EARLY CHRISTIAN CEMETERY. 215 ground, and its upper side is either horizontal or with a gentle slope, which, although general, may be accidental. Two rudecolumns, selected as the highest in the range, and of a tapering form, rise one at each end of the horizontal stone, and may well be described as the horns of the altar.1 2 Towards the end of the sixth century St. Augustine obtained from King Ethelbert a heathen temple in which the -king had formerly worshipped, of which the saint made a burying-place. In this we have a proof, not only of the transformation into a Christian cemetery of a heathen temple, an assurance that the temple was not a house, but an area` of determined limits. There may be found rare instances in which the stones set round a sepulchral cairn had, by the removal of the smaller stones that formed the central heap, assumed the general appearance, but without many of the characteristics, of a circular fane.3 As the Druids, the oldest priesthood in Britain in the historical period, inculcated the immortality of the soul, it is natural to presume that they would have their funeral rites performed and their ashes deposited in the places of their ministration. Then, as has happened in later times in Christian churches, the worthy or the wealthy may have shared the posthumous honour of sepulture within the circle, while 1 In Aberdeenshire there are remains of many, and even now not a few wellpreserved circles of this description— as at Sinhinny, Midmar, Crimond, Tyrebagger, Keig, Daviot, Deer, etc. 2 Brand's Popular Antiquities, by Sir Henry Ellis, vol. ii. p. 179; Strutt's Manners and Customs, English Era, vol. i. p. 69. 3 Such circles-viz. those that have once surrounded cairns-are not com'mon; for whoever removed the cairn was not likely to leave the stones of the outer circle: |