Ireland, Historic and Picturesque

VII.

The five kingdoms were now clearly defined, with Meath, in the central plain, predominant over the others, and in a certain sense ruling all Ireland from the Hill of Tara. The code of honor was fixed; justice had taken well-defined forms; social life had ripened to genial urbanity. The warriors were gathered together into something like a regular army, a power rivaling the kings. Of this army, Find, son of Cumal, was the most renowned leader--a warrior and a poet, who embodied in himself the very genius of the time, its fresh naturalness, its ripeness, its imagination. No better symbol of the spirit of his age could be found than Find's own "Ode to Spring":

"May-day! delightful time! How beautiful the color! The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Laigay were here! The cuckoos call in constant strains. How welcome is ever the noble brightness of the season. On the margin of the leafy pools the summer swallows skim the stream. Swift horses seek the pools. The heath spreads out its long hair. The white, gentle cotton-grass grows. The sea is lulled to rest. Flowers cover the earth."

Find's large and imaginative personality is well drawn in one of the poems of his golden-tongued son Ossin, though much of the beauty of Ossin's form is lost in the change of tongue:

"Six thousand gallant men of war
We sought the rath o'er Badamar;
To the king's palace home we bent
Our way. His bidden guests we went.
    'Twas Clocar Fair,
    And Find was there,
    The Fians from the hills around
    Had gathered to the race-course ground.
From valley deep and wooded glen
Fair Munster sent its mighty men;
And Fiaca, Owen's son, the king,
Was there the contest witnessing.
'Twas gallant sport! With what delight
Leaped thousand pulses at the sight.
    How all hearts bound
    As to the ground
First are brought forth the Fian steeds,
Then those from Luimnea's sunny meads.
Three heats on Mac Mareda's green
They run; and foremost still is seen
Dill Mac Decreca's coal-black steed.
At Crag-Lochgur he takes the lead.

"His is the day--and, lo! the king
The coal-black steed soliciting
From Dill the Druid!--'Take for it
A hundred beeves; for it is fit
The black horse should be mine to pay
Find for his deeds of many a day.'

"Then spoke the Druid, answering
His grandson, Fiaca the king:
'Take my blessing; take the steed,
For the hero's fitting meed:
Give it for thy honor's sake.'
And to Find the King thus spake

"'Hero, take the swift black steed,
Of thy valor fitting meed;
And my car, in battle-raid
Gazed on by the foe with fear;
And a seemly steed for thy charioteer.
Chieftain, be this good sword thine,
Purchased with a hundred kine,
In thine hand be it our aid.

Take this spear, whose point the breath
Of venomed words has armed with death,
And the silver-orbèd shield,
Sunbeam of the battlefield!
And take with thee
My grayhounds three,
Slender and tall,
Bright-spotted all,
Take them with thee, chieftain bold,
With their chainlets light
Of the silver white,
And their neck-rings of the tawny gold.
Slight not thou our offering,
Son of Cumal, mighty king!"

"Uprose Find our chieftain bold,
Stood before the Fian ranks,
To the king spoke gracious thanks,
Took the gifts the monarch gave;
Then each to each these champions brave
Glorious sight to see and tell,
Spoke their soldier-like farewell!

"The way before us Find led then;
We followed him, six thousand men,
From out the Fair, six thousand brave,
To Caicer's house of Cloon-na-Dave.

"Three nights, three days, did all of us
Keep joyous feast in Caicer's house;
Fifty rings of the yellow gold
To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain told;
As many cows and horses gave
To Caicer Mac Caroll our chieftain brave.
Well did Find of Innisfail
Pay the price of his food and ale.

"Find rode o'er the Luacra, joyous man,
Till he reached the strand at Barriman;
At the lake where the foam on the billow's top
Leaps white, did Find and the Fians stop.

"'Twas then that our chieftain rode and ran
Along the strand of Barriman;
Trying the speed
Of his swift black steed,--
Who now but Find was a happy man?

"Myself and Cailté at each side,
In wantonness of youthful pride,
Would ride with him where he might ride.
Fast and furious rode he,
Urging his steed to far Tralee.
On from Tralee by Lerg duv-glass,
And o'er Fraegmoy, o'er Finnass,
O'er Moydeo, o'er Monaken,
On to Shan-iber, o'er Shan-glen,
Till the clear stream of Flesk we win,
And reach the pillar of Crofinn;
O'er Sru-Muny, o'er Moneket,
And where the fisher spreads his net
To snare the salmon of Lemain,
And thence to where our coursers' feet
Wake the glad echoes of Loch Leane;
And thus fled he,
Nor slow were we;
Through rough and smooth our course we strain.

"Long and swift our stride,--more fleet
Than the deer of the mountain our coursers' feet!
Away to Flesk by Carnwood dun;
And past Mac Scalvé's Mangerton,
Till Find reached Barnec Hill at last;
There rested he, and then we passed
Up the high hill before him, and:
'Is there no hunting hut at hand?'
He thus addressed us; 'The daylight
Is gone, and shelter for the night
We lack.' He scarce had ended, when
Gazing adown the rocky glen,
On the left hand, just opposite,
He saw a house with its fire lit;
'That house till now I've never seen,
Though many a time and oft I've been
In this wild glen. Come, look at it!'

"Yes, there are things that our poor wit
Knows little of,' said Cailté; 'thus
This may be some miraculous
Hostel we see, whose generous blaze
Thy hospitality repays,
Large-handed son of Cumal!'--So
On to the house all three we go...."

Of their entry to the mysterious house, of the ogre and the witch they found there, of the horrors that gathered on all sides, when

"From iron benches on the right
Nine headless bodies rose to sight,
And on the left, from grim repose,
Nine heads that had no bodies rose,..."

Ossin likewise tells, and how, overcome, they fell at last into a deathlike trance and stupor, till the sunlight woke them lying on the heathery hillside, the house utterly vanished away.

The scenes of all the happenings in the story are well known: the rath of Badamar is near Caher on the Suir, in the midst of the Golden Vale, a plain of wonderful richness and beauty, walled in by the red precipices of the Galtee Mountains, and the Knock-Mealdown Hills. From the rath of Badamar Find could watch the western mountains reddening and glowing in front of the dawn, as the sun-rays shot level over the burnished plain. Clocar is thirty miles westward over the Golden Vale, near where Croom now stands; and here were run the races; here Find gained the gift of the coal-black steed. It is some forty miles still westwards to the Strand of Tralee; the last half of the way among hills carpeted with heather; and the Strand itself, with the tide out, leaves a splendid level of white sand as far as the eye can reach, tempting Find to try his famous courser. The race carried them southwards some fifteen miles to the beautiful waters of Lough Leane, with its overhanging wooded hills, the Lake of Killarney, southward of which rises the huge red mass of Mangerton, in the midst of a country everywhere rich in beauty. The Hill of Barnec is close by, but the site of the magic dwelling, who can tell? Perhaps Find; or Cailté, or golden-tongued Ossin himself.

There was abundant fighting in those days, for well within memory was the time of Conn of the Five-score Fights, against whom Cumal had warred because Conn lord of Connacht had raised Crimtan of the Yellow Hair to the kingship of Leinster. Cumal fought at the Rath that bears his name, now softened to Rathcool, twelve miles inward from the sea at Dublin, with the hills rising up from the plain to the south of the Rath. Cumal fought and fell, slain by Goll Mac Morna, and enmity long endured between Find and Goll who slew his sire. But like valiant men they were reconciled, and when Goll in his turn died, Find made a stirring poem on Goll's mighty deeds.

Another fateful fight for Find was the battle of Kinvarra, among the southern rocks of Galway Bay; for though he broke through the host of his foeman Uincé, that chieftain himself escaped, and, riding swiftly with a score of men, came to Find's own dwelling at Druim Dean on the Red Hills of Leinster, and burned the dwelling, leaving it a smoldering ruin. Find pursuing, overtook them, slaying them at the ford called to this day Ath-uincé, the ford of Uincé. Returning homewards, Find found his house desolate, and the song he sang still holds the memory of his sorrow.

Two poems he made, on the Plain of Swans and on Roirend in Offaly, full of vivid pictures and legends; and one of romantic tragedy, telling how the two daughters of King Tuatal Tectmar were treacherously slain, through the malice of the Leinster king. But of romances and songs of fair women in the days of Find, the best is the Poem of Gael, who composed it to win a princess for his bride.

Of fair Credé of the Yellow Hair it was said that there was scarce a gem in all Erin that she had not got as a love-token, but that she would give her heart to none. Credé had vowed that she would marry the man who made the best verses on her home, a richly-adorned dwelling in the south, under the twin cones of the Paps, and within sight of Lough Leane and Killarney. Cael took up the challenge, and invoking the Genius that dwelt in the sacred pyramid of Brugh on the Boyne he made these verses, and came to recite them to yellow-haired Credé:

"It would be happy for me to be in her home,
Among her soft and downy couches,
Should Credé deign to hear me;
Happy for me would be my journey.
    A bowl she has, whence berry-juice flows,
With which she colors her eyebrows black;
She has clear vessels of fermenting ale;
Cups she has, and beautiful goblets.
    The color of her house is white like lime;
Within it are couches and green rushes;
Within it are silks and blue mantles;
Within it are red gold and crystal cups.
    Of its sunny chamber the corner stones
Are all of silver and yellow gold,
Its roof in stripes of faultless order
Of wings of brown and crimson red.
    Two doorposts of green I see,
Nor is the door devoid of beauty;
Of carved silver,--long has it been renowned,--
Is the lintel that is over the door.
    Credé's chair is on your right hand,
The pleasantest of the pleasant it is;
All over a blaze of Alpine gold,
At the foot of her beautiful couch...
    The household which is in her house
To the happiest fate has been destined;
Grey and glossy are their garments;
Twisted and fair is their flowing hair.
    Wounded men would sink in sleep,
Though ever so heavily teeming with blood,
With the warbling of the fairy birds
From the eaves of her sunny summer-room.
    If I am blessed with the lady's grace,
Fair Credé for whom the cuckoo sings,
In songs of praise shall ever live,
If she but repay me for my gift....
    There is a vat of royal bronze,
Whence flows the pleasant; nice of malt;
An apple-tree stands over the vat,
With abundance of weighty fruit.
    When Credé's goblet is filled
With the ale of the noble vat,
There drop down into the cup forthwith
Four apples at the same time.
    The four attendants that have been named,
Arise and go to the distributing,
They present to four of the guests around
A drink to each man and an apple.
    She who possesses all these things,
With the strand and the stream that flow by them,
Credé of the three-pointed hill,
Is a spear-cast beyond the women of Erin.
  Here is a poem for her,--no mean gift.
It is not a hasty, rash composition;
To Credé now it is here presented:
May my journey be brightness to her!"

COLLEEN BAWN CAVES, KILLARNEY.

Tradition says that the heart of the yellow-haired beauty was utterly softened and won, so that she delayed not to make Cael master of the dwelling he so well celebrated; master, perhaps, of all the jewels of Erin that her suitors had given her. Yet their young love was not destined to meet the storms and frosts of the years; for Cael the gallant fell in battle, his melodious lips for ever stilled. Thus have these two become immortal in song.

We have seen Cailté with Ossin following Find in his wild ride through the mountains of Killarney, and to Cailté is attributed the saying that echoes down the ages: "There are things that our poor wit knows nothing off!" Cailté was a great lover of the supernatural, yet there was in him also a vein of sentiment, shown in his poem on the death of Clidna--"Clidna the fair-haired, long to be remembered," who was tragically drowned at Glandore harbor in the south, and whose sad wraith still moans upon the bar, in hours of fate for the people of Erin.

In a gayer vein is the poem of Fergus the Eloquent, who sang the legend of Tipra Seangarmna, the Fountain of the Feale River, which flows westward to the sea from the mountains north of Killarney. The river rises among precipices, gloomy caverns and ravines, and passes through vales full of mysterious echoes amid mist-shrouded hills. There, as Fergus sings, were Ossin and his following hunting, when certain ominous fair women lured them to a cave,--women who were but insubstantial wraiths,--to hold them captive till the seasons ran full circle, summer giving place again to winter and spring. But Ossin, being himself of more than human wisdom, found a way to trick the spirits; for daily he cut chips from his spear and sent them floating down the spring, till Find at last saw them, and knew the tokens as Ossin's, and, coming, delivered his son from durance among ghosts.

The great romantic theme of the time binds the name of Find, son of Cumal, with that of Cormac, son of Art, and grandson of Conn of the Five-score Battles. This Cormac was himself a notable man of wisdom, and here are some of the Precepts he taught to Cairbré, his son:

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," Cairbré asked him, "what is good for a king?"

"This is plain," answered Cormac. "It is good for him to have patience and not to dispute, self-government without anger, affability without haughtiness, diligent attention to history, strict observance of covenants and agreements, justice tempered by mercy in the execution of the laws. It is good for him to make fertile land, to invite ships, to import jewels of price from across the sea, to purchase and distribute raiment, to keep vigorous swordsmen who may protect his territory, to make war beyond his territory, to attend to the sick, to discipline his soldiers. Let him enforce fear, let him perfect peace, let him give mead and wine, let him pronounce just judgments of light, let him speak all truth, for it is through the truth of a king that God gives favorable seasons."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," Cairbré again asked him, "what is good for the welfare of a country?"

"This is plain," answered Cormac. "Frequent assemblies of wise and good men to investigate its affairs, to abolish every evil and retain every wholesome institution, to attend to the precepts of the seniors; let every assembly be convened according to the law, let the law be in the hands of the noblest, let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to oppress the poor."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," again asked Cairbré, "what are duties of a prince in the banqueting-house?"

"A prince on the Day of Spirits should light his lamps and welcome his guests with clapping of hands, offering comfortable seats; the cup-bearers should be active in distributing meat and drink. Let there be moderation of music, short stories, a welcoming countenance, a greeting for the learned, pleasant conversation. These are the duties of a prince and the arrangement of a banqueting-house."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, for what qualifications is a king elected over countries and tribes of people?"

"From the goodness of his shape and family, from his experience and wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, what was thy deportment when a youth?"

"I was cheerful at the banquet of the House of Mead, I was fierce in battle, but vigilant and careful. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick, merciful to the weak, stern toward the headstrong. Though possessed of knowledge, I loved silence. Though strong, I was not overbearing. Though young, I mocked not the old. Though valiant, I was not vain. When I spoke of one absent I praised and blamed him not, for by conduct like this are we known to be courteous and refined."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, what is good for me?"

"If thou attend to my command, thou wilt not scorn the old though thou art young, nor the poor though thou art well clad, nor the lame though thou art swift, nor the blind though thou seest, nor the weak though thou art strong, nor the ignorant though thou art wise. Be not slothful, be not passionate, be not greedy, be not idle, be not jealous; for he who is so is hateful to God and man."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, I would know how to hold myself with the wise and the foolish, with friends and strangers, with old and young."

"Be not too knowing or simple, too proud or inactive, too humble or haughty, talkative or too silent, timid or too severe. For if thou art too knowing, thou wilt be mocked at and abused; if too simple, thou wilt be deceived; if proud, thou wilt be shunned; if too humble, thou wilt suffer; if talkative, thou wilt be thought foolish; if too severe, men will speak ill of thee; if timid, thy rights will suffer."

"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac, how shall I discern the characters of women?"

"I know them, but I cannot describe them. Their counsel is foolish, they are forgetful of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond of folly, prone to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the sun hide his light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will remain as we have declared. Woe to him, my son, who desires or serves a bad woman, woe to him who has a bad wife."

Was there some thought of his daughter Grania in Cormac's mind, behind these keen-edged; words?--of Grania, beloved of Diarmuid? When the winters of the years were already white on Find, son of Cumal, when Ossin his son had a son of his own, Oscur the valiant, the two old men, Cormac the king and Find leader of the warriors, bethought them to make a match between Find and Grania, one of the famous beauties of the olden time. A banquet was set in the great House of Mead, and Find and his men were there, Diarmuid son of Duibné being also there, best beloved among Find's warriors. There was a custom, much in honor among the chieftains, that a princess should send her goblet to the guests, offering it to each with gentle courtesy. This grace fell to the lady Grania, whose whole heart rose up against her grey-bearded lover, and was indeed set on Diarmuid the son of Duibné. Grania compounded a dreamy draught to mix with the mead, so that all the chieftains and warriors, with Cormac and Find himself, even while praising the drink, fell straightway a-nodding, and were soon in silent sleep, all except Ossin and Diarmuid, whom Grania had bidden not to drink.

Then Grania, her voice all tremulous with tears, told to Ossin the fate that awaited her, looking at him, but speaking for Diarmuid; bewailing bitterly the misery of fair youth in the arms of withered eld, and at last turning and openly begging Diarmuid to save her from her fate. To carry away a king's daughter, betrothed to the leader of the warriors, was a perilous thing, and Diarmuid's heart stood still at the thought of it; yet Grania's tears prevailed, and they two fled forth that night to the hills and forests. Dire and ruinous was the wrath of Cormac and of Find when they awoke and found that these two were fled; and whatever might was in the king's hand, whatever power in the hosts of Find, was straightway turned against them in pursuit. Yet the two fled as the deer might fly, visiting with their loves every wood and valley in Erin, till the memory of them lingers throughout all the hills. Finally, after a year's joyful and fearsome fleeing, the Fian warriors everywhere aiding them for love of Diarmuid, swift death came upon Diarmuid, and Grania was left desolate.

But Angus the Ever-Young, guardian Genius of the pyramid-shrine of Brugh by the Boyne, De Danaan dweller in the secret house, Angus of the Immortals received the spirit of Diarmuid, opening for him the ways of the hidden world.

But enmity grew between Find with his warriors and Cormac the king, till at last a battle was fought where Find's men fell, and Cairbré, the well-instructed son of Cormac also fell. Thus passed away the ruling spirits of that age, the flowering time of the genius of Erin.

THE MESSENGER OF THE NEW WAY.

VIII.

The earliest forms of Irish writing seem to have come from the Baltic runes, and these, in their turn, from an old Greek script of twenty-five hundred years ago. The runes spread as far as the Orkneys, and there they were well within the horizon of Ireland's knowledge. Nothing would be more natural than the keeping of written records in Erin for three or four hundred years before Cuculain's birth, nineteen hundred years ago.

The arts of life were very perfect; the gold-work of that time is unsurpassed--has never been surpassed. At a far earlier time there were beautifully moulded and decorated gold-bronze spears, that show what richness of feeling and imagination, what just taste and fine skill were there. All our knowledge goes to show that the suitor of Credé has drawn a true picture of her house and the generous social life belonging to it. We know, too, that the great dining-hall of Tara has been faithfully celebrated by the bards; the picture of the king in his scarlet cloak is representative of the whole epoch.

The story of Credé also shows the freedom and honor accorded to women, as does the queenship of Meave, with the record of her separate riches. The tragedies of Deirdré and Grania would never have been remembered, had not the freedom and high regard of women been universal. Such decorative skill as is shown in the metal-work and pottery that have come down to us must have borne fruit in every realm of social life, in embroideries, tapestries, well-designed and beautifully adorned homes. Music is everywhere spoken of in the old traditions, and the skill of the poets we can judge for ourselves.

In all that concerns the natural man, therefore, a very high perfection had been reached. A frame of life had grown habitual, which brought out the finest vigor and strength and beauty. Romantic love added its riches to valor, and dignity was given by the ever-present memory of the heroic past, merging on the horizon with the divine dawn of the world. Manhood and womanhood had come to perfect flower. The crown rested on the brow of the nation's life.

When the life of the natural man is perfected, the time comes to strike the note of the immortal, to open the door of our real and enduring destiny. Sensual success, the ideal of unregenerate man, was perfectly realized in Concobar and ten thousand like him. The destiny of triumphant individual life, the strong man victorious over nature and other men, was fulfilled. Individual prowess, individual accomplishment, could go no further.

Nor should we overlook the dark shadows of the picture. Glory is to the victor, but woe to the vanquished. The continual warfare between tribe and tribe, between chief and chief, which made every valley a home of warriors dominated by a rath-fortress, bore abundant fruits of evil. Death in battle need not be reckoned, or may be counted as pure gain; but the fate of the wounded, maimed and miserable, the destitution of women and children left behind, the worse fate of the captives, sold as they were into exile and slavery,--all these must be included in the total.

Nor are these material losses the worst. The great evil of the epoch of tribal war is its reaction on the human spirit. The continual struggle of ambition draws forth egotism, the desire to dominate for mere domination, the sense of separation and antagonism between man and man, tribe and tribe, province and province.

But our real human life begins only when these evil tendencies are abated; when we learn to watch the life of others as if it were our own,--as being indeed a part of our own life,--and in every act and motion of our minds do only that which shall be to the best advantage of both ourselves and our neighbor. For only thus, only by the incessant practice of this in imagination and act, can the door of our wider and more humane consciousness be opened.

RUINS ON SCATTERY ISLAND.

Nor is this all. There are in us vast unexplored tracts of power and wisdom; tracts not properly belonging to our personal and material selves, but rather to the impersonal and universal consciousness which touches us from within, and which we call divine. Our personal fate is closed by death; but we have a larger destiny which death does not touch; a destiny enduring and immortal. The door to this larger destiny can only be opened after we have laid down the weapons of egotism; after we have become veritably humane. There must be a death to militant self-assertion, a new birth to wide and universal purposes, before this larger life can be understood and known.

With all the valor and rich life of the days of Cuculain and Ossin, the destructive instinct of antagonism was very deeply rooted in all hearts; it did endless harm to the larger interests of the land, and laid Ireland open to attack from without. Because the genius of the race was strong and highly developed, the harm went all the deeper; even now, after centuries, it is not wholly gone.

The message of the humane and the divine, taught among the Galilean hills and on the shores of Gennesaret, was after four centuries brought to Ireland--a word of new life to the warriors and chieftains, enkindling and transforming their heroic world. Britain had received the message before, for Britain was a part of the dominion of Rome, which already had its imperial converts. Roman life and culture and knowledge of the Latin tongue had spread throughout the island up to the northern barrier between the Forth and Clyde. Beyond this was a wilderness of warring tribes.

Where the Clyde comes forth from the plain to the long estuary of the sea, the Messenger of the Tidings was born. His father, Calpurn, was a Roman patrician; from this his son, whose personal name was Succat, was surnamed Patricius, a title raised by his greatness into a personal name. His letters give us a vivid picture of his captivity, and the stress of life which gradually aroused in him the inspiration of the humane and divine ripened later into a full knowledge of his apostolate.

"I Patricius, a sinner," he writes, "and most unlearned of believers, looked down upon by many, had for my father the deacon Calpurn, son of the elder Potitus, of a place called Bannova in Tabernia, near to which was his country home. There I was taken captive, when not quite sixteen. I knew not the Eternal. Being led into captivity with thousands of others, I was brought to Ireland,--a fate well deserved. For we had turned from the Eternal, nor kept the laws of the Eternal. Nor had we heeded the teachers who urged us to seek safety. Therefore the Eternal, justly wroth, scattered us among unbelievers, to the uttermost parts of the earth; here, where my poor worth is now seen among strangers, where the Eternal liberated the power hid in my unenkindled heart, that even though late I should recognize my error, and turn with all my heart to the Eternal....

"I have long had it in mind to write, but until now have hesitated; for I feared blame, because I had not studied law and the sacred writings,--as have others who have never changed their language, but gone on to perfection in it; but my speech is translated into another language, and the roughness of my writing shows how little I have been taught. As the Sage says, 'Show by thy speech thy wisdom and knowledge and learning.' But what profits this excuse? since all can see how in my old age I struggle after what I should have learned as a boy. For then my sinfulness hindered me. I was but a beardless boy when I was taken captive, not knowing what to do and what to avoid; therefore I am ashamed to show my ignorance now? because I never learned to express great matters succinctly and well;--great matters like the moving of the soul and mind by the Divine Breath.... Nor, indeed, was I worthy that the Master should so greatly favor me, after all my hard labor and heavy toil, and the years of captivity amongst this people,--that the Master should show me such graciousness as I never knew nor hoped for till I came to Ireland.

"But daily herding cattle here, and aspiring many times a day, the fear of the Eternal grew daily in me. A divine dread and aspiration grew in me, so that I often prayed a hundred times a day, and as many times in the night. I often remained in the woods and on the hills, rising to pray while it was yet dark, in snow or frost or rain; yet I took no harm. The Breath of the Divine burned within me, so that nothing remained in me unenkindled.

"One night, while I was sleeping, I heard a voice saying to me, 'You have fasted well, and soon you shall see your home and your native land.' Soon after, I heard the voice again, saying, 'The ship is ready for you.' But the ship was not near, but two hundred miles off, in a district I had never visited, and where I knew no one. Therefore I fled, leaving the master I had served for six years, and found the ship by divine guidance, going without fear....

"We reached the land after three days' sail; then for twenty-eight days we wandered through a wilderness.... Once more, after years of exile, I was at home again with my kindred, among the Britons. All welcomed me like a son, earnestly begging me that, after the great dangers I had passed through, I would never again leave my home.

"While I was at home, in a vision of the night I saw one who seemed to come from Ireland, bringing innumerable letters. He gave me one of the letters, in which I read, 'The voices of the Irish ...;' and while I read, it seemed to me that I heard the cry of the dwellers by the forest of Foclut, by the Western Ocean, calling with one voice to me, 'Come and dwell with us!' My heart was so moved that I awoke, and I give thanks to my God who after many years has given to them according to their petition.

"On another night, whether within me or without me I know not, God knows, One prayed with very wonderful words that I could not comprehend, till at last He said, 'It is He who gave His soul for you, that speaks!' I awoke for joy. And once in a vision I saw Him praying within me, as it were; I saw myself, as it were, within myself; and I heard Him praying urgently and strongly over the inner man; I being meanwhile astonished, and wondering who thus prayed within me, till at the end He declared that I should be an overseer for Him....

"I had not believed in the living Divine from childhood, but had remained in the realm of death until hunger and nakedness and daily slavery in Ireland--for I came there as a captive--had so afflicted me that I almost broke down. Yet these things brought good, for through that daily suffering I was so changed that I work and toil now for the well-being of others, I who formerly took no care even for myself....

"Therefore I thank Him who kept me faithful in the day of trial, that I live to offer myself daily as a living offering to Him who saves and guards me. Well may I say, 'Master, what am I, what is my calling, that such grace and divine help are given to me--that I am every day raised to greater power among these unbelievers, while I everywhere praise thy name? Whatever comes to me, whether happiness or misery, whether good or evil fortune, I hold it all the same; giving Thee equal thanks for it, because Thou hast unveiled for me the One, sure and unchanging, in whom I may for ever believe. So that in these latter days, even though I am ignorant, I may dare to undertake so righteous a work, and so wonderful, that makes me like those who, according to His promise, should carry His message to all people before the end of the world.

"It were long in whole or even in part to tell of my labours, or how the all-powerful One many times set me free from bondage, and from twelve perils wherein my life was in danger, and from nameless pitfalls. It were ill to try the reader too far, when I have within me the Author himself, who knows all things even before they happen, as He knows me, His poor disciple. The voice that so often guides me is divine; and thence it is that wisdom has come to me, who had no wisdom, knowing not Him, nor the number of my days: thence comes my knowledge and heart's joy in His great and healing gift, for the sake of which I willingly left my home and kindred, though they offered me many gifts with tears and sorrow.

"Many of the older people also disapproved, but through divine help I would not give way. It was no grace of mine, but the divine power in me that stood out against all, so that I came to bear the Message here among the people of Ireland, suffering the scorn of those who believed not, and bearing derision and many persecutions, and even chains. Nay, I even lost my patrician rank for the good of others. But if I be worthy to do something for the Divine, I am ready with all my heart to yield service, even to the death, since it has been permitted that through me many might be reborn to the divine, and that others might be appointed to teach them....

"The people of Ireland, who formerly had only their idols and pagan ritual, not knowing the Master, have now become His children. The sons of the Scoti and their kings' daughters are now become sons of the Master and handmaidens of the Anointed. And one nobly born lady among them, a beautiful woman whom I baptized myself, came soon after to tell me that she was divinely admonished to live in maidenhood, drawing nearer to Him. Six days later she entered the grade that all the handmaidens of the Anointed desire, though their fathers and mothers would hinder them, reproaching and afflicting them; nevertheless, they grow in number, so that I know not how many they are, besides widows and continent women, who suffer most from those who hold them in bondage. Yet they stand firm, and God grants grace to many of them worthily to follow Him.

"Therefore I might even leave them, to go among the Britons,--for willingly would I see my own kindred and my native land again, or even go as far as Gaul to visit my brothers, and see the faces of my Master's holy men. But I am bound in the Spirit, and would be unfaithful if I went. Nor would I willingly risk the fruit of all my work. Yet it is not I who decide, but the Master, who bid me come hither, to spend my whole life in serving, as indeed I think I shall....

"Therefore I should ever thank Him who was so tolerant of my ignorance and sluggishness, so many times; treating me not in anger but as a fellow-worker, though I was slow to learn the work set for me by the Spirit. He pitied me amongst many thousands, for he saw that I was very willing, but did net know how to offer my testimony. For they all opposed my mission, and talked behind my back, saying, 'He wishes to risk his life among enemies who know nothing of the Master'; not speaking maliciously, but opposing me because I was so ignorant. Nor did I myself at once perceive the power that was in me....

"Thus simply, brothers and fellow-workers for the Master, who with me have believed, I have told you how it happened that I preached and still preach, to strengthen and confirm you in aspiration, hoping that we may all rise yet higher. Let that be my reward, as 'the wise son is the glory of his father.' You know, and the Master knows, how from my youth I have lived among you, in aspiration and truth and with single heart; that I have declared the faith to those among whom I dwell, and still declare it. The Master knows that I have deceived no man in anything, nor ever shall, for His sake and His people's. Nor shall I ever arouse uncharity in them or in any, lest His name should be spoken evil of....

"I have striven in my poor way to help my brothers and the handmaidens of the Anointed, and the holy women who often volunteered to give me presents and to lay their jewels on my altar; but these I always gave back to them, even though they were hurt by it; and I have so lived my life, for the hope of the life eternal, that none may find the least cause of offence in my ministry; that my least act might not tarnish my good name, so that unbelievers might speak evil of me....

"If I have asked of any as much as the value of a shoe, tell me. I will repay it and more. I rather spent my own wealth on you and among you, wherever I went, for your sakes, through many dangers, to regions where no believer had ever come to baptize, to ordain teachers or to confirm the flock. With the divine help I very willingly and lovingly paid all. Sometimes I gave presents to the kings,--in giving presents to their sons who convoyed us, to guard us against being taken captive. Once they sought to kill me, but my time was not yet come. But they took away all we possessed, and kept me bound, till the Master liberated me on the fourteenth day, and all our goods were given back, because of the Master and of those who convoyed us. You yourselves know what gifts I gave to those who administer the law through the districts I visited oftenest. I think I spent not less than the fine of fifteen men among them, in order that I might come among you. Nor do I regret it, nor count it enough, for I still spend, and shall ever spend, happy if the Master allows me to spend my soul for you....For I know certainly that poverty and plain living are better for me than riches and luxury. The Anointed our Master was poor for us. I am poorer still, for I could not have wealth if I wished it. Nor do I now judge myself, for I look forward daily to a violent death, or to be taken captive and sold into slavery, or some like end. But I fear none of these ...but let me not lose the flock I feed for Him, here in the uttermost parts of the earth....

"I am willing for His sake to shed my blood, to go without burial, even though my body be torn by dogs and wild beasts and the fowls of the air; for I know that thus I should through my body enrich my soul. And I know that in that day we shall arise in the brightness of the sun, in the glory of the Anointed Master, as sons of the divine and co-heirs with Him, made in His likeness. For the sun we see rises daily by divine ordinance; but it is not ordained to rise for ever, nor shall its light last for ever. The sun of this world shall fade, with those that worship it; but we bow to the spiritual Sun, the Anointed, that shall never perish, nor they who do His will, but shall endure for ever like the Anointed himself, who reigns with the Father and the Divine Spirit now and ever....

"This I beg, that no believer or servant of the Master, who reads or receives this writing, which I, Patricius, a sinner and very unlearned, wrote in Ireland,--I beg that none may say that whatever is good in it was dictated by my ignorance, but rather that it came from Him. This is my Confession, before I die."

That is the story of the most vital event in the life of Ireland, in the words of the man who was chiefly instrumental in bringing it about. Though an unskilled writer, as he says himself he has nevertheless succeeded in breathing into every part of his epistle the power and greatness of his soul, the sense and vivid reality of the divine breath which stirred in him and transformed him, the spiritual power, humane and universal, which enkindled him from within; these are the words of a man who had first-hand knowledge of the things of our deeper life; not a mere servant of tradition, living on the words and convictions of other men. He has drawn in large and universal outline the death to egotism--reached in his case through hunger, nakedness and slavery--and the new birth from above, the divine Soul enkindling the inner man, and wakening him to new powers and a knowledge of his genius and immortal destiny.

Not less vivid is the sense he conveyed, of the world in which he moved; the feeling of his dignity as a Roman Patrician, having a share of the greatness of empire; the sense of a dividing-line between the Christian realms of Rome and the outer barbarians yet in darkness. Yet the picture he gives of these outer realms is as certainly true. There are the rival chieftains, each with his own tribe and his own fort, and bearing the title of king. They are perpetually striving among themselves, so that from the province of one he must move to the province of another with an escort, led by the king's son, who receives gifts in return for this protection. This is the world of Concobar and Cuculain; of Find and Ossin, as they themselves have painted it.

The world of Find and Ossin, of Cael and Credé, was marked by a certain urbanity and freedom, a large-mindedness and imaginative power. We are therefore prepared to expect that the Messenger of the new life would be received with openness of mind, and allowed to deliver his message without any very violent opposition. It was the meeting of unarmed moral power and armed valor; and the victory of the apostle was a victory of spiritual force, of character, of large-heartedness; the man himself was the embodiment of his message, and through his forceful genius his message was effective. He visibly represented the New Way; the way of the humane and the divine, transforming the destructive instinct of self-assertion. He visibly represented the divine and the immortal in us, the new birth from above.

Yet there were tragedies in his apostolate. In another letter a very vivid and pathetic account is given of one of these. Coroticus, a chieftain of Britain, and therefore nominally a Christian and a citizen of Rome, had sent marauding bands to Ireland to capture slaves. Some of the new converts were taken captive by these slave-hunters, an outrage which drew forth an indignant protest from the great Messenger:

"My neophytes in their white robes, the baptismal chrism still wet and glistening on their foreheads, were taken captive with the sword by these murderers. The next day I sent letters begging them to liberate the baptized captives, but they answered my prayer with mocking laughter. I know not which I should mourn for more,--those who were slain, those who were taken prisoner, or those who in this were Satan's instruments, since these must suffer everlasting punishment in perdition."

He appeals indignantly to the fellow-Christians of Coroticus in Britain: "I pray you, all that are righteous and humble, to hold no converse with those who do these things. Eat not, drink not with them, accept no gifts from them, until they have repented and made atonement, setting free these newly-baptized handmaidens of Christ, for whom He died.... They seem to think we are not children of one Father!"

The work and mission of this great man grow daily better known. The scenes of each marked event are certainly identified. His early slavery, his time of probation, was spent in Antrim, on the hillside of Slieve Mish, and in the woods that then covered its flanks and valleys. Wandering there with his flocks to the hill-top, he looked down over the green darkness of the woods, with the fertile open country stretching park-like beyond, to the coast eight miles away. From his lonely summit he could gaze over the silvery grayness of the sea, and trace on the distant horizon the headlands of his dear native land. The exile's heart must have ached to look at them, as he thought of his hunger and nakedness and toil. There in deep pity came home to him the fate of the weak ones of the earth, the vanquished, the afflicted, the losers in the race. Compassion showed him the better way, the way of sympathy and union, instead of contest and dominion. A firm and fixed purpose grew up within him to make the appeal of gentleness to the chiefs and rulers, in the name of Him who was all sympathy for the weak. Thus the inspiration of the Message awakened his soul to its immortal powers.

Later, returning with the clear purpose of his message formed, he began his great work not far from his first place of captivity. His strong personality led him always to the presence of the chiefs and warriors, and he talked to them freely as an equal, gradually giving them an insight into his own vision of life, of the kinship between soul and soul, of our immortal power and inheritance. He appealed always to his own inner knowledge of things divine, to the light and power unveiled within himself; and the commanding genius in his words lit a like fire in the hearts of those who heard, awakening an enthusiasm for the New Way. He had a constant sense of his divine mission:

"Was it without divine promise, or in the body only, that I came to Ireland? Who led me? Who took captive my soul, that I should no more see friends and kindred? Whence came my inspiration of pity for the race that had enslaved me?"