still continue, even to this day, to a degree unknown in other lands. Springing, as has been said, from the same race as the monarch of all Ireland, and consequently himself eligible for the same high office, which was more frequently obtained by election or usurpation than inheritance-nephew or near cousin of the seven monarchs who successively wielded the supreme authority during his life-he was also related by ties of blood to almost all the provincial kings. Thus we see him during his whole career treated on a footing of perfect intimacy and equality by all the princes of Ireland and of Caledonia, and exercising a sort of spiritual sway equal or superior to the authority of secular sovereigns."

His attachment to poetry and literature has been already glanced at. He was, in fact, an enthusiast on the subject; he was himself a poet and writer of a high order of genius, and to an advanced period of his life remained an ardent devotee of the muse, ever powerfully moved by whatever affected the weal of the minstrel fraternity. His passion for books (all manuscript, of course, in those days, and of great rarity and value) was destined to lead him into that great offence of his life, which he was afterwards to expiate by a penance so grievous. "He went every where in search of volumes which he could borrow or copy; often experiencing refusals which he resented bitterly." In this way occurred what Montalembert calls "the decisive event which changed the destiny of Columba, and transformed him from a wandering poet and ardent bookworm, into a missionary and apostle." While visiting one of his former tutors, Finian, he found means to copy clandestinely the abbot's Psalter by shutting himself up at nights in the church where the book was deposited. "Indignant at what he considered as almost a theft, Finian claimed the copy when it was finished by Columba, on the ground that a copy made without permission ought to belong to the master of the original, seeing that the transcription is the son of the original book. Columba refused to give up his work, and the question was referred to the king in his palace of Tara." What immediately follows, I relate in the words of Count Montalembert, summarizing or citing almost literally the ancient authors already referred to:

King Diarmid, or Dermott, supreme monarch of Ireland, was, like Columba, descended from the great king Niall, but by another son than he whose great-grandson Columba was. He lived, like all the princes of his country, in a close union with the Church, which was represented in Ireland, more completely than anywhere else, by the monastic order. Exiled and persecuted in his youth, he had found refuge in an island situated in one of those lakes which interrupt the course of the Shannon, the chief river of Ireland, and had there formed a friendship with a holy monk called Kieran, a zealous comrade of Columba at the monastic school of Clonard, and since that time his generous rival in knowledge and in austerity. Upon the still solitary bank of the river the two friends had planned the foundation of a monastery, which, owing to the marshy nature of the soil, had to be built upon piles. Plant with me the first stake,' the monk said to the exiled prince, putting your hand under mine, and soon that hand shall be over all the men of Erinn;' and it happened that Diarmid was very shortly after called to the throne. He immediately used his new power to endow richly the monastery which was rendered doubly dear to him by the recollection of his exile and of his friend. This sanctuary became, under the name of Clonmacnoise, one of the greatest monasteries and most frequented schools of Ireland, and even of Western Europe.

"This king might accordingly be regarded as a competent judge in a contest at once monastic and literary; he might even have been suspected of partiality for Columba, his kinsman,—and yet he pronounced judgment against him. His judgment was given in a rustic phrase which has passed into a proverb in Ireland-To every cow her calf, and, consequently, to every book its copy. Columba protested loudly. It is an unjust sentence,' he said, 'and I will revenge myself." After this incident a young prince, son of the provincial king of Connaught, who was pursued for having committed an involuntary murder, took refuge with Columba, but was seized and put to death by the king. The irritation. of the poet-monk knew no bounds. The ecclesiastical immunity which he enjoyed in his quality of superior and founder

of several monasteries, ought to have, in his opinion, created a sort of sanctuary around his person, and this immunity had been scandalously violated by the execution of a youth whom he protected. He threatened the king with prompt vengeance. 'I will denounce,' he said, ' to my brethren and my kindred thy wicked judgment, and the violation in my person of the immunity of the Church; they will listen to my complaint, and punish thee sword in hand. Bad king, thou shall no more see my face in thy province, until God, the just judge, has subdued thy pride. As thou has humbled me to-day before thy lords and thy friends, God will humble thee on the battle-day before thine enemies.' Diarmid attempted to retain him by force in the neighborhood; but, evading the vigilance of his guards, he escaped by night from the court of Tara, and directed his steps to his native province of Tyrconnell.

"Columba arrived safely in his province, and immediately set to work to excite against king Diarmid the numerous and powerful clans of his relatives and friends, who belonged to a branch of the house of Niall, distinct from and hostile to that of the reigning monarch. His efforts were crowned with The Hy-Nialls of the north armed eagerly against the Hy-Nialls of the south, of whom Diarmid was the special chief.

success.

"Diarmid marched to meet them, and they met in battle at Cool Drewny, or Cul-Dreimhne, upon the borders of Ultonia and Connacia. He was completely beaten, and was obliged to take refuge at Tara. The victory was due, according to the annalist Tighernach, to the prayers and songs of Columba, who had fasted and prayed with all his might to obtain from Heaven the punishment of the royal insolence, and who, besides, was present at the battle, and took upon himself before all men the responsibility of the bloodshed.

"As for the manuscript which had been the object of this strange conflict of copyright elevated into a civil war, it was afterwards venerated as a kind of national, military and religious palladium. Under the name of Cathach or Fightu, the Latin Psalter transcribed by Coiumba, enshrined in a sort of portable altar, became the national relic of the O'Donnell

clan. For more than a thousand years it was carried with them to battle as a pledge of victory, on the condition of being supported on the breast of a clerk free from all mortal sin. It has escaped as by miracle from the ravages of which Ireland has been the victim, and exists still, to the great joy of all learned Irish patriots."

But soon a terrible punishment was to fall upon Columba for this dread violence. He, an anointed priest of the Most High, a minister of the Prince of Peace, had made himself the cause and the inciter of a civil war, which had bathed the land in blood-the blood of Christian men-the blood of kindred! Clearly enough, the violence of political passions, of which this war was the most lamentable fruit, had, in many other ways, attracted upon the youthful monk the severe opinions of the ecclesiastical authorities. "His excitable and vindictive character," we are told," and above all his passionate attachment to his relatives, and the violent part which he took in their domestic disputes and their continually recurring rivalries, had engaged him in other struggles, the date of which is perhaps later than that of his first departure from Ireland, but the responsibility of which is formally imputed to him by various authorities, and which also ended in bloody battles." At all events, immediately after the battle of Cool Drewney," he was accused by a synod, convoked in the centre of the royal domain at Tailte, of having occasioned the shedding of Christian blood." The synod seems to have acted with very uncanonical precipitancy; for it judged the cause without waiting for the defence-though, in sooth, the facts,

* The Annals of the Four Masters report that in a battle waged in 1497, between the O'Donnells and M'Dermotts, the sacred book fell into the hands of the latter, who, however, restored it in 1499. It was preserved for thirteen hundred years in the O'Donnell family, and at present belongs to a baronet of that name, who has permitted it to be exhibited in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, where it can be seen by all. It is composed of fifty-eight leaves of parchment, bound in silver. The learned O'Curry (p. 322) has given a fac simile of a fragment of this MS., which he does not hesitate to believe is in the handwriting of our saint, as well as that of the fine copy of the Gospels called the Book of Kells, of which he has also given a facsimile. See Reeves' note upon Adamnan, p. 250, and the pamphlet upon Marianus Scotus, p. iz."--Count Montalembert's note.

beyond the power of any defence to remove, were ample and notorious. However, the decision was announced-sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him!

"Columba was not a man to draw back before his accusers and judges. He presented himself before the synod which had struck without hearing him. He found a defender in the famous Abbot Brendan, the founder of the monastery of Birr. When Columba made his appearance, this abbot rose, went up to him, and embraced him. 'How can you give the kiss of peace to an excommunicated man?' said some of the other members of the synod. 'You would do as I have done,' he answered, and you never would have excommunicated him, had you seen what I see-a pillar of fire which goes before him, and the angels that accompany him. I dare not disdain a man predestined by God to be the guide of an entire people to eternal life.' Thanks to the intervention of Brendan, or to some other motive not mentioned, the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn, but Columba was charged to win to Christ, by his preaching, as many pagan souls as the number of Christians who had fallen in the battle of CoolDrewny."

Troubled in soul, but still struggling with a stubborn selfwill, Columba found his life miserable, unhappy, and full of unrest; yet remorse had even now "planted in his soul the germs at once of a startling conversion and of his future apostolic mission.” "Various legends reveal him to us at this crisis of his life, wandering long from solitude to solitude, and from monastery to monastery, seeking out holy monks, masters of penitence and Christian virtue, and asking them. anxiously what he should do to obtain the pardon of God for the murder of so many victims."

At length, after many wanderings in contrition and mortification, "he found the light which he sought from a holy monk, St. Molaise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture, and who had already been his confessor."

"This severe hermit confirmed the decision of the synod; but to the obligation of converting to the Christian faith an equal number of pagans as there were of Christians killed in