ther Jerseyman,* boldly resolved to risk their lives on so momentous an occasion. No time was to be lost: the danger was great, and the exigence pressing. They broke down the palisade by which the magazine was encircled; forced several padlocks; and providentially found a cask full of water, near the spot, with a small earthen pitcher: this little implement, and their hats, enabled two of them to supply the other with that essential material; and, after an arduous exertion, it 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 actually 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 remembrance; and even a solemn annual commemoration would be no improper mode of expressing their sense of the divine protection.

* The names of these three courageous men, who thus devoted themselves, ought to be recorded. They were Mr. Philip Lys, officer of the signal post; Edward Touzel, a carpenter; and William Penteney, a private in the thirty-first regiment of foot.

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. The Druids had the supreme direction in every thing relating to religion; their province was also to administer 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 sub"lime and simple. It taught the existence of one Eter"nal 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

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* Cæs. de bello Gall.

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principle, which is the most effectual spur to virtue, the greatest check to vice, and happiest antidote to despair. "It further inculcated, the belief of a future state, in "which the spirits of the departed were to be clothed "with incorruptible bodies, unfading youth, and perpetu"al beauty; and invited its followers to rectitude in 66 peace, and gallantry in war, by prospects of an unceasing repetition of those pleasures (though infinitely ex"alted and refined), in the island of the West, which they had most esteemed and delighted in, during their "residence on earth."

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"Thus simple and noble was the Druidical religion 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 doc"trine in the mantle of mystery. This conduct naturally "increased their own importance and the veneration of "their followers; but, at the same time, left the latter to 'the wild wanderings of gloomy superstition; to the

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frightful consequences of associated folly, ignorance, "and vice. The effects were such as might be expect "ed; the people degenerated into the grossest polythe

"ism; immoralities of the impurest nature were univer.

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sally practised amongst them, and they hesitated not at appeasing their multifarious deities by human sacrifi"ces."*

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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 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,

* See Warner's History of the Isle of Wight.

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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 suffragans 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.†

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. This 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, re

See Note (BB).

+ 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.