have been the earliest sent out from the Sanscrit centre; but it is now asserted by Professor Schleicher and others that the Celtic tongue shows that it separated from the Sanscrit original tongue later than the others, and that it is more closely allied to the Latin than any other Aryan tongue.  This is entirely inexplicable upon any theory of an Eastern origin of the Indo-European races, but very easily understood if we recognize the Aryan and Celtic migrations as going out about the same time from the Atlantean fountain-head.

There are many points confirmatory of this belief.  In the first place, the civilization of the Irish dates back to a vast antiquity.  We have seen their annals laying claim to an immigration from the direction of Atlantis prior to the Deluge, with no record that the people of Ireland were subsequently destroyed by the Deluge.  From the Formorians, who came before the Deluge, to the Milesians, who came from Spain in the Historic Period, the island was continuously inhabited.  This demonstrates (1) that these legends did not come from Christian sources, as the Bible record was understood in the old time to imply a destruction of all who lived before the Flood except Noah and his family; (2) it confirms our view that the Deluge was a local catastrophe, and did not drown the whole human family; (3) that the coming of the Formorians having been before the Deluge, that great cataclysm was of comparatively recent date, to wit, since the settlement of Ireland; and (4) that as the Deluge was a local catastrophe, it must have occurred somewhere not far from Ireland to have come to their knowledge.  A rude people could scarcely have heard in that day of a local catastrophe occurring in the heart of Asia.

There are many evidences that the Old World recognized Ireland as possessing a very ancient civilization.  In the Sanscrit books it is referred to as Hiranya, the “Island of the Sun,” to wit, of sun-worship; in other words, as pre-eminently the centre of that religion which was shared by all the ancient races of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America.  It is believed that Ireland was the “Garden of Phoebus” of the Western mythologists.

The Greeks called Ireland the “Sacred Isle” and “Ogygia.”

“Nor can any one,” says Camden, “conceive why they should call it Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient.”  We have seen that Ogyges was connected by the Greek legends with a first deluge, and that Ogyges was “a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages.”

It appears, as another confirmation of the theory of the Atlantis origin of these colonies, that their original religion was sun-worship; this, as was the case in other countries, became subsequently overlaid with idol-worship.  In the reign of King Tighernmas the worship of idols was introduced.  The priests constituted the Order of Druids.  Naturally many analogies have been found to exist between the beliefs and customs of the Druids and the other religions which were drawn from Atlantis.  We have seen in the chapter on sun-worship how extensive this form of religion was in the Atlantean days, both in Europe and America.