ished upon them; bronze articles
are the less corroded. Gold, the purest of metals, has defied the
ravages of time, and ornaments can be reproduced in the form and
semblance they possessed when they left the hands of the maker. It is
tolerably certain that women formed a part of the early Saxon and
Danish raiders; and it is no less certain that a few women, at
various times, came over with Roman soldiers or immigrants. To the
graves of women especially we look for the recovery of numberless
articles of use and adornment. Probably, at the first, there were
also surface memorials over the graves so closely jumbled together in
the cemeteries, but the violence of man and the inroads of the
weather would combine to sweep them away at an early period.

The Baths at Bath furnish the best example of the kind in England;
London also has the remains of a Bath of Roman times in the Strand.
It is stated that the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Dover is built
on the site of a Roman bath, and that the market square there
occupies the position of the Roman Agora. Pits used for tanning or
dyeing are to be seen at Silchester, and various other industrial
occupations are indicated from what may be seen at that city, at
Wroxeter, and at various other centres.

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Before Christianity was planted in Britain, the religion of its
inhabitants was Druidism. Julius Caesar described this form of
devotion as it existed in Gaul. The history of the beginnings of
Christianity in this country is obscure. Most likely the faith was
originally proclaimed in Britain by various independent agents, in
different parts of the island. There are indistinct echoes of
apostolic origin--of contact with the East and with Spain; but
probably the new doctrine was introduced by merchants from Gaul or by
soldiers in the Roman legions who were sent into the island by
Claudius Caesar under Aulus Plautius in the year 43 A.D. In the
following pages mention will be made of the martyrdom of certain of
these early saints at St. Albans and Caerleon.

It may be said that the first Christian institution in Britain,
_i.e._, the church of the garrison towns, was Roman in its origin and
atmosphere; and that the second was founded by the followers of S.
Germanus of Vienne, in France, whose Christianity was probably
derived from Ephesus. Also that the origins of Celtic Christendom
contained distinctively Greek elements. In the Romances,[4] too,
th