CONFERENCE II. 483 Whether they were introduced, together with these names of them, by the Romans, is liard to say. Thedruids were our an- cient priests and philosophers, and, in many things, they were judges also in civil affairs. The doctrine of transmigration of souls, was one of their tenets, and that gave thepeople courage in war, as Lucan tells us ; for the " papuli quos despicit aretos," as cited yesterday by Pithander, those northern people, are supposed to be the Britons. Their religion was much the same with that of the Gauls ; for Cesar tells us, that the doctrine of their Druids came from Britain ; and we are informed, that they tyered human sacrifices as well as others; and consulted the bowels of men upon the altar, to learn the fortune of war, and the success of their enterprises. Had you and I, Sir, been sent into the world by providence in that age, would our reason ever have worked its way through all these loads of superstition ? Would our native powers have found out the true God, and his worship, amidst these national follies and crimes, and traced out the way to his favour in a future state ? Perhaps I might have been the victim to-day upen some impious and bloody altar, and Pithander, or even Logisto, might have been the priestly Druid ripping open my breast, and searching out futurities by the beat- ing of my heart, or the colour of my liver. Or perhaps we might have been now all three worshipping the north German and Saxon idols: Thor, the god of thunder, whence our Thurs- day comes, or Tuisco, the god of war, who gave Tuesday its name, and been prostrating our bodies in the dust before their images with vain and senseless ceremony. Our great- grand- fathers had reasoning powers as well as we, and yetthey were blind idolaters : And notwithstanding all our present politeness, and pretensions to reason and refinement, we might have still, in every age, departed further from the true God, as the polite Chinese have done, and given up our souls, and our lives, and our future hopes, to as many wild and wretched varieties of whimsey and madness. Blessed be the day, when the light of the gospel broke in upon us, when the name of Christ, and hisre- ligion, was published in our island, and the way of salvation was made known to our fathers ! But let us come to the civilized countries of ancient Rome and Greece, and the lesser Asia, where learning had its seat and empire for some ages, where the reason of mankind seems to have exerted itself in its best effects, and made themost evident discoveries : And what can we suppose concerning the common inhabitants of the towns and villages in Asia, Greece, and Italy, and all their pretences to religion ? Has their reason led them in any safe road to heaven ? Can you yourself imagine them to be such as paid due honour to God, the true God, the Creator and Governor of the world, inany tolerable degree ? Can yow
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