darkness was dispelled, and the whole time appeared to be one constant day."

RAPID INCREASE OF CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND.

"The fervid eagerness and rapidity with which the new faith had been embraced, wore so much the appearance of that sort of enthusiasm which novelty very often excites, that it would have seemed but in the natural course of affairs had there succeeded a lull to all this excitement, and had such a burst of religious zeal, throughout the great mass of the people, deprived entirely as it was of the fuel which persecution always ministers, subsided speedily into that state of languor, if not of dangerous indifference, in which the uncontested triumph of human desires almost invariably ends. But in this, as in all other respects, the course of the change now worked in the minds of the people of Ireland was peculiar and unprecedented; and, striking as was their zeal and promptitude in adopting the new faith, the steady fervour with which they now devoted themselves to its doctrines and discipline was even still more remarkable. From this period, indeed, the drama of Irish history begins to assume an entirely different character. Instead of the furious strife of kings and chieftains forming as before, its main action and interest, this stormy spectacle gives way to the pure and peaceful triumphs of religion. Illustrious saints of both sexes pass in review before our eyes: the cowl and veil eclipse the glory even of the regal crown; and instead of the grand and festive halls of Tara and Emania, the lonely cell of the fasting penitent becomes the scene of fame."

her numerous tombs of kings, than of those heaps of votive pebbles left by pilgrims on her shore, marking the path that once led to the honoured shrine of her Saint.

SAINT BRIDGET.

"Taking the veil herself at a very early age, when, as we are told, she was clothed in the white gar ment, and the white veil placed upon her head, she was immediately followed, in this step, by seven or eight other young maidens, who, attaching themselves to her fortunes, formed at the first her small religious community. The pure sanctity of this virgin's life, and the supernatural gifts attributed to her, spread the fame she had acquired more widely every day, and crowds of young women and widows applied for admission into her institution. At first she contented herself with founding establishments for her followers in the respective districts of which they were natives; and in this task the bishops of the different dioceses appear to have concurred with and assisted her. But the increasing number of those who required her own immediate superintendence, rendered it necessary to form some one great establishment, over which she should herself preside; and the people of Leinster, who claimed to be peculiarly entitled to her presence, from the illustrious family to which she belonged having been natives of their province, sent a deputation to her, to entreat that she would fix among them her residence. To this request the Saint assented; and a habitation was immediately provided for herself and her sister nuns, which formed the commencement both of her great monastery and of the town or city of Kildare.

SAINT COLUMBANUS.

"The various countries and places with which the name of this great saint is connected have multiplied his lasting titles to fame. While Ireland

boasts of his birth, and of having sent forth, before the close of the sixth century, so accomplished a writer from her schools, France remembers him by her ancient abbeys of Luxuil and Fontanes; and his fame in Italy still lives, not only in the cherished relics at Bobbio, in the coffin, the chalice, the holy staff of the founder, and the strange sight of an Irish Missal in a foreign land-but in the yet fresher and more every-day remembrance bestowed upon his name by its association with the beautifully situated town of San Columbano, in the territory of Lodi.

IRISH MISSIONARIES ABROAD.

"In order to convey to the reader any adequate notion of the apostolical labours of that crowd of learned missionaries whom Ireland sent forth, in the course of this century, to all parts of Europe, it would be necessary to transport him to the scenes of their respective missions; to point out the difficulties they had to encounter, and the admirable patience and courage with which they surmounted them; to show how inestimable was the service they rendered, during that dark period, by keeping the dying embers of learning awake, and how gratefully their names are inshrined in the records of foreign lands, though but faintly, if at all remembered in their own. It was, indeed, then, as it has been ever since, the peculiar fate of Ireland, that

SPIRITUAL LINK BETWEEN IRELAND AND ROME.

"An attempt has been made, enforced by the learning of the admirable Ussher, to prove that the church founded by St. Patrick in Ireland held itself independent of Rome, and on most of the leading points of Christian doctrine, professed the opinions maintained at present by Protestants. But rarely, even in the warfare of religious controversy, has there been hazarded an assertion so little grounded upon fact. In addition to the original link formed with Rome, from her having appointed the first Irish missionaries, we find in a canon of one of the earliest synods held in Ireland a clear acknowledg ment of the supremacy of the Roman See. Nor was this recognition confined merely to words; as on the very first serious occasion of controversy which presented itself—the dispute relative to the time of celebrating Easter-it was resolved, conformably to the words of this canon, that "the question should be referred to the Head of the Cities," and a deputation being accordingly despatched to Rome for the purpose, the Roman practice, on this point, was ascertained and adopted."

DEATH OF ST. COLUMBKILL.

"Having been forewarned, it is said, in his dreams, of the time when his death was to take place, he rose, on the morning of the day before, and ascending a small eminence, lifted up his hands and solemnly blessed the monastery. Returning from thence, he sat down in a hut adjoining, and there occupied himself in copying part of the Psalter, till, having finished a page with a passage of the thirty

third Psalm, he stopped and said, "Let Baithen write the remainder." This Baithen, who was one of the twelve disciples that originally accompanied him to Hy, had been named by him as his successor. After attending the evening service in the church, the saint returned to his cell, and, reclining on his bed of stone, delivered some instructions to his favourite attendant, to be communicated to the brethren. When the bell rang for midnight prayer he hastened to the church, and was the first to enter it. Throwing himself upon his knees he began to pray, but his strength failed him; and his brethren arriving soon after, found their beloved master reclining before the altar, and on the point of death. Assembling all around him, these holy men stood silent and weeping, while the saint, opening his eyes with an expression full of cheerfulness, made a slight movement of his hand, as if to give them his parting benediction, and in that effort breathed his last, being then in the seventy-sixth year of his age. The name of this eminent man, though not so well known throughout the Latin church, as that of another Irish Saint, Columbanus, with whom he is frequently confounded, holds a distinguished place among the Roman and other martyrologies, and in the British Isles will long be remembered with traditional veneration. In Ireland, rich as have been her annals in names of saintly renown, for none has she continued to cherish so fond a reverence, through all ages, as for her great Columbkille; while that Isle of the Waves, with which his name is now inseparably connected, and which, through his ministry, became "the luminary of the -Caledonian regions," has far less reason to boast of

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