the Druidic order, and the peculiar qualities of that influence, require us to make it a subject of special consideration. Hume affirms, that no idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendancy over mankind, as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. Ramsay declares, that no system of superstition was ever more fearful; none ever better calculated to impress ignorance with awful terror, or to extort im. plicit confidence from a deluded people. When the ministers of a prevailing religion undertake to exercise an influence in social and civil affairs, that influence is usually indirect, and easily counteracted. But when any such body of men grasp the triple sceptre of dominion, and control at the same time the intellectual, the political, and the religious interests of any peo⚫ ple, their power becomes tremendous and dreadful. Whenever such a phenomenon occurs in an enlightened state, where the evils attendant upon it will surely be seen and counteracted, the view excites at once our detestation and our fear. But we are scarcely able to realize how much more dangerous and detestible such consolidated influence becomes among an uncultured peo. ple, where there is far less power of resistance, and where the tendencies to superstition and submission are far more strong and universal.

Care should be taken, however, to view the influence of this priestly order from a proper point of observation. The Druids are not to be tried by the standard of more modern times. They

lived in a barbarous age; a period when almost every ray of that earlier revelation, that came from Eden and from Sinai, had been dissipated by the fogs of a formal Judaism; and when the clearer revelation, which came by Jesus Christ, had not yet begun to dawn. Not even the partial civilization of Egypt or Syria, of Greece or Rome, had penetrated the wilds of Northern Europe. All the light which shone on that worse than Egyptian darkness, came, unassisted, from within. It may, therefore, well befit us, on whom the true light now shineth, to be generous in our estimate, and lenient in our judgment, of this remarkable body of men. Great as were their deficiencies, and fatal as were their errors, we shall be, when we fully appreciate their circumstances, far more ready to pity than to blame.

That great and grievous evils grew out of this system, cannot be denied. All knowledge, religious as well as secular, was shut up within the sacred enclosure of the order. Their political intrigues were often productive of the most hurtful consequences. Their judicial decisions were often marked by injustice, and their penal enactments by the severest cruelty. They kept from all, except a favored few, the scanty knowledge of religious truth which they themselves possessed. They threw around religion the mystic veil of superstition; they overloaded it with senseless rites and ceremonies. They ruled alike by their despotic power the vassal and the prince; none was too low, and none too high, to be their subject. That these were great and grievous evils is manifest. And they are evils necessarily incident to such a system. They are its direct and legitimate fruits. Wherever in the progress of humanity such a body of men, possessing such powers and exalted to such a supremacy, have appeared on the stage of life, their appearance has necessarily been connected with such calamities as these.

Still, it should not be supposed or asserted, that the influence of the Druidic order was entirely and exclusively injurious. Macaulay has wisely remarked, that a society, sunk in ignorance and ruled by mere physical force, has great occasion to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendancy. The sway of intellectual and moral power, even when embodied in such men as the ancient Druids, is better than the sway of corporeal energy. It was better for the tribes of Britain, half barbarian, and fitted only to be vassals to some higher race, to be subjected to the domination of their

priesthood rather than to the tyranny of their uncultured princes. Though it be certain, that the priesthood were lordly and exacting, it must be borne in mind, that the rulers were lordly and exacting also. The Druids at least did something toward disseminating knowledge, and introducing a higher style of humanity among the people. They established a system of jurisprudence which, all full of errors though it was, was far preferable to the mandate of a sovereign, or the judgment of ungoverned passion. They cultivated, in some degree, a religious instinct, which, without any guidance, might have played itself out in still ruder and grosser forms. They added dignity to human life, and solemnity to human action, by connecting them with another and retributive state of being.

But Druidism is especially interesting, when it is contemplated in its relation to our own times; as being one of those primary forces, that have combined to form the British character. The influence of such systems lives and acts, long after the representations of them have passed off the stage; even after the systems themselves have been forgotten. Some of the elements, depos ited in it by the Druidic order, are still visible, as they have always been visible, in the character of the Welsh people. All the power of the Roman and the Saxon invasion could not drive them out. All the energies of Christianity have failed to eradi. cate them. The student of Welsh history from the fifth to the twelfth century is constantly impressed with this fact. The poetry of that era, especially that of Taliesin, Aneurin and Lly. warch Hên, abounds in allusions drawn from the Druidic system. Many of the laws of that period have clear marks of a Druidic origin. The prevalent opinions and superstitions of the nation seem to have sprung from that ancient stock. Even their views of Christianity were tinged by the Druidic element. And, if we descend to later times, we are still confronted by the same fact. The modern bards of Wales still preserve, with undiminished love, that metrical system which, though perfected at subsequent periods, had its origin in those days when Druidic science was taught in the antique triplet, entitled Englyn Milwr. Many of those quaint fancies and superstitions, extant in the mountainous districts of the principality, are fragments of Druidic lore. Nor have twenty centuries of change and revolution, even with all that Christianity has accomplished among them, been able to eradicate the affection for Druidism from the heart of the nation. VOL. XI. No. 43. 40

The contemplation of such a class of men as the order of British Druids, cannot fail to be of service to any serious mind. No one, who loves the study of humanity, in whatever form it may display itself; no one, who is interested in those great primal movements, by which human society has been brought to its present stage of progress; and, especially, no one who loves the Christian religion, and traces with delight its immeasurable superiority over every scheme of human devising, can rise from such a contemplation without being quickened and profited thereby. If the present survey of Druidism, necessarily abbreviated and condensed even to dryness, shall have in any manner contributed to such a result, the labor laid out in its preparation will be amply rewarded.

ARTICLE III.

CASTE IN THE ISLAND OF CEYLON.

By Rev. Benjamin C. Meigs, Rev. Daniel Poor, D. D., and Rev. William W. Holland, Missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M. in Ceylon.

IT is not difficult to define caste, as set forth in the Shastras of the Hindûs, or as it originally existed, and perhaps still exists, on the Continent of India. But caste, as it exists in this Prov ince, has been greatly modified by many causes, which have been long in operation. For three centuries and a half, the peo. ple have been under the dominion of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English. All these governments did much, if not to exterminate, at least greatly to modify caste. Many of the peo⚫ ple have, for a long period, been familiar with many of the truths and forms of Christianity. And, though caste still has an exist ence among us, it has been so modified, by these and other causes, that some of its original features are now scarcely visible.

In answering the question, What is Caste? (as it exists on the Continent of India), we cannot do better than to give the following extract from a document published by the Madras Missionary Conference, in 1850. It is as follows:

Caste, which is a distinction among the Hindûs, founded upon supposed birth-purity and impurity, is in its nature essentially a religious institution, and not a mere civil distinction. The Institutes of Menu and other Shastras regard the division of the people into four castes, as of Divine appointment. We find, also, that stringent laws were enacted for upholding this important part of the Hindû religion. Future rewards are decreed to those who retain it, and future punishments to those who violate it. The Hindûs of the present day believe, that the preservation or loss of caste deeply affects their future destiny. In the Madras Memorial to the Supreme Government, dated April 2, 1845, they declare that the loss of caste is connected with the vitality of the Hindû religion.

"On the scale of caste, wealth, talents, industry, and moral character, confer no elevation; and the absence of these imposes no degradation. It is ceremonial pollution alone, which destroys it. This may be conveyed to a person of high caste through the sight, the taste, or the touch of one of an inferior grade. Such an institution, therefore, can never be called a mere civil distinction; for, whatever it may have been in its origin, it is now adopted as an essential part of the Hindû religion."

This is, undoubtedly, a correct definition of caste, where it exists in its purity. But a concise history of its developments, as it has come before us in this Province, will show how greatly it has been modified by the causes above mentioned, and in how few particulars caste, as it exists here, is correctly delineated by the definition quoted above.

The strict notion of birth-purity, or impurity, in a religious sense, as defined in the above extract, is not, so far as we can ascertain, very generally believed in this Province. The Brahmins, and probably some others, believe it; and there are, probably, some indefinite notions on this point still lingering in the minds of many. But the Brahmins in this Province are comparatively few; and, as a body, they have ever stood aloof from Christian instructions, and claim a maintenance from the people on the ground of their being incarnate divinities. Their claims, however, on this ground, are admitted by the people only to a limited extent, as their whole demeanor towards them sufficiently shows. Brahmins on the Continent make light of the pretensions of Brahmins in Ceylon, because, as they affirm, their continental