Druidism&The Early Church

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="040d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Children"><U><IMG SRC="0410b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Properties of Honey"><U><IMG SRC="0420b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>       <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="All Honey"><U><IMG SRC="0440b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div> <IMG SRC="122b07a0.jpg" border=0 width="176" height="122" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Under the Oak</div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>All Honey</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="All Honey"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> Druidism&The Early Church</div> <div> <IMG SRC="120397d0.gif" border=0 width="569" height="125" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Druidism is not nature worship. It is not Wiccan, nor is it Pagan.  It is not what most people have been told it is.  Yet it is an ancient religion and we owe much of our religious,spiritual and civil heritage to the Druidic way of life and learning, from our present day colleges, civil laws, to individual spiritual awakenings and strivings and to each person's sacred journey. </div> <div> We must realize that first and foremost Druids and Druidesess  were influencing much of the world before Christianity came upon the scene, not only in Great Britain and Europe  but in the ancient land we  call America today.  And when I say Christianity I mean the first disciples of Yahshuah who went to the British Isles in the first century before the Romans did.  It was before Rome ever got wind of the message of Yahshuah and when Rome was still persecuting those first Christians in their own empire.  Great Britain was not part of the Roman Empire when Christianity  made it's first quite and gentle way  there. </div> <bR> <div> <B>Celt, Druid and Culdee</B></div> <div> <B>by Isabel Hill Elder</B></div> <bR> <div> Druidism</div> <div> The popular belief that Druidism was the religion of ancient Britain and nothing more is entirely erroneous.  Druidism was, in fact, the center and source from which radiated the whole system of organized civil and ecclesiastical knowledge and practice of the country*. </div> <div> The Order constituted its church and parliment; its courts of law, its colleges of physcians and suregeons, its magistracy and clergy.  The members of the Order were its statesman, legislators, priests, physicians, lawyers, teachers and poets.  </div> <div> The truth about the Druids, to be found amongst fragments of literature and in folk-memory, is that they were men and women of culture, well educated, equitable and impartial in the administration of justice.  These ancient leaders of thought and instruction in our islands had lofty beliefs as to the character of the one God, Creator and Preserver, and of man's high origin and destiny.  To receive the Diety, abstain from evil and behave valiantly were, according to Laertius, the three grand articles enjoined by the Druids.**</div> <div> In Druidism the British nation had a high standard of religion, justice, and patriotism presented to it, and a code of moral teaching that has never ceased to influence national character.  </div> <div> It has been frequently stated that the name Druid is derived from Drus, an oak; the oak was held by the Druids to symbolize the Almighty Father, self-exitistence and eternal.  The idea arose from the apparent similarity of the two words, Drus and Druid, and was merely incidental.  A much more likely derivation is from Druthin, a servant of Truth.***</div> <div> The motto of the Druidic Order, 'The Truth Against the World', was the principle on which Druidism was based and by which it offered itself to be judged.</div> <div> 'It may be asked', says the Venerable Archdeacon Williams, 'how has it come to pass, if great events marked the epoch between the departure of the Romans and the death of Bede, that the whole history is so obscure, and that no literary documents remain of the people?  The answer is very plain.  Such documents do exist; they have been published for more than a century, but have hiterto wanted an adequate interpreter' ****</div> <div> The published compositions of the Druids and bards form but a very small portion of the extant remains of their works.  The Myvyrian MSS, alone now in the British Museum, amount to 47 volumes of poetry, containing about 4,700 pieces of poetry, in 1,600 pages, besides about 2000 epigrammatic stanzas.  Also in the same collection are 53 volumes of prose, in about 15,300 pages, containing many curious documents on various subjects, being 17th or 18th century compilations embodying, early writings.  Besides there are a vast  number of Collections of Welsh MSS. in London and in private libraries in the Principality.*****</div> <div> <B>To Be Continued  . . . .</B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>