Ossian Collection > Romance of the Highlands

lONA : CHRISTIANITY. 23
that all that worship was not bad or degrading. Every
religion has something good in its composition. The
Druids beHeved in the immortality of the soul, and
further extended their belief to include their women
folks. This was unlike some religions of much later
dates — "Where women hath never a soul to save."
Not only did the Druids recognise that their women
had an equal status and opportunity with themselves,
but they further believed that female charms would be
increased in the blessed hereafter. One of the oldest of
bardic poems refers to an after life : —
"Hark, the whirlwind is in the woods
A low murmur in the vale
It is the mighty army of the dead
Returning from the air."
The Druids taught a very strict moral code, which
they themselves followed carefully. It is said that in
order to inure themselves to abstinence and self-denial,
they had fine banquets prepared on which they cast
their eyes, and from which they turned away without
touching.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to say how and when
the first news of Christ, crucified for sinful man, reached
these shores. Many people appear to give the credit to
St. Columba, but in this they are assuredly in error.
It was known long before his time. It is believed there
were numbers of Christians in the Roman army, and if
such had been the case, they would in all probability
have imparted their knowledge to those nations within
their sphere of influence. The wife of Aulus Plautius,
who was Prefect of Britain in a.d. 43-50, was accused at
Rome of having accepted a foreign religion. Tertullian
wrote that the people outside Roman domination in
Britain were Christians, and it is said that Cratilinth,