orshipped with
no outward altar, but enshrined in the hearts of his admirers. How far
the more admirable traits of Highland character may be attributed to the
assimilating influence of the idea of Fingal we cannot decide. That our
character as a people has been largely influenced for good by the power
of his example we have no doubt. The bards, an order of the old Druidic
hierarchy, became the priests of the Fingalian hero-worship. Songs,
elegies, and poetic legends formed their service of praise. To induce
their countrymen to reverence and imitate so great and glorious a Gael
as Fingal was the object of many of their bardic homilies. Taking into
account the nature and circumstances of the ancient Caledonians, we must
conclude that from position and influence none were more suitable to
become their ethical and aesthetical advisers than these minstrel
ministers of the Fingalian hero-olatry.

Of course such a faith could not long withstand the more generous and
cosmopolitan spirit of Christianity, yet we venture to assert that it
was vastly preferable in its effects to some abortions of our common
creed. That there was a conflict between the two religions we know. As
late as the sixteenth century a Christian ecclesiastic complains that
the leaders of Gaelic thought of the period were heathen enough to
delight in "stories about the Tuath de Dhanond and about the sons of
Milesius, and about the heroes and _Fionn_ (Fingal), the son of Cumhail
with his Fingalians ... rather than to write and to compose and to
support the faithful words of God and the perfect way of truth."

Down to the present day the name of _Fionn_ is reverenced by the less
sophisticated Highlanders and Islanders. That his name will in future be
more extensively, if less intensely, respected we may confidently
predict. As men's views become more broad and just, and their feelings
become more cultivated and refined, we may hope that a superior
character such as Fingal will by-and-bye be appreciated. Even now he is
widely admired and we begin to read in the signs of the times the
fulfilment of his own words:--

When then art crumbled into dust, O! stone;
Lost in the moss of years around thee grown;
My fame, which chiefs and heroes love to praise,
Shall shine a beam of light to future days,
Because I went in steel and faced th' alarms
Of war, to help and save the weak in arms.--_Tem. B. VIII._