It sounds strange to us, who have been so long a Christian people, to speak of a pagan ancestry. We can hardly realize that the condition in which we find the Japanese, or Chinaman, or Hindu of to-day, is the condition in which our forefathers were to be found not many centuries ago. Yet all traces of their heathenish belief and practices are not yet extinct. In our language, especially in many of our names, do we preserve the relics of the heathenish life of our forefathers. It is not easy to learn of the earliest religion of Britain, as the records are still greatly beclouded. But recent investigations of the mounds and relics of old England and of the origin of English names, together with the bringing to light of some valuable old records, have helped greatly to clear up the subject. Before passing to consider more particularly the ancient religious life of Great Britain, let us fasten in our minds a few prominent facts in the early history of that land. ANCIENT BRITAIN. Let us note several prominent parts in the early history of Britain. First, the earliest inhabitants and their religion, known as Druidism. Secondly, the invasion of Britain by the Romans and the introduction of the invaders’ religion. Thirdly, the introduction of Christianity. Fourthly, the coming of the Saxons and the extinguishing of Christianity by the Saxon religion. Fifthly, the coming again and final victory of Christianity. By fixing these points in mind, we can without difficulty trace the religious history of our ancestors. In early times we find that the Greeks had intercourse with Britain. The time when this trade was carried on is fixed by different authors at periods varying from 500 B.C. to 200 B.C. Before even the first of these times, by some hundreds of years, the Phœnicians of Tyre visited Britain to purchase tin. These allusions to visits of Greeks and Phœnicians are found in ancient Welsh traditions handed down by the Druids. Indeed, some of these traditions go back to a period shortly after the dispersion of the nations, even beyond Abraham’s day. Other traditions are found which relate even to the deluge itself, as follows: “There were three awful events in the Isle of Britain. The first was the bursting of the Lake of Floods, and the rushing of an inundation over all the lands, until all persons were destroyed, except Dwyvan and Dwyvack, who escaped in an open vessel and from them the Isle of Britain was re-peopled. “The three primary and extraordinary works of the Isle of Britain: The ship of Nwydd nav Neivion, which brought in it a male and female of all living things, when the Lake of Floods burst forth; the large horned oxen of Au the Mighty, that drew the crocodile from the lake of the land, so that the lake did not burst forth any more; and the stone of Gwyddon Ganhedon, upon which all the arts and sciences of the world are engraven.”