"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.

Because of their isolated position, or for some cause at present
unknown, these people do not seem to have degenerated into a nation of
sensualists. It is true they had departed a long distance from the early
conditions of mankind under which altruism and the abstract principle
of Light or Wisdom were worshipped under the form of a Virgin Mother and
her child, but they never wholly rejected the female element in their
god-idea, nor never, so far as known, attempted to degrade womanhood.
Women were numbered among their legislators, at the same time that they
officiated as educators and priestesses. In fact wherever the Druidical
order prevailed women exerted a powerful influence in all departments
of human activity. Among the German