"The church festivals themselves, in our Christian calendar, are but the direct transfers from the Tuath-de-danaans' ritual. Their very names in Irish are identically the same as those by which they were distinguished by that early race. If, therefore, surprise has heretofore been excited at the conformity observable between our church institutions and those of the East, let it in future subside at the explicit announcement that Christianity, with us, was the revival of a religion imported amongst us many ages before by the Tuath-de-danaans from the East, and not from any chimerical inundation of Greek missionaries--a revival upon which their hearts were lovingly riveted, and which Fiech, the Bishop of Sletty, unconsciously registers in the following couplet, viz.: "The Buddhists of Irin prophesied That new times of peace would come."(149) 149) The Round Towers of Ireland, p. 493. The conditions surrounding the ancient inhabitants of the "White Island," or Ireland, a remnant of which people may be observed in the Highlanders of Scotland, furnish an example of the fact that a much higher standard of life had been preserved among them than is known to have prevailed either among the Jews or the Greeks. The comparatively advanced stage of progress which is now known to have existed in Ireland at the beginning of the present era, which even the bigotry and falsehood of Roman priestcraft have not been able wholly to conceal, is seen to have been a somewhat corrupted remnant of a civilization which followed closely on ancient Nature worship.(150) 150) It is thought by certain writers that when the Tuath-de-danaans emigrated from Persia to the "White Island" they found it inhabited by the Fir-Bolgs, a colony of Celts. After conquering the island they engrafted upon it the religion, laws, learning and culture of the mother country. In a later age the Scythians, whose religion was similar to that of the Fir-Bolgs, united with them and succeeded in making themselves masters of the situation. Hence the intermingling of races and tongues among the ancient Irish. The Druids adopted, or appropriated, the religion and culture of the Tuath-de-danaans, who, it is claimed, were the real Hibernians. The Scythians changed the name of Irin to Scotia--the latter being retained until the 11th century. According to the annals of the ancient Irish, Scotland was formerly called Scotia Minor to distinguish it from Scotia Major, or Ireland.