m, and under the
shadow of a grove, an arrangement which was probably designed to inspire
reverence and awe in the minds of the worshippers, or of those who
looked from afar on their rites. Like others of the Gentile nations
also, they had their 'high places,' which were large stones, or piles of
stones, on the summits of hills; these were called carns (cairns), and
were used in the worship of the deity under the symbol of the sun. In
this repudiation of images and worshipping of God in the open air they
resembled their neighbours the Germans, of whom Tacitus says that from
the greatness of the heavenly bodies, they inferred that the gods could
neither be inclosed within walls, nor assimilated to any human form; and
he adds, that 'they consecrated groves and forests, and called by the
names of the gods that mysterious object which they behold by mental
adoration alone.'

"In what manner and with what rites the Druids worshipped their deity,
there is now no means of ascertaining with minute accuracy. There is
reason to believe that they attached importance to the ceremony of going
thrice round their sacred circle, from east to west, following the
course of the sun, by which it is supposed they intended to express
their entire conformity to the will and order of the Supreme Being, and
their desire that all might go well with them according to that order.
It may be noticed, as an illustration of the tenacity of popular usages
and religious rites, how they abide with a people, generation after
generation, in spite of changes of the most important kind, nay, after
the very opinions out of which they have risen have been repudiated;
that even to the present day certain movements are considered of good
omen when they follow the course of the sun, and that in some of the
remote parts of the country the practice is still retained of seeking
good fortune by going thrice round some supposed sacred object from east
to west."

But still more remarkable than the fact which Doctor Alexander has
stated, is the vitality of the ancient Druidic chants, which still
survive on the popular tongue for nearly two thousand years after their
worship has disappeared, and after the meaning of these strange snatches
and fragments of song has been all but irretrievably lost, and almost
wholly unsuspected. Stonehenge, or the _Coir-mhor_, on Salisbury Plain,
is the grandest remaining monument of the Druids in the British Isles.
Everybody has heard o