The Youth of Columba and His Monastic Life in Ireland

The biographers of Columba. — His different names. — His royal origin.

— The supreme kings of Ireland: the O'Neills and O'Donnells; Red Hugh. — Birth of Columba; vision of his mother. — His monastic education; jealousy of his comrades; Kieran; the two Finnians; the school of Clonard. — Vision of the guardian angel and the three brides. — The assassin of a virgin struck by death at the prayer of Columba. — His youthful influence in Ireland; his monastic foundations, especially at Durrow and at Derry; his song in honor of Derry. — His love for poetry; his connection with the travelling bards. — He was himself a poet, a great traveller, and of a quarrelsome disposition. — His passion for manuscripts. — Longarad of the hairy legs and his bag of books. — Dispute about the Psalter of Finnian; judgment of King Diarmid, founder of Clonmacnoise. — Protest of Columba; he takes to flight, chanting the Ilymn of Coi^fitZence, and raises a civil war. — Battle of Cul-Dreimhne; the Cathac or Psalter of battle. — Synod of Tcltown; Columba is excommunicated. —St. Brendan takes part with Columba, who consults several hermits, and among others Abban, in the Cell of Tears. — The last of his advisers, Molaise, condemns him to exile. — Twelve of his disciples follow him; devotion of the young Mochonna. — Contradictory reports concerning the first forty years of his life.

The biog- St. Columba, the apostle and monastic hero of Caledonia, has had the good fortune to have his his- riiphers'of tory written by another monk, almost a contempo- ^°^"™ "' rary of his own, whose biography of him is as deh'ghtful as it is edifying. This biographer', Adamnan, was the ninth successor of Columba as abbot of his principal establishment at lona, and in addition was related to him. Born only a quarter of a century later, he had seen in his childhood the actual companions of Columba and those who had received his last breath.i He wrote at the very fountain-head, on the spot where his glorious predecessor had dictated his last words, surrounded by scenes and recollections which still bore the trace of his presence, or Avere connected with the incidents

of his life. A still earlier narrative, written by another ab-

bot of lona,^ and reproduced almost word for word by Adamnan, forms the basis of his work, which he has completed by a multitude of anecdotes and testimonies collected with scrupulous care, and which altogether, though unfortunately without chronological order, forms one of the most living, attractive, and authentic relics of Christian history.-^ His differ- Like twenty other saints of the Irish calendar, ent names. Columba bore a symbolical name borrowed from the Latin, a name which signified the dove of the Holy Ghost, and which was soon to be rendered illustrious by his countryman Columbanus, the celebrated founder of Luxeuil, with whom many modern historians have confounded him.'* To distinguish the one from the other, and to indicate specially the greatest Celtic missionary of the British Isles, we shall adopt, from the different versions of his name, that of Co- ^* " Ut ab aliquibus, qui praesentes inerant, didicimus." Adamnan, lib. iii. c. 23.

^* By Comyn the Fair (Cummeneus Alhus), the seventh bishop of lona, 657 to 669. This narrative was first published by Colgan in the Trias Thaumaturga, afterwards in the first volume of the Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, and finally by the Bollandists, vol. ii. June.

"* Adamnan, who was born in 624, must have written the biography of St. Columba between 690 and 703, a period at which he gave up the liturgical traditions of the Scots and the direction of the Monastery of lona to settle near the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria, Aldfrid (Varin, Premier Memoire, p. 172). Adanman's work was first published by Canisius in his Thesaurus Antiquitatum in 1604; afterwards with four other biographies of the same saint by the Franciscan Colgan, in his Trias Thaumaturga (Louvain, 1647); by the Bollandists in 1698; and finally by Pinkerton, a Scotch antiquary of the last century. It has just been reprinted, after a MS. of the eighth century, by the Rev. Dr. W. Reeves, for the Celtic Archaeological Society of Dublin, with maps, glossary, and appendix; Dublin, 1857. This excellent publication, which is distinguished by an impartiality too rare among learned English authors, has rendered a considerable service both to the hagiography and to the national history of Ireland and Scotland.

^* Among others, Camden, in the sixteenth century; Fleury at certain points (book xxxix. c. 36); and Augustin Thierry, in the first editions of his Histoire de la Conquete d'Angleterre. lumba. His countrymen have almost always named him Columb-Kill or Cille, that is to say, the dove of the cell, thus adding to his primitive name a special designation, intended to recall either the essentially monastic character of the saint, or the great number of communities founded and governed by him.5 He was a scion of one of those great His royal Irish races, of whom it is literally true to say that they lose themselves in the night of ages, but which have retained to our own day, thanks to the tenacious attachment of the Irish people to their national recollections, through all the vicissitudes of conquest, persecution, and exile, a rank more patriotic and popular than that of mere nobility or aristocratic lineage. This was the great race of the Nialls or O'Donnells*^ {clan Domhnaill), which, native to and master of all the north-western part of the island (the modern counties of Tyrconnell, Tyrone, and Donegal), held sovereign sway in Hibernia and Caledonia, over the two shores of the Scottish sea, during the sixth century. Almost xhemon- without interruption, up to 1168, kings, springing arehsorsufrora its different branches, exercised in Ireland the supreme monarchy-^ that is to say, a sort of primacy over the provincial kings, which has been compared to that of metropolitan over bishops, but which rather recalls the feudal sovereignty of the Salic emperors, or of the kings of the family of Capet over the great vassals of Germany and France, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Nothing could be more unsettled or stormy than the exercise of this sovereignty. It was incessantly disputed by some vassal king, who generally succeeded by force of arms in robbing the supreme monarch of his crown and his life, and replacing

^* "Qui videlicet Columba nunc a nonnuUis, composito a cclla ct coluniba nomine, Columcelli vocatur." — Bede, Jlist. Eccles., v. 9. " Eo quod niultarum cellarum, id est, monasteriorum vel ecclesiarum institutor, fundator et rector fuit." — Notkeu Balbulus, Martyrol., 9 Jun.

^* There is a history of the saint in Irish by Magnus O'Donnell, who describes himself as prince of Tyrconnell. It was put together in 1532, and the original MS. is to be found in the Bodleian. It is a legendary compilation, founded upon the narrative of Adamnan, but augmented by a crowd of fabulous legends, though at the same time by important Irish traditions and historical details in honor of the race of O'Donnell, which was that of the saint and of the historian. It has been abridged, translated into Latin, and published by Colgan in the Triades Thaumaturga. This volume is the second of the author's collected works, entitled Ada Sanctorum Hibernicc, seu sacrcE ejusdcm insula; antiquitates, which he was not able to finish, and which unfortunately includes only the saints of the first three months of the year. I have found a copy of this very rare collection in only one of all the Paris libraries, that of St. Genevieve. him upon the throne of Tara, with a tolerable certainty of being himself similarly treated by the son of the dethroned Besides, the right of succession in Ireland was not regulated by the law of primogeniture. According to the custom known under the name of Tanistry, the eldest bloodrelation succeeded every deceased prince or chief, and the brother in consequence preceded the son in the order of succession.

After the English conquest, the warlike and powerful race of Nialls was able to maintain, by o'Donneiis. ^hiit of dauntless perseverance, a sort of independent sovereignty in the north-west of Ireland. The names of the O'Neills and O'Donneiis, chiefs of its two principal branches, and too often at war with each other, are to be found on every page of the annals of unhappy Ireland. After the Reformation, when religious persecution had come in to aggravate all the evils of the conquest, these two houses supplied their indignant and unsubdued country with a succession of heroic soldiers who struggled to the death against the perfidious and sanguinary despotism of the Tudors and Stuarts. Ten centuries passed in such desperate struggles have not weakened the traditions which link the saint whose history we are about to tell to those champions of an ancient faith and an outraged country. Even under the reign of Elizabeth, the vassals of young Hugh O'Donnell, called Red Hugh,^ so renowned in poetical records and popular traditions of Erin, and the most dangerous antagonist of English tyranny, recognized in him the hero indicated in the prophetic songs of Columb-kill, and thus placed his glory and that of his ancestors under the wing of the dove of the cells, as under a patronage at once domestic and celestial.^

'' Let us recall in this connection the very ancient division of Ireland into four provinces or kingdoms: — to the north, Ulster, or Ultonia; to the south, Munster or Mommonia; to the east, Leinster or Lagenia; to the west, Connaught or Cannocia. A distinct district, the antique Sacred Middle of Ireland, represented by the counties of Meath and Westmeath, surrounded the royal residence of Tara, celebrated in Moore's melodies, and some ruins of which still remain. This district was exclusively dependent on the supreme monarch. See the map annexed to this volume.

^ Taken prisoner by the English in his cradle, ho died at the age of twentynine, in 1G02, at Simancas, where he had gone to seek aid from Spain. His brother, the heir of his power in Ireland, also died in exile in Rome, where his tomb may still be seen in San Pietro in Montorio.

® Reeves, Adamnan, p. 34. O'Cukry, Lectures on the ilanuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History, 1861, p. 328. The eight great races of Ireland, sung by the bards and celebrated in the national history, are these:

The father of Columba was descended from one of the eight sons of the great king Niall of the -»T- TT. 1A 1 1 f 11 Columba. Nine Hostages/*^ who was supreme monarch oi all Ireland from 379 to 405, at the period when Patrick was brought to the island as a slave. Consequently he sprang from a race which had reigned in Ireland for six centuries and in virtue of the ordinary law of succession, might himself have been called to the throne." His mother belonged to a reigning family in Leinster, one of the four subordinate kingdoms of the island. He was born at Gartan, in one of the wildest districts of the present county 7th Decernof Donegal — where the slab of stone upon which his mother lay at the moment of his birth is still shown. He who passes a night upon that stone is cured forever from the pangs of nostalgia, and will never be consumed, while absent or in exile, by a too passionate love for his country. Such at least is the belief of the poor Irish emigrants, who flock thither at the moment when they are about to alDandon the confiscated and ravaged soil of their country to seek their living in America, moved by a touching recollection of the great missionary who gave up his native land for the love of God and human souls.

Before his birth, his mother had a dream, which posterity has accepted as a graceful and poetical symbol of her son's career. An angel appeared to her, bringing her a veil covered with flowers of wonderful beauty, and the sweetest variety of colors; immediately after she saw the veil carried away by the wind, and rolling out as it fled over plains,

O'Moore ^ in the north. and > in the east.

O'Byrne, )

O'Connor i in the south. and > in the west.

O'Rourke, ) '

The principality of Tyrconnell, confi.scated by James I., contained 1,165,000 acres. " I would rather," said the most illustrious of the O'Neills in 1597, " be O'Neill of Ulster than king of Spain." Nevertheless the chiefs of these two great races are generally described by the annalists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as earls of Tyrconnell, a title which had been conferred upon them by the English crown in the hope of gaining them over. The articles upon the O'Neills and O'Donnells in Sir Bernard Burke's interesting work, Vicissitudes of Families, should be read on this subject. The posterity of the O'Donnells still flourishes in an elevated position in Austria.

"* Because he had received nine hostages from a king whom he had conquered.

" An ancient life of the saint, in Irish, quoted by Dr. Reeves, p. 2G9, expressly states this fact, and adds that he gave up his right to the throne only for the love of God. woods, and mountains: then the angel said to her, " Thou art about to become the mother of a son, who shall blossom for heaven, who shall be reckoned among the prophets of God, and who shall lead numberless souls to the heavenly country."^2 This spiritual power, this privilege of leading souls to heaven, was recognized by the Irish people, converted by St. Patrick, as the greatest glory which its princes and great men could gain.

-,, ^. The Irish legends, which are always distin- Educatioa •, i • i i. 7t m i a • r r of coium- guished, even amidst the wildest vagaries of fancy, * by a high and pure morality, linger lovingly upon the childhood and youth of the predestined saint. They tell us how, conGded in the first place to the care of the priest who had baptized him, and who gave him the first rudiments of literary education, he was accustomed from his earliest years to the heavenly visions which were to occupy so large a place in his life. His guardian angel often appeared to him; and the child asked if all the angels in heaven was as young and shining as he. A little later Columba was invited by the same angel to choose among all the virtues those which he would like best to possess. " I choose," said the. youth, " chastity and wisdom; " and immediately the three three young girls of wonderful beauty, but foreign sisters. ^j^^ appeared to him, and threw themselves on his neck to embrace him. The pious youth frowned, and repulsed them with indignation. '-' What! " they said; " then thou dost not know us?" "No, not the least in the world." " We are three sisters whom our father gives to thee to be thy brides." "Who, then, is your father?" "Our father is God, he is Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour of the world." " Ah, you have indeed an illustrious father. But what are your names? " " Our names are Virginity, Wisdom, and Prophecy; and we come to leave thee no more, to love thee with an incorruptible love."^^

'^ " Quoddam mirae pulchritudinis peplum detulit, in quo veluti universoruni decorosi colores florum depicti videbantur.... Peplum a se elongari volando videbat, camporumque latitudinem in majus crescendo excedere, niontesque et saltus niajore sui mensura superare.... Talem filiura editura es floridum, qui quasi unus prophetarum Dei inter ipsos connuraerabitur, innunierabiliumque animarum dux ad coelestem a Deo patriam est praedestinatus." — Adamn., iii. 1.

¹³ u Ergo ne angeli omnes ita juvenili ffitate floretis, ita splendide vestiti ornatiquc inceditis?... Age ergo, quid eligis ediscere.... Tres adsittere virgines admirandi decoris et peregrini vultus, quas statim in ejus amplexus et oscula improviso ruentes, pudicitiaa cultor contracta fronte... abigebat. Ergo ne nos non agnoscis quarum basia et amores viliter aspernas?...

From the house of the priest, Columba passed into the great monastic schools, which were not only a nursery for the clergy of the Irish Church, but where also young laymen of all conditions were educated. Columba, like many others, there learned to make his first steps in that monastic life to which he had been drawn by the call of God. He devoted himself not only to study and prayer, but also to the manual toil then inseparable, in Ireland and everywhere else, from a religious profession. Like all his young companions, he had to grind over night the corn for the next day's food: but when his turn came, it was so well and quickly done that his companions suspected him of having been assisted by an angel.^^ The royal birth of Columba procured him several distinctions in the schools which were not always to the satisfaction of his comrades. One of the latter, named Kieran, who was also destined to fill a great place in Scotic legend, became indignant at the ascendency of Columba: but while the two students disputed, a celestial messenger came to Kieran and placed before him an auger, a plane, and an axe, saying, " Look at these tools, and recollect that these are all thou hast sacrificed for God, since thy father was only a carpenter; but Columba has sacrificed the sceptre of Ireland, which might have come to him by right of his birth and the grandeur of his race."^-^

We learn from authentic documents that Columba completed his monastic life under the direction of two holy abbots, both bearing the name of Finnian. The first, who was also a bishop, ordained him deacon, but seems to have had him for a shorter time under his authority than the second Finnian, who, himself trained by a disciple of St. Patrick, had long lived in Cambria, near St. David. Columba's first steps in life are thus con-

Prorsus quae sitis ignoro.... Tres sumus sorores et sponsae tibi nuper a patre nostro desponsatEe.... Eequis vero est vester pater?... Magni estis profecto parentis filiae; pergite, quaeso, etiaiu nomina vestra recludere." —O'DoNNELL, Vita quinta S. Columhce, i. 36, 37, 38, ap. Colgan, Trias Thaumaturga, p. 394.

'* " Ordinariaj illis epulaj cibarius panis; labor vero in singulos per vices distributus, nocturna lucubratione grana cmolcre, ex quibns hujusmodi panis pro communi omnium victu conficeretur. Id labori cum Culumbae, quia contubernalis esset, saspius obtigisset, prompte et humillime acceptavit." —O'DONNELL, i. 42.

'" " Delapsus e coelo bonus genius... terebram, asciam et securim Kierano praesentans. Haecce, inquit, aliaque bujusmodi, quibus tuus pater carpentariara exercebat, pro Dei amore reliquisti. Columba vero Hiberniae sceptrum avito suo et generis potentia sperandum antequam offerretur abrenuntiavit." — O'Donnell, i. 44. nected with the two great monastic apostles of Ireland and Cambria, the patriarchs of the two Celtic races which up to this time had shown the most entire fidelity to the Christian faith, and the greatest predilection for monastic life. The abbot Finnian who ordained Columba priest, ruled at Clonard the monastery which he had founded, and of which we have already spoken— one of those immense conventual establishments which were to be found nowhere but among the Celts, and which recalled to recollection the monastic towns of the Theba'id. He had made of his monastery one great school, which was filled with the Irish youth, then, as always, consumed by a thirst for religious instruction; and we again find here the favorite number, so often repeated by Celtic tradition, of three thousand pupils, all eager to receive the instructions of him who was called the Master of Saints.^^

While Columba studied at Clonard, being still only The^^s^sas- ^ dcacou, an incident took place which has been provod by authentic testimony, and which fixed the general attention upon him by giving a first evidence of his supernatural and prophetic intuition. An old Christian bard (the bards were not all Christians), named Gemmain, had come to live near the Abbot Finnian, asking from him, in exchange for his poetry, the secret of fertilizing the soil. Columba, who continued all his life a passionate admirer of the traditionary poetry of his nation, determined to join the school of the bard, and to share his labors and studies. The two were reading together out of doors, at a little distance from each other, when a young girl appeared in the distance pursued by a robber. At the sight of the old man the young fugitive made for him with all her remaining strength, hoping, no doubt, to find safety in the authority exercised throughout Ireland by the national poets. Gemmain, in great trouble, called his pupil to his aid to defend the unfortunate child, who was trying to hide herself under their long robes, when her pursuer reached the spot. Without taking any notice of her defenders, he struck

^^ Vaein, Dciixicme Memoire, p. 47. "Magister sanctorum Hiberniae, habuit in sua scbola de Cluain-Evaird tria millia sanctorum." — Martyrol. Diingcd, ap. Moore, History of Ireland, vol. i. cb. 13. Tbe boly abbot Finnian died in 549. The other Finnian, the first master of Columb-Kill, is also known under the name of Finnbar, and was abbot at Maghbile (Down), and died in 579. It is believed that he was St. Fredianus (Frediano), bishop and patron of Lucca, where there is a fine and curious church under his invocation. Colgan has published the lives of both, 28th February and 18th March, Acta Sanctorum HibcrnicB. The two saints are frequently confounded. — Compare Adamnan, i. 1; ii. 1; iii. 4. her in the neck with his lance, and was making off, leaving her dead at their feet. The horrified old man turned to Columba. " How long/' he said, " will God leave unpunished this crime which dishonors us?*' "For this moment only," said Columba, " not longer; at this very hour, when the soul of this innocent creature ascends to heaven, the soul of the murderer shall go down to hell." At the instant, like Ananias at the words of Peter, the assassin fell dead. The news of this sudden punishment, the story goes, went over all Ireland, and spread the fame of the young Columba far and wide.i'

It is easy to perceive, by the importance of the j^j^ fgu^damonastic establishments which he had brought into tions in being even before he had attained the age of manhood, that his influence must have been as precocious as it was considerable. Apart from the virtues of which his after life afforded so many examples, it may be supposed that his royal birth gave him an irresistible ascendency in a country where, since the introduction of Christianity, all the early saints, like the principal abbots, belonged to reigning families, and where the influence of blood and the worship of genealogy 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 ofSce, 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.

Before he had reached the age of twenty-five he had presided over the creation of a crowd of monasteries. As many " " Carminator... habens secum carmen niagnificum." — Vita S. Finniani, ap. Colgan, Acta SS., p. 395. " Senex perturbatus tali subitatione Columbam eniinus legentem advocavit, ut ambo in quantum valuissent filiam a perscqucnte defenderent.... Filiam sub vcstimentis eorum jugulavit, et, relinquens jacentL'm mortuani super pedes eorum, abire coepit.... Quanto, sancte puer Columba, hoc scclus temporis spatio inultum fieri judex Justus patietur.... Eadem hora qua interfectaj ab eo filiae anima ascendet ad coelos, anima ipsius interfectoris descendet ad inferos." — Ada3inan, ii. 25.

"* Sec the genealogical tables, Dr. Reeve's Appendix. as thirty-SGven in Ireland alone recognized him as their founder. The most ancient and important of those foundations were situated, as was formerly that of St. Bridget at Kildare,^^ in vast oak-forests, from which they took their name. The first, Durrow (Dair-mach, Boboreii campus)^ where a cross and well bearing the name of Columba are still to be seen, was erected in the central region called the umbilical, or sacred middle of Ireland. The other, Derry {Doire-chalgaicli, Bohoretum Calgachi), is situated in the northern part of the island, in Columba's native province, in the hollow of a bay of that sea which separates Ireland from Scotland. After having long been the seat of a great and rich Catholic bishopric, it became, under its modern name of Londonderry, one of the principal centres of English colonization, and was, in IGOO, the bulwark of the Protestant conquest against the powerless efforts of the last of the Stuart kings.^'' But nothing then indicated the possibility of those lamentable changes, nor of the miserable triumphs of inhuman force and wicked persecution.

The young Columba was specially attached to Derry, where he habitually lived. He superintended with care not only the discipline and studies of his community, but external matters, even so far as to watch over the preservation of '3 See ante, p. 546.

^^ Dr. Reeves gives in his appendix G a detailed enumeration of the tliirtj'- seven foundations of Columb-Kill in Ireland. In the north of the island, and in his native province, we remark the name of Raphoe, until lately the seat of a diocese, and Tory, in an isle of the coast of Donegal; in the central district Sord, now Swords, seven miles from Dublin, which has retained, like Tory, its round tower; and Kells, which gained celebrity only in 807 as the refuge of the monks driven from lona by the threats of the Norsemen. This monastery was completed in 814, and from that day became the headquarters of the Columbian monks. Here is still to be seen one of the finest round towers of Ireland (seventy feet high); an oratory called ^S"^. Columb- KilVs house; a cemetery-cross with this inscription on the plinth — Crux Patricii et Columhe. Two celebrated Gospels of the Trinity College Bible at Dublin are called the Book of Kells and the Booh of Durrow. In the important work of Dr. Fetrie, called Inquiry into the Origin and Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, 184.5, 2d ed., p. 430, will be found an engraving of a building near the cemetery of Kells, called St. Columba's house. It is a square building, 23 feet long, 21 broad, and 38 feet high, but not vaulted. The walls are 4 feet in thickness; the roof is of stone, with two gables. It has little circular windows at a height of 15 feet. It was formerly divided into three chambers and two stories. In one of these chambers is to be seen a great flat stone 6 feet long, which is called the bed of Columba. The roof of this building is entirely covered with ivy. In the isle of Tory a round tower, belonging to the monastery constructed by Columba, still remains. Petrie (p. 389) also recognizes round towers in the buildings quoted in connection with the two miracles told by Adamnan, c. 15, in which mention is made of bells and belfries. the neighboring forest. He would never permit an oak to be cut dowon. Those which fell by natural decay, or were struck down by the wind, were alone made use of for the fire which was lighted on the arrival of strangers, or distributed to the neighboring poor. The poor had a first right, in Ireland as everywhere else, to the goods of the monks and the Monastery of Derry fed a hundred applicants every day with methodical regularity .^^

At a more advanced age our saint gave vent to His songs his tenderness for his monastic creations in songs, m bono? of an echo of which has come down to us. The text "^"^^ of these songs, such as has been preserved, is probably later than Columba; but it is written in the oldest Irish dialect, and it expresses, naturally enough, the sentiments of the founder and his disciples: —

" Were all the tribute of Scotia '^ mine,

From its midland to its borders,

I would give all for one little cell

In my beautiful Derry.
For its peace and for its purity,
For the white angels that go

In crowds from one end to the other,

I love my beautiful Derry.

For its quietness and its purity,

For heaven's angels that come and go

Under every leaf of the oaks,
I love my beautiful Derry.
My Derry, my fair oak grove,
My dear little cell and dwelling,
Oh God in the heavens above!

Let him who profanes it be cursed.

Beloved are Durrow and Derry,
Beloved is Kaphoe the pure,
Beloved the fertile Drumhome,
Beloved are Sords and Kells !
But sweeter and fairer to me

The salt sea where the sea-gulls cry

When I come to Derry from far,

" O'DoNNELL, ap. CoLGAX, p. 397, 398.

2^^ Let us repeat here that the names of Scotia, Scotti, when they occur in works of the seventh to the twelfth century, are almost exclusively applied to Ireland and the Irish, and were extended later to Scotland proper, the north and west of which were peopled by a colony of Irish Scots, onl}' at a later period. From thence comes the name of LVse, Erysche, or Irish, retained up to our own day, by the Irish dialect, otherwise called Gaelic. In Adamnan, as in Bede, Scotia means Ireland, and modern Scotland is comprehended in the general title of Britannia. At a later period the name of Scotia disappeared in Ireland, and became identified with the country conquered and colonized by the Scots in Scotland, like that of Anglia in Britain, and Francia in Gaul.

It is sweeter and dearer to me —Sweeter to me."^^

Nor was it only his own foundations which he thus celeanother poem has been preserved which is attributed to him, and which is dedicated to the glory of the monastic isle of Arran, situated upon the western coast of Ireland, where he had gone to venerate the inhabitants and the sanctuaries.-*

" Arran, ray sun; my heart is in the west with thee. To sleep on thy pure soil is as good as to be buried in the land of St. Peter and St. Paul. To live within the sound of thy bells is to live in joy. O Arran, my sun, my love is in the west with thee." ^*

These poetic effusions reveal Columba to us under one of his most attractive aspects, as one of the minstrels of the national poetry of Ireland, the intimate union of which with the Catholic faith,^^ and its unconquerable empire over the souls of that generous people, can scarcely be exaggerated. Columba was not only himself a poet, but lived always in great and affectionate sympathy with the bards who, at that time, occupied so high a place in the social and political institutions of Ireland, and who were to be met with everywhere, in the palaces and monasteries, as on the public roads. What he did for this powerful corporation, and how, after having been their brother and friend, he became their protector and saviour, will be seen further on. TOnne^cUon Let US merely state at present that, himself a great bards"'^ traveller, he received the travelling bards in the different communities where he lived; among others, in that which he had built upon an islet^^ of the lake which the Boyle traverses before it throws itself into the Shannon. He confided to them the care of arranging the monastic and

-* See Peeves, pp. 288, 289. The origin and continuation of this poem will be seen further on.

-* " Invisit aliquando S. Endeum aliosque sanctos, qui plurimi in Ara insula angelicam vitam ducebant... in ea insula quam sanctorum vestigiis tritam et monumentis inclytam magno affectu venerabatur." — O'Doknell, book i. c. 105, 106. Compare Colgan, Act. SS. Hibernies, vol. i. p. 704-714. There were still thirteen churches on this island in 1645, with the tombs of St. Enda and of a hundred and twenty other saints.

^^ Quoted in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society, p. 183.

^^ See ante, p. 645.

^^ The ruins of a clmrch attributed to Columba are still to be seen there. Two miles from this island, on the banks of a cascade formed by tlie Bo3'le, as it throws itself into the lake (Loch Key), rises another monastery founded by him, and which became, in 1161, a Cistercian abbey of some celebrity —the Abbey of Boyle. provincial annals, which were to be afterwards deposited in the charter-chest of the community; but above all, he made them sing for his own pleasure and that of his monks; and the latter reproached him energetically if he permitted one of those wandering poets to depart without having asked to hear some of his chants, accompanied by his harp.-^

The monk Columba was, then, a poet. After Ossian and his glorious compeer of the Yosges, he opens the series of two hundred Irish poets, whose memories and names, in default of their works, have remained dear to Ireland. He wrote his verses not only in Latin, but also and more frequently in Irish. Only three of his Latin poems survive but two centuries ago eleven of his Irish poems were still in existence,^^ which have not all perished, and the most authentic of which is dedicated to the glory of St. Bridget, the virgin slave, patroness of Ireland and foundress of female religious life in the Isle of Saints. She was still living when Columba w^as born.^^ Through the obscure and halting efforts of this infantine poetry, some tones of sincere and original feeling may yet be disentangled: —

" Bridget, the good and the virgin
Bridget, our torch and our sun,
Bridget, radiant and unseen,
May she lead us to the eternal kingdom

May Bridget defend us

Against all the troops of hell.
And all the adversities of life
May she beat them down before us.
All the ill movements of the flesh,
This pure virgin whom we love,
Worthy of honor without end,

May she extinguish in us.

Yes, she shall always be our safeguard,

Dear saint of Lagenia

After Patrick she comes first,

The pillar of the land,

*® " Quidam Scoticus poeta.... Cur a nobis regredienti Cronano poetic aliquod ex more suaj artis canticum non postulasti laudabiliter decantari?" — Adamnan, book i. c. 42.

²⁹ a Diversa poemata S. Columbaj patrio idiomate scripta exstant penes me." — CoLGAN, Trias Thaumaturga, p. 472. He gives the title and quotes the first verse of each Irish poem. Dr. Keeves has given in his Appendix F the Irish text and English translation of two of these pieces, the MS. of which has passed from the hands of the Franciscans of Louvain, where the pious and patriotic Colgan wrote, to the library of Bourgogne at Brussels. They arc also to be found in the Bodleian at Oxford, in a MS. which contains thirty-six Irish poems attributed to Columba.

^" He was born in 519, and she died in 523, according to the chronology of Colgan.

Glorious among all glories, Queen among all queens.

When old age comes upon us,
May she be to us as the shirt of hair,
May she fill us with her grace,

May Bridget protect us." ^'

It seems thus apparent that Columba was as much a bard as a monk during the first part of his hfe; he had the vagabond inclination, the ardent, agitated, even quarrelsome character of the race. Like most Irish saints and even monks whom history has kept in mind, he had a passionate love for travelling; S2 and to that passion he added another which brought him more than one misadventure. Books, which were less rare in Ireland than everywhere else, were nevertheless much sought after, and guarded with jealous care in the monastic libraries, which Avere their sole depositories. Not only an excessive value was put upon them, but they were even supposed to possess the emotions and almost the passion passions of living beings. Columba had a passion forMss. f-Qj. gne manuscripts, and one of his biographers attributes to him the laborious feat of having transcribed with his own hand three hundred copies of the Gospel or of the Psalter.33 He went everywhere in search of volumes, which he could borrow or copy, often experiencing refusals which he resented bitterly. There was then in Ossory, in the southwest, a holy recluse, very learned, doctor in laws and in Loncrarad philosophy, named Longarad with the white legs, because in walking barefoot his legs, which were airy egs.

^^overed with white hair, were visible. Columba having gone to visit him asked leave to examine his books. The old man gave a direct refusal; then Columba burst forth in denunciations — " May thy books no longer do thee any

^' "Nos defendamur omni tempore
Per meam sanctam de Lagenia
Suppar columna regni,
Post Patricium primarium

Qua3 decor decorum

QuEe regina regia....

Erit post senium

Nostrum corpus in cilicio :
Ejus gratia respergamur.
Nos protegat Brigicta."

Trias Thaumat., p. 606. ^* " Omnes regni provincias continuo peragrans, urbes, oppida, paga circumiens." — O'Donnell, p. 398.

^^ O'Donnell, ap. Colgan, p. 438. The same number has been seen above attributed to Dega. Irish narratives know scarcely any numerals but those of three hundred and three thousand. good, neither to thee nor to those who come after thee, since thou takest occasion by them to show thy inhospitality." This curse was heard, according to the legend. As soon as old Longarad died his books became unintelligible. They still exist, says an author of the ninth century, but no man can read them. The legend adds that in all the schools of Ireland, and even in Columba's own cell, the leathern satchels in which the monks and students carried their books, unhooked themselves from the wall and fell to the ground on the day of the old philosopher's death.^*

A similar narrative, more authentic but not less singular, serves as an introduction to the decisive event which changed the destiny of Columba, and transformed him from a w^andering poet and ardent bookworm into a missionary and apostle. While visiting his .wmiw'have ancient master, Finnian, our saint found means to make a clandestine and hurried copy of the abbot's Psalter, by shutting himself up at night in the church where the Psalter was deposited, lighting his nocturnal work, as happened to I know not what Spanish saint, by the light which escaped from his left hand while he wrote with the right. The abbot Finnian discovered what was going on by means of a curious wanderer, who, attracted by that singular light, looked in through the keyhole, and while his face was pressed against the door had his eye suddenly torn out by a crane, one of those familiar birds who were permitted by the Irish monks to seek a home in their churches.^^ Indignant at what he thought a theft, Finnian claimed the copy when it was finished, 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 at Tara.

King Diarmid, or Dermott, supreme monarch of Irehxnd, was, like Columba, descended from the great king King-oiar- Niall, but by another son than he whose great-grand- |"'ol-ciou-" son 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

'* Festilogium of Angus the Culdee, quoted by O'Curry.

'* " Admoto ad januae fissuram oculo, mirari coepit.... Grus quaidam cicurata, quaj in ecclesia erat, incauti hominis oculuiu impecto rostro eifodit." — O'DoNNELL, book ii. c. 1. youth, lie 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, who was no other than the son of the carpenter, the jealous comrade of Columba at the monastic school of Clonard, but 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 Erin; " and it happened that Diarraid 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. It was so rich in possessions and even in dependent communities, daughters or vassals of its hierarchical authority, that, according to a popular saying, half of Ireland was contained within the enclosure of Clonmacnoise. This enclosure actually contained nine churches, with two round towers; the kings and lords of the two banks of the Shannon had their burying-place there for a thousand years, upon a green height which overlooks the marshy banks of the river. The sadly picturesque ruins may still be seen, and among them a stone cross, over which the prince and the abbot, holding between them the stake consecrated by the legend, are roughly sculptured.^'^

This king might accordingly be regarded as a

Judgment j. 4. ^ i ^ • ifi. i- j

of King competent judge in a contest at once monastic and Diarmid. literary; he might even have been suspected of ^® Clonmacnoise, which is situated on the eastern bank of the Shannon, seven miles below Athlone, and was .Afterwards made a bishop's see, must not be confounded with Cloyne, though the Latin designation, Clonensis or Clua7iensis, is the same. This great abbey is chiefly remarkable on account of its abbot Tighernach (1088), a much quoted historian, whose annals have been published in the second volume of Rerum Ilihernicarum Scriptores by O'Connor. Within its vast enclosure was a community of those lay monks called Culdees, of whom we shall have occasion to speak further on, who had been created by a lay brother of the monastery called Conn of the poor, by reason of his great charity. Later in the twelfth century it passed into the hands of the regular canons of St. Augustin, who retained it up to the general spoliation. — O'Curry, p. 60. The Gentleman's 3Iagazine of February, 1864, publishes a plan of the actual condition of Clonmacnoise, with a very interesting notice of the architecture of the ruins by Mr. Parker. partiality for Columba, his kinsman — and yet he pronounced against him. His judgment was given in a rustic phrase which has passed into a proverb in Ireland — To every colo her calf, ^^ and consequently, to every book its copy. Protest of Columba protested loudly. " It is an unjust sen- columba. tence," 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 the 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 shalt no more see my face in thy province until God, the just Judge, has subdued thy pride. As thou hast 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. His first stage was Monasterboyce, where he heard from the monks that the king had planted guards on all the ordinary roads to intercept him. He then continued his course by a solitary pathway over the desert hills which lay between him and the north of Ireland; and ho went upon his lonely way, his soul found utter- tliTsonlof ance in a pious song. He fled, chanting the Song

•''' " Xe gach hoiii a hoinin, le gach leahhar a leabhran."

^^ " Scito, rex inique, quia aniodo laciem nieara in tua provincia non videbis donee.... Sicut me liodie coram senioribus tuis iniquo jiulicio despexisti, sic te Dens Eeternus in conspectu inimicorum tuorum te despicict in die belli." — Anon. ap. Usserium, I)e Primord. Eccles. Brit., cited by Colgan, p. 4G2. " Ego cxpostulabo cum fratribus et cognatis meis iniquum arbitrium tuum, et contemptam in me temeratamque Ecclesia3 immunitatem.,. et si non meam, at certe Dei regni atque Ecclesite causam ducto in te exercitu vindicabunt." — O'Donnell, book ii. c. 7. This is assuredly a much modernized version of Columba's declaration of war; but the true facts are to be found in the unanimous statements of Irish tradition. Adamnan preserves a prudent silence upon all events anterior to the saint's mission to Scotland.

2-*

Trust, which has been preserved to us, and which may be reckoned among the most authentic relics of the ancient Irish tongue. We quote from it the following verses: —

" Alone am I on the mountain,

O royal Sun ; prosper my path,
And then I shall have nothing to fear.
Were I guarded by six thousand,
Though they might defend my skin,
When the hour of death is fixed,
Were I guarded by six thousand,
In no fortress could I be safe.
Even in a church the wicked are slain,
Even in an isle amidst a lake ;
But God's elect are safe
Even in the front of battle.
No man can kill me before my day,
Even had we closed in combat;
And no man can save my life
When the hour of death has come.
My life

!

As God pleases let it be
Nought can be taken from it,
Nought can be added to it
The lot which God has given
Ere a man dies must be lived out.
He who seeks more, were he a prince,
Shall not a mite obtain.
A guard

!

A guard may guide him on his way
But can they, can they guard
Against the touch of death? . . .
Eorget thy poverty a while

Let us think of the world's hospitality. The Son of Mary will prosper thee.

And every guest shall have his share.

Many a time What is spent returns to the bounteous hand, And that which is kept back Not the less has passed away.

living God

!

Alas for him who evil works

!

That which he thinks not of comes to him, That which he hopes vanishes out of his hand. There is no Sreod ^^ that can tell our fate, Nor bird upon the branch.

Nor trunk of gnarled oak. . • .
Better is He in whom we trust,
The King who has made us all,

AVho will not leave me to-night without refuge. 1 adore not the voice of birds.

Nor chance, nor the love of a son or a wife. My Druid is Christ, the Son of God, 3' An unknown Druidical term, probably meaning some pagan superstition of the same description as the flight of birds and the knots in the trees, mentioned immediately after.

The Son of Mary, the great Abbot,
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
My lands are with the King of kings
My order at Kells and at Moone." ""

" Thus sang Columba," says the preface to this Song qf Trust, " on his lonely journey; and this song will protect him who repeats it while he travels."

Columba arrived safely in his province, and im- He raises mediately set to work to excite against King "viiwar. 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 success. The Hy-Nialls of the North armed eagerly against the Hy-Nialls of the South, of whom Diarmid was the special chief.^^ They naturally obtained the aid of the king of Connaught, father of the young prince who had been executed. According to other narratives, the struggle Avas one between the Nialls of the North and the Picts established in the centre of Ireland. But in any case, it was the north and west of Ireland which took arms against the supreme king. Diarmid marched to meet them, and they met in battle at Cool-Drewny, or Cul-Dreimhne, upon the borders of Ultoniaand Connacia. He was Defeat of completely beaten, and 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 '"' Moone, in the county of Kildare, where the abbatial cross of St. Columba is preserved. The translation here printed is from the version given by Dr. IJeeves, with some slight modifications. — Translator's note.

" " Contulit se ad domus Conalli, Gulbanis et Eugenii proceres carne sibi propinquos, ct coram eis de malis injuriis querelam instituit." Colgan, Act. SS. Ilihern., vol. i. p. G45. Compare the genealogical table of the descendants of Niall given by Dr. Reeves, p. 25L There were ten supreme kings of the branch of Hy-Nialls of the North, or of Tyrconnell, to which Columba belonged, and seventeen of the southern branch, of which Diarmid was a member. These kings alternated for two centuries, mutually killing and dethroning each other. See the notes of Kelly, to Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, vol. ii. pp. 12, 15.

•^ " Diem ineundi pra>lii jejunio ct oratione prajvertit, Deum afflictc rogans lit regiaj insolentise vindicibus sine suorum darano annual victoriam." —O'DONNELL, loC. Cit. strange conflict of copyright elevated into a civil war, it w-as afterwards venerated as a kind of national, military, and religious palladium. Under the name of Cathac, or Fighter, The Psalter ^he Latin Psalter transcribed by Columba, 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 upon the breast of a clerk pure from all mortal sin. It has escaped as by miracle from the ravages of which Ireland had been the victim, and exists still, to the great joy of all learned Irish patriots.*^

Columba, though victor, had soon to undergo the double reaction of personal remorse and the condemnation of many pious souls.*^ The latter mumcaied. punighnient was the first to be felt. He was accused by a synod convoked in the centre of the royal domain at Teilte,^'^ of having occasioned the shedding of Christian blood, and sentence of excommunication was in his absence pronounced against him. Perhaps this accusation was not entirely confined to the war which had been raised on account of the copied Psalter. His excitable and vindictive character, and, above all, his passionate attachment to his relatives, and the violent part which he took in their domestic disputes and in 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.

•** The annals of the Four Masters report that in a battle waged in 1497 between the Q'Donnells and the MacDermotts, 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 fac-simile. See Reeves's notes upon Adamnan, p. 250, and the pamphlet upon Marianus Scotus, p. 12.

*• " Cum illata regi Diermitio clades paulo post ad aures sanctorum Hiberniae pervenit, Columbam, quod tantse cladis vel auctor vel oceasio fuisset, taxabant." — O'Donnell, ii. .5. "In synodo sanctorum Hibernise gravis querela contra S. Columbam, tanquam auctorem tam multi sanguinis effusi, instituta est." — Colgan, Act. SS. Ilibcrn., p. 645.

•^ Now Teltown, a little village near Kells, in the county of Meath. *^ Especially by the argument in Irish of the Latin poem of Columba ca.\\ed Alius prosaf07; which will be mentioned further on. This argument is quoted textually by Dr. Reeves, p. 253. This author is of opinion that

Columba was not a man to draw back before his other wars accusers and judges. He jDresented himself before ^^;^^|.^™j''^^ the synod which had struck without bearing him. takes up He found a defender there in the famous Abbot Bren- '"'" '^''*'"'*'- dan, the founder of the Monaster}^ 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 Cool- Drewny.^^

It was then that his soul seems first to have been Heconsuits troubled, and that remorse planted in it the germs ^IJ^^^^;?^ ''°''" at once of a startling conversion and of his future apostolic mission. Sheltered as he was from all vengeance or secular penalties, he must have felt himself struck so much the more by the ecclesiastical judgment pronounced against him. 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 raonks, 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.*^ One of these, Froech, who had long been his friend, reproached him with affectionate severity for

the legendary writers have antedated all these troublesome occurrences out of consideration for the Apostle of Caledonia, in order to concentrate all his eccentricities in the earlier part of his life before his voluntary expiation. Adamnan, who follows no chronological order, keeps silence on most of the events which preceded the voluntary exile of the saint, and only mentions vaguely the synod by which he was excommunicated; but he proves that after that exile Columba several times returned to Ireland, where his intiuence was always very considerable. " Cum a quodam synodo pro quibusdam venialibus et tam excusabilibus causis, non recte, ut post in fine claruit, excomnmnicaretur Columba ... ad eamdem contra ipsum coUectam venit congregationem.... Hoc tamen factum est in Teilte." — Book iii. c. 3.

" CoLGAN, loc. cit., p. 645.

•^ " Petens... quo scilicet modo post necem multorum occisorum, benevolentiam Dei ac remissionem pcccatorum obtinere mereretur." — Vita S> Molassii, ap. Trias Thaumat., p. 461. having been the instigator of that murderous fight. " It was not I who caused it," said Columba with animation; "it was the unjust judgment of King Diarmid — it was his violation of ecclesiastical immunity which did it all." " A monk," answered the solitary, would have done better to bear the injury with patience than to avenge it with arms in his hands." " Be it so," said Columba; " but it is hard for a man unjustly provoked to restrain his heart and to sacrifice justice. "^^ He was more humble with Abban, another famous monk of the time, founder of many religious houses, one of which was called the Cell of Tears, because the special grace of weeping for sin was obtained there.^*^ This gentle and courageous soldier of Christ was specially distinguished by his zeal against the fighting men and disturbers of the public peace. He had been seen to throw himself between two chiefs at the moment when their lances were crossed at each other's breasts; ^^ and on another occasion had gone alone and unarmed to meet one of the most formidable rievers of the island, who was still a pagan and a member of a sovereign family, had made his arms drop from his hands, and had changed first into a Christian and then into a monk the royal robber, whose great-grandson has recorded this incident.^^ When Columba went to Abban, he said, '' I come to beseech thee to pray for the souls of all those who have perished in the late war, which T raised for the honor of the Church. I know they will obtain grace by thy intercession, and I conjure thee to ask what is the will of God in respect to them from the angel who talks with thee every day." The aged solitary, without reproaching Columba, resisted his entreaties for some time, by reason of his great modesty, but ended by

»' " Non ego, sed iniquuni in me Diermitii regis arbitriutn, et prsevaricatio ecclesiasticae immunitatisisti prffilio et malis inde secutis causani prsebuit.... Prjestaret religiose viro injuriam patienter perferre, quam pugnaciter propulsare. Ita est, infit S. Columba, sed injuste provocato baud pronum est erumpentem animi motum, preesertim cum Justus esse videtur, cohibere." —O'DoNNELL, Vita quinta, ii. 8.

*" " Et istud monasterium a multis vocatur CeaJt na TicZer, id est cellula lacrymarum: eo quod hominibus ibi a Deo poenitentiales lacrymae... doiiantur." — Vita S. Abbani, ap. Colgan, lib. i. p. G15.

^' " Tarn appropinquabat ad alterutrum, ut lancecB eorum ante se mixtse essent invicem." — Ibid., p. 619.

^^ " Quidani ex regali genere istius terrae... heros et tyrannus, qui semper occidit et rapit et vivit in latrociniis... videntes comites S. Abbani virum arniigerum, iiorridissimum in incessu et habitu, cum siniili turba militum... unusquisque hinc et inde coepit se abscondere. Vir autem Dei fide armatus intrepidus viam ibat.... Ego autem qui vitani S. Abbani collegi sum nepos ipsius filii quern baptizavit." — Vita S. Abbani, ap. Colgan, lib. i. p. 617. consenting; and after having prayed, gave him the assurance that these souls enjoyed eternal repose.^^

Columba, thus reassured as to the fate of the victims of his rage, had still to be enlightened in respect to his own duty. He found the light which he sought from a holy monk called Molaise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture,^* who had already been his confessor, and whose ruined monastery is still visible in one of the isles of the Atlantic.^'^ This severe hermit confirmed the decision of the synod; jjoi^jgg but to the obligation of converting to the Christian condemns faith an equal number of pagans as there were of perpe°uai Christians killed in the civil war he added a new '^^'''^• condition, which bore cruelly upon a soul so passionately attached to country and kindred. The confessor condemned his penitent to perpetual exile from Ireland.^*^ Columba bowed to this sentence with sad resignation — "What you have commanded," he said, '' shall be done." ^''

He announced his future fate in the first place Devotion of to his relations, the warlike Nialls of Tyrconnell. the young " An angel has taught me that I must leave Ireland and remain in exile as long as I live, because of all those whom you slew in the last battle, which you fought on my account, and also in others which you know of" °^ It is not recorded that any among his kindred attempted to hold him back; but when he acquainted his disciples with his intended emigration, twelve among them decided to follow him. The most ardent of all was a young monk called Mochonna, son of the provincial king of Ulster. In vain Columba represented to him that he ought not to abandon his parents and native soil. " It is thou," answered the young man, " who art my father, the Church is my mother, and my country is where I can gather the largest harvest for Christ." Then, in order to render all resistance impossible, he made a solemn vow aloud to leave his country and follow Columba — '' I swear " " Ut ores pro animabus illorum qui occisi fuerunt in bello comniisso nuper nobis suadentibus, causa Ecclesite.... Et angelus ait: Requiem habebunt." — Ibid., p. C2i, after the MS. of Salamanca, which is more complete on this point than the ordinary text.

^^ " Visitavit S. Lasrianum confessorem suura.... Divinarum scripturarum scrutator."

^* Innishmurry, on the coast of Sligo.

** Vita S. Mo'lassii, ubi supra.

" " Quod iudictum est, inquit ad Molassiura, fiet."— O'Donnell, ii. 5. *^ " Mihi, juxta quod ab angelo praemonitus sum, ex Hibernia? migrandum est, et dum vixero exsulandum, quod mei causa per vos plurimi extiucti sunt." — Ibid., ii. 4. to follow thee wherever thou goest, until thou hast led me to Christ, to whom thou hast consecrated me." ^^ It was thus, says his historian, that he forced himself rather than offered himself as a companion to the great exile in the course of his apostolical career among the Picts — and he had no more active or devoted auxiliary.

Columba accepted, though not without sadness, as has been seen, the sentence of his friend. He dedicated the rest of his life to the expiation of his faults by a voluntary exile, and by preaching the faith to the heathen. Up to this time we have had difficulty in disentangling the principal events of the first forty years of his life from a maze of confused and contradictory narratives. We have followed what has seemed to us the most probable account, and one most calculated to throw light upon the character of the saint, his people, and his country. Henceforward we shall find a surer guide in Adamnan, who only touches very slightly upon the first half of his hero's life, and who, with an apparent contempt for the unanimous testimony of Irish witnesses, while agreeing that the departure of the saint took place after the battle in which the King of Ireland had been beaten by Columba's kindred,*^o attributes his departure solely to his desire for the conversion of the heathens of the great neighboring isle.^^