era, not one has, I believe, been yet found containing a single Christian notice or emblem, or affording by itself any direct evidence of the existence of Christianity among the Roman colonists and soldiers in Britain. But there is indirect lapidary or monumental evidence of its propagation in another manner. In England, as in Germany, France, etc., there exist among the old Roman remains, altars and temples dedicated to Mithras, originally the god of the Sun among the Persians, with sculptures and inscriptions referring to Mithraic worship. They have been found in the cities along the Roman wall in Northumberland; at York, etc. Various references among the old Fathers seem to show that when a knowledge of the Christian religion began to spread to the Western Colonies of Rome, the worship of Mithras was set up in opposition to Christianity, and Christian rites were imitated by the Mithraic priests and followers. Thus, for example, the author whom I have just cited, Tertullian, tells us, in his tract _De Praescriptione Haereticorem_, chap. 40, that the worshippers of Mithras practised the remission of sins by water (as in baptism), made a sign upon their foreheads (as if simulating the sign of the cross), celebrated the offering of bread (as if in imitation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper), etc. (See his _Works_, vol. iii. p. 38, of Oehler's Leipsic edition of 1854.)] [Footnote 74: See Dr. Reeves' admirable edition of Adamnan's _Life of St. Columba_, pp. lxxiv and lxxv,--a book which is a perfect model of learned annotation and careful editing.] [Footnote 75: I think it might be well to strengthen your statement by adducing a few examples--thus, as for example, the remains of a monastery of Columba's time on an island--now drained--called Lough Columbkill, in the island of Skye--the churches and clochans, or stone-houses of the monks, on St. Kilda, and probably many similar remains on other islands of the Hebrides.--P.] [Footnote 76: Of St. MacDara of Cruach MicDara, an island off the coast of Connamara, of St. Brendan in Inis Gloria, an island off the coast of Errus, and very many more.--P.] [Footnote 77: Colgan's _Trias Thaumaturga_, p. 129.] [Footnote 78: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 195.] [Footnote 79: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 194.] [Footnote 80: And which, moreover, had often chancels attached to them.--P.] [Footnote 81: _Ibid._, pp. 365, 351.] [Footnote 82: _Ibid._, p. 351.] [Footnote 83: I should, perhaps, have written _almost_ always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me. Perhaps, indeed, there is but one exception, that most important one, on Bishop's Island, the others belonging rather to churches.--P.] [Footnote 84: _Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland_, p. 352.]