to that monastery, and to St. Teilo as its head.

It must be remembered ity offshoots from the original monastic colony at the chief village of the tribe if it was a large and powerful one, or else offshoots at the villages of the smaller and more insignificant tribes who were dependent on their more powerful neighbors. They belonged to the colony that belonged to the monastery, and were served from that colony. When, at a later date the parochial system was introduced into Wales the whole district that one of these colonies served, i.e., the whole of the tribal territory, became one of the new divisions, a parish. The enormous size of some of that nearly all the David and Teilo churches are in South Wales, a fact mos difficult to explain if dedication in our sense is given as the reason for ascribing the churches to S. David, but at once obvious if the monastic theory is adopted. On any other ground it is difficult to see why the churches dedicated to the patron saint of Wales only appear in one part of the country.

This view of the monastic origin of the early Welsh churches throws light on another point of difficulty in Welsh church history, the origin of the different chapels attached to the parish churches. They were in all probabilthe Welsh parishes, and the number of chapelries in the gift of the Vicar of the parish is probably the result of the territory of a powerful tribe with several villages all served from one monastic colony, having become the modern parish.

Mr. Bund proceeded to show in another way, that the early Christian communities in Wales belonged to certain groups of monastic colonies. Probably the idea of such colonies is the best explanation of it. In speaking of the early Welsh church, Prof essor Westwood says: "Unfortunately

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for Wales, there is not a single genuine Welsh MS., in existence, so far as I know, either historical, religious, or poetical, earlier than the 12th or 13th century. 13th century. But Wales does possess a series of documents of very high antiquity, the genuiness of which is unquestioned, and which, extending back to the Roman period, affords proofs of the truth that the want of MSS. might cause, and indeed has caused to be questioned. The carved and sculptured stones of Wales are in fact the only unimpeachable proofs that exist in Wales of the extent to which religion, literature, and science was there cultivated from the third to the twelfth centuries." If the localities of these stones are studied they will be found to be divisible into groups, each group being situated in a particular locality. Difference in date may account for much, but not for all. It will be found to a great extent to be the case that particular kinds of stones are found only in parricular and well-defined districts. In one district there is a peculiar form of inscribed cross, in another, stones with peculiar ornament, in another, stones with inscriptions. The inference to be drawn from this appears to be, that either each tribe had its own peculiarities or, what seems more likely, that each monastic establishment had its own ideas as to what was proper and fitting. The question as to the localities of the different classes of stone has not yet been worked out. Professor Rhys in his "Celtic Britain" alludes to it," and dealing only with the main divisions of sculptured stones shows that in South Wales, speaking broadly, these divisions represents their respective districts that were colonized from the monasteries of St. Teilo and St. David. No one who has studied the stones can have failed to notice the difference that exists between the two

groups, or how the stones in each district form the sub-divisions according to their inscriptions and ornamentation. Such a state of things it is hardly possible can be accidental, and it is not easy to suggest a more probable explanation than the monastic one. It is also worthy of note that these stones are not found in the country of the Brythonic Celts, except in a very few instances. There is therefore some ground for saying that these monuments represent the belief of the Goidelic Christians, and have little in reality to do with any Latin source. On some of the stones the inscription exists in two characters, the Ogham and the Latin letters. This would seem to point to the fact that the monuments were erected before Christianity was firmly established, the persons who erected them desiring to ensure the safety ot their dead in either contingency whether the ultimate victory remained to the Christian or to the Pagan.

If the monastic view of the Welsh church is accepted, it becomes a matter of interest to see how "the tribe of the saint," was constituted, and how its numbers were recruited. We have been so long accustomed to regard the priest of the Early Church in this country as a celibate body that it is not easy to understand how the tribe of the saint was perpetuated. The answer to this difficulty is two-fold, first, that a celibate clergy is an idea of the Latin, not the Celtic churchand secondly, that the strength of the Ecclessiastical tribe was kept up in the same way as that of the lay tribe, viz., by including in it all the descendants of the common ancestor. In the Welsh Celtic Church it was the custom for the members of the tribe of the saints to have children, and the children suceeded to the property just as did the children of the mem

bers of the lay tribe. When afterwards the head of the Monastic House became a Bishop, that office was regarded in the same light. Saintship and Epicopacy were both part of the tribal property and of the hereditary possessions of the tribe. The term Saint did not imply any personal holiness or sanctity, but only that the person was a member of a certain Ecclesiastical tribe. The modern idea of canonization was unknown even in the Latin church until after the age of the Welsh Saints had passed. The period of the Welsh Saints (between 400 and 700) was the time when the tribal influence was probably at its greatest. If the genealogies of the Welsh Saints are carefully examined, it will be found that they are mainly to be traced to three great stocks, those of Brychan, Cunedda, and Caw, and that the Saintship is hereditary in certain families, i. e., to say, that only the descendants of the tribe of the Saint are Saints. To the Goidelic Celts the tribe of the Saint represented the priesthood. But there was one important qualification, a person could become a member of the tribe of the Saint, birth was not the sole ground of admission. The rules as to entrance into the tribe of the Saint were mainly identical with these that governed the tribe of the land. To ascertain what these were,recourse must be had to the Irish Laws. book of Aicill gives some curious information on this point, and information that goes to show both the superficiality of Celtic Christianity and its freedom from the influence of the Latin Church. Wherever virtue or vice may be ascribed to that church, the sanctity and importance of the marriage tie has always been insisted upon by her, and a hard and fast line between children born in and born out of wedlock. But this line was never drawn in the Celtic church. In

The

its view a son was a son whenever born. In the Latin Church marriage was everything, in the other descent. In settling who were the members of the tribe legitimacy was not regarded it was simply a question of descent from a common male ancestor. The person who could prove descent was eligible for any of the tribal offices, and entitled to a share in the tribal property. No better illustration could be given than the popular story of St. David's birth. According to Latin ideas, he was the illegitimate son of St. Non, entitled to no right whatever. According to Celtic ideas he was a member of the tribe of Ceredig, as eligible as any other tribesman to the rights and dignities of the tribe. It is important to bear this distinction carefully in mind, for it shows the great difference in the Latin andCeltic churches, and the Celtic tribal system to be a state of things that existed long before the introduction of the Canon Law, and in no way affected by it. It is hard for those bred up in the ideas of the Latin church to realize a system in which marriage was a mere detail, and the right of succession in no way dependent upon it.

But until we do realize it much of the early history of Wales, and other Celtic countries, is wholly unintelligible. That the principle was recognised in the Welsh laws is clear from the passage in the Dimetian code, where, as in the Irish laws, the right of descent is supreme. The child was the property of the woman's tribe, but was claimed by the Father's tribe on proof of its descent. As these rules applied both to the lay tribe and the tribe of the Saint it follows that the question of the celibacy of the clergy was not of profound importance to the Celtic church. The offspring of the clergy, whether born in or out of wedlock, would be equally entitled with those born in wedlock

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to the offices and dignities of the tribe of the saint.

The importance of this question is seen in the position of children taken by the church, "offered to the church for instruction." This position was very similar to that of an illegitimate child as long as it remained in its mother's possession. The real father could claim the child in either case at any time, but on doing so he had to make certain payments. If he took it from the mother's family family the received the payment; if he took it from the monastic tribe or family the church received the payment, and the amount of the payment was fixed not by the rank of theper son taken, but by the rank of the church from which it was taken. Neither in Ireland or Wales could a person by any act of his own get rid of the tie of tribal relationship or deprive the tribe of their share in him. This is utterly opposed to the Latin idea that by taking orders or becoming a monk a person lost all rights in or connection with the lay tribe and became the church's man. saking the tribe of the Saint, or forsaking the particular church to which a person was attached formed the subject of special rules providing how the deserter's goods were to be divided on his death between the church he had deserted and the church that received him. If the monk gave up his orders and took to a secular life his property still belonged to the tribe of the Saint, but by his desertion he lost all right to any share in the tribal property. This tribal property, which the members could not alienate, formed the fund for the maintenance and support of the "tribe of the Saint," and there seems little trace in the early Celtic laws of the church being supported by proportionate contributions from the proverty of the members of the tribe of

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the land; indeed, as the property was owned, not individually, but in common, it would be difficult for such a state of things to exist. Mr. Bund would not break the rules of the Cymmrodorion Society by going into the question of tithes, beyond saying that the Celtic church before it met with the Latin, knew nothing of them. They are the Latin provision for the support of its church, and so were introduced and enforced by it in Wales. They form one of the outward and visible signs of the victory of the Latin over the Celtic church. It is usually said that the reason why so large a proportion of the tithes are in lay hands is due to the fact that the Latin Monasteries appropriated the Welsh tithes, and on the dissolution of the monasteries the tithes were granted by the Crown to lay men. This is probably the reason why the tithes are in lay hands now. But it would not be difficult to show that the tithes that belonged to the

Monasteries were in most cases never the property of the clergy, and were never taken from them by the monks. It also seems probable that the reason why the endowments of so many Welsh churches consists of Glebe is that such Glebe is a remnant of the old tribal property of the tribe of the old tribal property of the tribe of the Saint that the church still retains in very altered circumstances, and under very different conditions. Whether

this is or is not the case, every one who will take the trouble to work out

the history of religious endowments in Wales, especially of tithes, will probably arrive at a result that will be very far from the usually accepted ideas, and bring a flood of new light on the tithe question. Allusions to tithes it is true are to be found both in the text of the Irish and Welsh laws, but most, if not all of them can be demonstrated to be modern interpolations into the text.

FRANCIS LEWIS,

ONE OF THE

SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

(A Member of the N. Y. Delegation.)

Francis Lewis was a native of Llandaff, in South Wales, where he was born in the year 1713. His father was a clergyman belonging to the established church. His mother was the daughter of Dr. Pettingal, who was also a clergyman of the Episcopal establishment, and resided in Carnarvon, North Wales. At the early age of four or five years, being left an orphan, the care of him devolved upon a maternal maiden aunt, who took singular pains to have him instructed in the native language of his country. He was afterwards sent to Scotland, where, in the family of a relation, he acquired a knowledge of the Gaelic. From this he was transferred to the school of Westminster, where he completed his education, and enjoyed the reputation of being a good scholar.

Mercantile pursuits being his object, he entered the counting-room of a London merchant, where, in a few years, he acquired a competent knowledge of the profession. On attaining to the age of twenty-one years, he collected the property which had been left him by his father, and hav ing converted it into merchandise, he sailed for New York, where he arrived in the spring of 1735.

sold in New York, by Mr. Edward Leaving a part of his goods to be Annesley, with whom he had formed a commercial connection, he transported the remainder to Philadelphia,

Edward Annesley, Esq., and his sister Elizabeth, Mr. Lewis' wife, came to America from Anglesea, North Wales, in the year 1725, and were descendants of the honored glesea and Lord of the Privy Seal in the family of Arthur Annesley, the Earl of An

reign of Charles II.

whence, after a residence of two years, he returned to the former city, and there became extensively engaged in navigation and foreign trade. About this time he connected himself by marriage with the sister of his partner, by whom he had several children.

Mr. Lewis acquired the character of an active and enterprising merchant. In the course of his commercial transactions he traversed a considerable part of the continent of Europe. He visited several of the seaports of Russia, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and twice suffered shipwreck off the Irish coast.

During the French or Canadian war, Mr. Lewis was for a time agent for supplying the British troops. In this capacity he was present at the time when, in August, 1756, the fort of Oswego was surrendered to the distinguished French General, de Montcalm. The fort was at that time commanded by the British Colonel Mersey. On the 10th of August Montcalm approached it with more than 5000 Europeans, Canadians and Indians. On the 12th, at midnight, he opened the trenches with thirtytwo pieces of cannon, besides several brass mortars and howitzers. The garrison having fired away all their shells and ammunition, Colonel Mersey ordered the cannon to be spiked, and crossed the river to Little Oswego Fort, without the loss of a single man. The enemy took immediate possession of the fort, and from it began a fire which was kept up without intermission. The next day Colonel Mersey was killed while standing by the side of Mr. Lewis,

The garrison being thus deprived of their commander, their fort destitute of a cover, and no prospect of aid presenting itself, demanded a capitulation, and surrendered as prisoners of war. The garrison consisted

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at this time of the regiments of Shirley and Pepperell, and amounted to one thousand and four hundred men. The conditions required and acceded to, were, that they should be exempted from plunder, conducted to Montreal, and treated with humanity. The services rendered by Mr. Lewis during the war were held in such consideration by the British government, that at the close of it he received a grant of five thousand acres of land.

The conditions upon which the garrison surrendered to Montcalm were shamefully violated by that commander. They were assured of kind treatment, but no sooner had the surrender been made than Montcalm allowed the chief warrior of the Indians who assisted in taking the fort, to select about thirty of the prisoners, and do with them as he pleased. Of this number Mr. Lewis was one. Placed thus at the disposal of savage power, a speedy and cruel death was to be expected. The tradition is, however, that he soon discovered that he was able to converse with the Indians, by reason of the similarity of the Welsh language, which he understood, to the Indian dialect. The ability of Mr. Lewis to converse with the chief so pleased the latter that he treated him kindly, and on arriving at Montreal he requested the French Governor to allow him to return to his family without ransom. The request, however, was not granted, and Mr. Lewis was sent as a prisoner to France, from which country, being some time after exchanged, he returned to America.

This tradition as to the cause of the liberation of Mr. Lewis is incorrect; no such affinity existing between the Cymraeg, or ancient language of Wales, and the language of any of the Indian tribes found in North America. The cause might have been, and probably was, some