pleased the Supreme Disposer of all events to crown their brave efforts with success. The lapse of a few minutes more would, in all probability, have rendered all their endeavours abortive; the fire had reached two of the caissons; one of them was actu ally perforated; and near it stood an open barrel of powder, to which it must inevitably have communicated.

This signal deliverance should for ever be held, by the inhabitants of St. Helier's, in grateful remem brance; and even a solemn annual commemoration would be no improper mode of expressing their sense of the divine protection.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

The earliest account of religious worshippers in Transalpine Gaul, to which Jersey, and the neighbouring islands unquestionably belonged, is that of Cæsar. He says, that, among the Celta, there were only two orders of men in any high degree of honour or esteem: these were the Druids and the nobles. Druids had the supreme direction in every thing relating to religion; their province was also to administer

The

justice. Their principal deity was Mercury.* According to others, the sun was worshipped, under different names: thus Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, is by many supposed to have been a temple dedicated to that luminary; and the annual rural pastime in Britain, on the first day of May, has probably been derived from a Celtic origin; that day being, with the Druids, a great festival in honour of the sun.

"The Druid doctrine, in its primeval state, was "sublime and simple. It taught the existence of "one Eternal, Almighty God, the Creator and Ruler "of the Universe, to whom all things were subject "and obedient. It taught also the immortality of "the soul; that great principle, which is the most "effectual spur to virtue, the greatest check to vice, "and happiest antidote to despair. It further in"culcated, the belief of a future state, in which the

spirits of the departed were to be clothed with "incorruptible bodies, unfading youth, and perpe"tual beauty; and invited its followers to rectitude "in peace, and gallantry in war, by prospects of an "unceasing repetition of those pleasures (though "infinitely exalted and refined), in the island of the "West, which they had most esteemed and de "lighted in, during their residence on earth."

* Cæs. de bello Gall.

"Thus simple and noble was the Druidical re"ligion originally; before the ignorance, the errors, "and the fears, of the multitude, had corrupted and "distorted its philosophical tenets. The policy of "its ministers, the Druids, however, involved these "truths in wilful obscurity, and in order to preserve "their empire over the public mind, they wrapped "themselves and their doctrine in the mantle of 66 mystery. This conduct naturally increased their 66 own importance and the veneration of their fol"lowers; but, at the same time, left the latter to the "wild wanderings of gloomy superstition; to the "frightful consequences of associated folly, igno66 rance, and vice. The effects were such as might "be expected; the people degenerated into the "grossest polytheism; immoralities of the impurest "nature were universally practised amongst them, " and they hesitated not at appeasing their multifą"rious deities by human sacrifices."*

As we know but little respecting the Druids before Cæsar's time, so the subsequent accounts of them are very defective. It was a law with them, never to commit their doctrines to writing; so that, being delivered orally, almost every traditional account of their tenets was by degrees effaced. To this the

* Warner's History of the Isle of Wight.

Romans also contributed, as, either from an abhorrence of the barbarous rites sometimes practised by the Druids, or from a conviction that they animated the people to resist, or, more probably, from both causes, the Romans, contrary to their usual custom, extirpated the Druidical priests, in every place where the success of their arms procured them any preponderance.

The first step towards the conversion of these islands from the idolatrous worship practised by the natives, was the consequence of a persecution in England: numbers, as well laity as clergy, sought a retreat from the Saxon invaders.

Among those fugitives, the most conspicuous, for sanctity of life and eminence of character, was St. Samson, who had become a metropolitan in Britain. The see of Dol, in Armorica,* was conferred on him, and, on his account, erected into a metropolis. The bishops of Armorica had previously been suffra

Armorica was that portion of Gaul, situated in the N. W. corner, between the Seine, the Loire, and the Atlantic. From the settlement of the refugee Britons, the province of Bretagne, or Britany, derives its name. This territory was as it were newly peopled, in the fourth century, by a colony or an army from Wa

The Armoric or Bas Breton language, is a dialect of the Welch, and sister of the Cornish language. The inhabitants of Britany, of Cornwall, of Wales, and probably of the Highlands of Scotland, formerly understood each other. See Rees's Cyclopædia.

gans of Tours; and because the see of Dol was circumscribed in extent, and therefore unequal to its new dignity, considerable accessions were made to it by the religious zeal of different princes. These islands were at that time subject to France, the sovereigns of which had recently been converted to Christianity : and Childebert, son of Clovis, presented them to St. Samson, about A. D. 550, for an augmentation to his small diocese. Alderney, being too remote from Dol, was not included in this cession.*

This

Most of the Armorican sees were filled by British prelates who had accompanied St. Samson. He left his diocese and metropolitan dignity to his nephew, St. Magloire, who was likewise a Briton. venerable ecclesiastic was the happy instrument, selected by Divine Providence, for the purpose of extending to these islands the blessings of Christianity. St. Magloire, animated with an enthusiastic desire of converting the inhabitants, resigned his bishoprick to St. Budoc, one of his disciples. Accompanied with properly qualified assistants, he then quitted the continent. He first landed in Sercq, where he built a

* Peace being now restored, there will be access to several Norman documents, especially Le livre noir de Coutances: they might throw great light on the ancient history of Jersey; and of these assistances any future writer would do well to avail himself.