Ossian Collection > Fingal

vi A DISSERTATION concerning the
glory of the adion to him who had given that aid.
Had Oifian brought down gods, as often as Ho-
mer hath done, to affift his heroes, this poem had
not confifted oi elogiums on his friends, but of
hymns to thefe fuperior beings. To this day, thofe
that write in the GaUic language feldom mention
religion in their profane poetry ; and when they
profefledly write of religion, they never interlard
'with their compofitions, the adions of their heroes.
This cuftom alone, even though the religion of the
Druids had not been previoufly extinguiflied, may,
in fome meafure, account for Oilian's filence con-
cerning the religion of his own times.
To fay, that a nation is void of all religion, is the
fame thing as to fay, that it does not confift of people
endued with reafon. The traditions of their fathers,
and their own obfervations on the works of nature,
together with that fuperftition which is inherent in
the human frame, have in all ages, raifed in the
minds of men fome idea of a fuperior being. — Hence
it is, that in the darkeft times, and amongft the
moft barbarous nations, the very populace them-
felves had fome faint notion, at leall: of a divinity.
It would be doing injuftice to OHian, who, upon no
occafion, fliews a narrow mind, to think that he
had not opened his conceptions to that primitive and
greateft of all truths. But let OiTian's religion be
what it will, it is certain he had no knowledge of
Chriftianity, as there Is not the leaft allufion to it,
or any of its rites, in his poems ; which abfolutely
fixes him to an sera prior to the introduction of that
religion. The perfecution begun by Dloclefian, in
the year 303, is the raoft probable time in which
the firft dawning of Chriftianity in the north of Bri-
tain can be fixed. — The humane and mild character
of Conftantlus Chlorus, who commanded then in
Britain, induced the perfecuted Chriftians to take
refuge under him. Some of them, through a zeal