How happened it, that, of all places in the world, Ireland was that which gave the readiest countenance, and the most cheering support, to the Gospel of Christ, on its first promulgation?
This question you will consider of no trivial tendency. It is, in itself, worth a thousand other arguments. To solve it, I must premise that, besides the many ancient appellatives, already given you, for this country, there was one, which characterised it, as anticipating that event?
Crioch-na-Fuineadhach[393] was this name. Its meaning is, the asylum of the expectants: or, the retreat of those looking forward.
To what, you ask?—To the consummation, I reply, of that prophecy, which was imparted to Israel through another source, saying, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.”[394]
Numerous intimations have, from time to time, been conveyed to man as harbingers of an event which was to crown their species with universal blessings. In the Puranas, it was prophesied, that “after three thousand and one hundred years of the Caliyuga are elapsed, will appear King Saca, to remove wretchedness from the world.”[395]
I have given an abstract of the history of this remarkable personage at pp. 293 and 294, and shortly after, at p. 296, I presented you with the effigy of his crucifixion. As to the era of his appearance, as deducible from the Yugas, I shall confine myself to the opinion advanced by Mr. Davis, in the Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 243, where he states: “It may further with confidence be inferred, that Mons. Anquetil du Perron’s conclusion, with respect to the late introduction of Yugas, which are the component parts of the Calpa, into the Hindu astronomy, is unfounded; and that the invention of those periods, and the application of them to computations by the Hindus, must be referred to an antiquity which has not yet been ascertained.”
In another age was promised another Redeemer; and of him I copy what Mr. Wilford transmits, as follows, viz.:—
“A thousand years before that event, the goddess Cali had foretold him that he would reign, or rather his posterity, according to several learned commentators in the Dokhin, as mentioned by Major Mackenzie, till a divine child, born of a virgin, should put an end both to his life and kingdom, or to his dynasty, nearly in the words of Jacob, in Genesis, chap. xlix. ver. 10. The Hindu traditions concerning this wonderful child are collected in a treatise called the Vicrama Chastra; or, History of Vicrama Ditya. This I have not been able to procure, though many learned pundits have repeated to me by heart whole pages from them. Yet I was unwilling to make use of their traditions till I found them in the large extracts made by the ingenious and indefatigable Major C. Mackenzie of the Madras establishment, and by him communicated to the Asiatic Society.”
In truth, it was to the certainty of this manifestation that the first couplet of an Arabic elegy, preserved by Mons. d’Herbelot in his account of Ibnuzaidun, a celebrated Andalusian poet, refers. In Roman letters, the lines run thus—
“Jekad heïn tenagikom dharmairna
Jacdha alaïna alassa laula tassina.”