THE DRUIDS.

ALTHOUGH these

poor

Britons did not wor

ship images like other heathens, they believed that there were many gods besides the true God who made heaven and earth; and their religion was very different from that which is taught us in the Bible. They had priests who were called Druids, who lived mostly in the forests, and taught the people that the Oak was a sacred tree. They worshipped the mistletoe, a plant which grows on the branches of the oak and on other trees. This mistletoe was cut off every year, with a golden knife, by the chief Druid, amid great rejoicing, and was very carefully preserved.

The priests wore white linen robes, and let their beards grow very long to distinguish

them from the rest of the people. The savages obeyed them because they knew more than anybody else, and tried to find out medicines to cure those who were ill. They used various means to make the people give them presents. On a certain day, at the beginning of winter, they obliged all persons to put out their fires, and light them again from the fire of the sacred altar, telling them, that by so doing they would have good fortune throughout the year; but if any one did not act as they wished, they would not allow him to enter their temples, and his friends were forbidden to give him any help.

Some of the things they taught the people were very bad. They made them believe that some of their gods liked to have men killed. Sometimes they were so cruel as to put a number of men into a large wicker-work cage in the shape of a man,

and then burn them all, to please, as they said, their gods.

Besides these gods the Britons worshipped the sun, the moon, fire, and the serpent.

The temples in which they prayed were open spaces surrounded by very large stones set up in a ring. Sometimes there was a flat stone laid upon two others in the middle of this space: upon this the Druids killed the men or beasts which were to be sacrificed. Near the temple there was often a little hill upon which the priest stood to preach to the people. Many of these temples are yet to be seen in various parts of the island. The best preserved is at a place called Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain.

THE ROMAN INVASION.

55 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST.

You have already been told that the merchants tried to keep it a secret that they came to Britain for tin. But in time some Greeks and Romans found it out. At last a very brave and clever general named JULIUS CESAR, who had just conquered Gaul (the part of Europe we now call France), heard that there was a large island to the north of that country. He sent some men to find out whether what he had been told was true, and what kind and what kind of a land it was. When they came back, they told him that there was really such a place; that the land was good, and that gold, silver, tin, and copper, were to be found there; they said also that the people were clever and strong, and that they would make good soldiers and