certify a legal act. Adamnan says the bishop would not have dared to lay his hand on the head of Aida if Findchan had not first laid his own right hand on his head. Columba was very wroth at this occurrence. He prophesied that the hand which Findchan had laid on the son of perdition would rot off, and that the new-made priest would return to his old courses, and die the violent death of him who sheds man's blood; and so, of course, it came to pass. The advocates of primitive episcopacy say that the wickedness of the man shows the potency of a bishop to ordain, and the sending to a distance for the bishop shows how impossible it was to ordain without him. A priest might, it seems, be a bishop without the fact being generally known, as he might hold a degree of Master of Arts, or any other honorary distinction, at the present day, without its necessarily proclaiming itself, and drawing any distinct line between him and other clergymen. We learn this from the prophetic acuteness of Columba, in discovering, by looking in the face of an obscure wandering priest, that he held episcopal rank; wherefore the saint, in virtue of his rank, desired him alone, unassisted by another priest, to break the bread at the altar.2

It is evident that, in the Irish ecclesiastical community of that day, the bishops, whatever official rank they may have held, were obscure men in comparison with the monastic dignitaries. Few of the great array of Celtic saints have the title of bishop in the earliest

1 "Hic itaque idem Aidus, post aliquantum in peregrinatione transactum tempus, accito episcopo, quamvis non recte, apud supradictum Findchanum presbyter ordinatus est."-Adamnan, i. 36.

2 I. 44.

writings in which they are mentioned. It was mentioned in later ages-for instance, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries-as a scandalous usage among the Irish, that a single bishop often performed the act of consecration, instead of the canonical three--a practice which, to the strict observers of the rules of apostolic descent, should have invalidated the whole hierarchy. It could not arise from any paucity of bishops. Those consecrated by St Patrick alone were counted by hundreds. One of the more moderate of the estimates makes them three hundred and sixty-five-just one for each day in the year. Whether or not we believe all that is said about their multitudinousness, it is beyond doubt that the early Irish bishops were so numerous, and at the same time so obscure, that the most resolute champions of diocesan episcopacy cannot find for them provinces with corporations of presbyters over whom they held diocesan rule. This is in fact just one of the many peculiarities which that primitive Church of the West owed to its severance from Rome. The Saxons of England, receiving their Christianity at the hands of teachers commissioned directly from Rome, received also the Roman notion of a bishop-as an ecclesiastical ruler, whose authority in spiritual things was coextensive with the monarch's in temporal things; and they had a bishop for each kingdom of the heptarchy, instead of the hundreds who frequented Ireland. These, when the Papacy extended its influence to Ireland, were converted into rural deans.

Naturally there is not a word in the great life of St Columba importing that he considered himself in any way under the orders of the Bishop of Rome: that bishop, indeed, does not happen to be mentioned in the

book, though it is discursive and gossipy, speaking of contemporary ecclesiastics and distant states. Twice the city of Rome is mentioned-on one occasion to lament that pestilence was rife there, and on another to proclaim that the fame of St Columba had spread over Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and had reached Rome, the greatest of cities.1 His contemporary, St Kentigern, according to our record of his life, made seven visits to Rome, for the purpose of transacting ecclesiastical business with Gregory the Great; but then this record of Kentigern's life was written by Jocelyn of Ferns in the twelfth century.

1 Reeves's Columba, 183, 241.

The later legends about St Columba give the particulars of a visit which he also paid to the same Gregory at Rome; and if we accept of the rest of the legend, we may easily take in this also. Brandubh, a very popular king of Ireland, died; and whenever the soul was released, certain demons seized on it, and made off with it through the air. Maedhog, abbot of Ferns, standing among the reapers, heard the cries of the soul thus tormented by the demons, and, finding it a case for the exercise of his supernatural powers, rushed into the air, doing battle with the demons. The quarrelling group passed over Iona, where Columba, writing in his chamber, heard the noise, and, knowing what it imported, stuck his style or pencil into his cloak, and, ascending, joined in the contest. The noisy group passed over Rome, where Columba dropped his pencil. It was immediately taken up and preserved by Pope Gregory. The remainder of the legend is not very consistent with the desire to rescue Brandubh's soul from demons. Columba followed the soul into heaven, and there, we are told, he found the congregation at celebration, in which he joined as if he were one of them. The celebration was Te decet hymnus, and Benedic anima mea, and Laudate pueri Dominum. In the end the champions brought Brandubh's soul back to his body. Columba seems to have been disturbed by the loss of his pencil. Perhaps another was not easily to be got in the Western Isles, where Johnson, when he despaired of recovering his lost walking-stick, said, “Consider, sir, the value of such a piece of timber in this part of the world." In fact, as he passed again he dropped in upon St Gregory at Rome, with whom he remained for some time. Gregory kept the pencil, but presented Columba with a brooch, which afterwards became renowned.-Reeves's Adamnan, 205.

The rules of asceticism and obedience were in strict force among the brotherhood. The relaxations, dictated by the spirit of hospitality, show the severity of the ordinary rule. When a stranger arrived on a fastday there would be a consolatio cibi, permitting of a slight refection of bread and milk before evening. On one occasion the principles of asceticism and obedience came curiously into collision: a pragmatical brother persists in abstinence, refusing to partake in the meagre hospitalities dedicated to the advent of a stranger. Such ostentatious self-constituted asceticism must be put down, and it encountered the severe denunciation of the superior, who told the too selfrighteous disciple that the day would come when he would struggle with starving banditti for a meal of putrid horseflesh-a doom which the biographer of course traces to its practical conclusion. The most torturing penances, like the most arduous duties, must be undergone without a murmur. It is indeed difficult to believe in the abject obedience of the brethren, and their ecstatic veneration for the superior who ruled them with a rod of iron, without supposing that to their belief he was absolutely environed with supernatural qualities and powers.

Remembering the poverty of Iona at the present day, and the remoteness of the island from the frequented world, nothing is more remarkable in its early annals than the busy intercourse with the world which they appear to disclose. Guests, illustrious by kingly descent or ecclesiastical rank, were ever coming and going. In his native Ireland Columba was wont to travel in a chariot; in Iona there would be little use of such a vehicle, but there appears to have been a small fleet

of vessels at his disposal. There were horses, cattle, and sheep on the island, and the extent to which farming operations seem to have been conducted, either there or along some of the neighbouring coasts, would seem inconsistent with the capacity of those barren rocks, if we did not remember that a considerable community must have found the means of living in Iona without drawing their supplies from distant places.