Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

hy Afiatic mijfionaries. 53^
had penetrated into the Northern. The vicinity
of the former to the Continent, and its conftant
intercourfe with the world, would have fcon made
it acquainted with the new religion. In Nero's
time there was a vafl number of Chriftians at
Rome ; and it, is well known that after the burning
of that great city, they were mod baibaroufly
perfecuted, as the perpetrators of the horrible
crime, which many laid to the Emperor's own
charge. We may take it for granted, that the:
news of that extraordinary event, and of the un-
paralleled feverities conftquent upon ir, would
take no long time in travelling to South Britain.
The Romans had colonies and fubjecls there.
Human nature will always fym.pathize with the
diftrelTed. Every good heart will feel deeply for
the innocent, when doomed, like the unhappy
vidims at Rome t, to the horrors and torments
of the mofl ignominious and painful d'.^aths. On
thefe accounts, the hiftory of the dreadful perfe-
cution whit^h Nero raifed againft the Chriftians
muft have ^ome foon into Britain, and brought
along with it fome accounts of the religion that
had afforded a pretext for committing luch barba-
rities. As that religion promifed to make its vota-
ries wifer and happier men than thofe unacquaint-
ed with it, that confideration likewife would have
foon waked the curiofity of many. Some of the
Chriftians who furvived that cruel maffacre at
f Tacit. Anr.al. lib. xiv. Ec pereuntibus addira lurlibiia, u:
feranim tcrgis coniedis laniatu canuni Intefirenr, aur crucibui
affixi, aut llamtrandi, atque ubi dsftciif-t dies, i»i ulum nodurni
lumiiiis urerentuf.
Rome