cessful a pioneer of the truth, that he needs no adventitious conditions to command our interest and excite our admiration. And his life will teach us a deeper and truer lesson if we strip it entirely of the phenomenal, and look upon it simply as the life of a man like unto ourselves in all but his profounder enthusiasm, his wider sympathies, his loftier spirit, his more absorbing and self-sacrificing devotion.

The principal opponent of his work among the Picts seems to have been the Magus or Druid, Broïchan, the king's foster-father. Much that savours of the miraculous is mixed up with the narrative of the contest between them. For example, Columba desired to obtain the freedom of a young female slave, a countrywoman of his own, who was held in servitude by Broïchan; but had the mortification to find his petition scornfully rejected. "Be it so," he said, at last; "but know, Broïchan, that if thou refusest to liberate thy captive, thou shalt die before I leave this province." And so saying he left the castle, and proceeded towards that river Ness which figures in Pictish history as conspicuously as the Nile in the annals of Egypt. Before he had gone far, however, he was overtaken by two messengers from the king, to tell him that Broïchan had met with a calamity, was dying, and to save his life would liberate the slave. Thereupon Columba picked up a pebble from the river-bank, blessed it, and gave it to two of his monks, with the instruction that the sick man must drink freely of water in which this pebble had been steeped. The king's messengers and the monks returned to the castle, and the latter, in exchange for Columba's stone of healing, received the liberated handmaiden ("liberata famula"), who was sent back to her native country.

Broïchan recovered his health, and with it, his animosity against the Apostle. Resorting to his familiar spirits for help, he covered the waters of Loch Ness, on the day fixed for Columba's return to Iona, with a dense mist, and raised against him a strong contrary wind. Nothing dismayed, Columba embarked, and ordered his mariners to hoist the sail; when, to the confusion of the Druids and the amazement of the people, the boat sped southward as merrily and as speedily as if impelled by a favourable breeze.1

1 Adamnan, ii. 34.

In his enterprise of converting the Picts, Columba was greatly assisted by his disciples, who, fired by their master's enthusiasm, visited the remotest isles of Ocean, or penetrated into the wildest glens, in order to proclaim the faith of CHRIST. We must remember that at this period Northern Scotland was very sparsely inhabited; and the numbers of the Picts were not so large as to render impossible or improbable their conversion by one energetic teacher and a few faithful followers. The real difficulty of the task would consist in the savage character of the country, rendering travelling both laborious and painful, and the still more savage character of the people, long nursed in a wild and sanguinary creed. But over every obstacle their devout perseverance triumphed, and far and wide they pursued their twofold work of civilisation and evangelisation. The numerous monastic communities which they planted exercised, undoubtedly, a favourable influence on the social condition of the Picts; accustoming their members to an orderly and peaceful mode of life, to agricultural pursuits, to the recognition of fixed laws; and preparing the way to a still further development of civilisation. In this direction the good accomplished by S. Columba was considerable; and it is not too much to say, perhaps, that he did more than any of the Pictish kings towards that fusion of the Picts and Scots into one nation which forms the startingpoint of all authentic Scottish history.

BY

CHAPTER III.

Y means of that curious and venerable record of the remote past known as the Book of Deer,1 we obtain an insight into the process by which S. Columba established his monastic colonies.

We are told that the saint and his disciple, Drostan, arrived, in the course of their missionary wanderings, on the

The Book of Deer was edited, for the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, with a scholarly preface, by the late Dr. John Stuart.

rocky shores of the Bay of Aberdeen; and that, soon after their coming, the mormaer, or ruler, of the principality of Buchan made an offering to them of the "city" or settlement of Aberdeen in perpetuity. As there was a not inconsiderable population inhabiting the sea-shore and adjoining district, Columba accepted the gift, and building a few huts, with a church, founded "a monastery."

Then he proceeded to another of the mormaer's “cities,” the situation of which was so pleasant to the poetic eye of the apostle that he asked it in gift, but his request was declined. Here, of course, a miracle comes in. The mormaer's son immediately fell sick to death, and was rescued only by the prayers of Columba at the earnest entreaty of the penitent chief, who then presented him with the land he had previously refused.

On this land huts of stone or wattle were quickly raised as before, and thus sprang into existence the celebrated monastery of Deer.

In the monastic record the story runs as follows :

"Columcille, and Drostán, son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hí, as GOD had shown to them, unto Abbordoboir, and Bede the Pict was mormaer of Buchan before them, and it was he that gave them that town in freedom for ever from mormaer and toisach. They came after that to the other town, and it was pleasing to Columcille, because it was full of God's grace, and he asked of the mormaer, to wit Bede, that he should give it to him; and he did not give it; and a son of his took an illness after [or in consequence of] refusing the clerics, and he was nearly dead [literally, he was dead if it were but a little]. After this the mormaer went to entreat the clerics that they should make prayer for the son, that health should come to him. . . . They made the prayer, and health came to him. After

1 "In later times the parish church of Aberdour was dedicated to S. Drostan. It was placed by the brink of a gorge, on a ledge or table-land overlooking the brow of the Dour, at a spot about 150 yards distant from the shore of the Moray Firth. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the bones of the saint were here preserved in a stone chest, and many cures were effected by means of them. In the face of the rock, near where the stream falls into the sea, is a clear and powerful spring of water, known as S. Drostan's Well."-Dr. Stuart, Preface to the Book of Deer, pp. iv., v.

that Columcille gave to Drostán that town, and blessed it, and left it as [his] will, whosoever shall come against it, let him not be many-yeared [or] victorious.' Drostán's tears came on parting from Columcille. Said Columcille: 'Let Déar [Tear] be its name henceforth.' "1

2

The site of Deer, as Dr. Stuart remarks, would have much in it to attract the susceptible nature of S. Columba. With rich pastures washed by the ripple of the river, and the deep shadows of the oak trees clothing the surrounding heights; the scene could scarcely fail to remind him of his own wellloved monastery of Durrow, with its woods and grassy levels, in which, as he himself tells us, he was wont to listen to the murmur of the winds and the flute-like notes of the joyous ouzel.

If a

It is always stated that in the Columbite monasteries the rules of obedience and asceticism were strictly enforced; but they applied, we imagine, only to those members charged with religious duties. Among them the spirit of their daily life was indeed austere. As Mr. Hill Burton observes, its austerity is indirectly shown by the nature of the relaxations allowed in accordance with the dictates of hospitality. stranger arrived on a fast day, a consolatio cibi, or slight repast of bread and milk, was allowed to break in upon the prolonged abstinence. The duties exacted by the monks were exceedingly arduous; the punishments inflicted, very rigorous; yet that, on the whole, the sway of Columba was gentle though firm, and tender though exact, we may infer, not only from what we know of his character, but from the love and reverence with which he was regarded. How marvellous the contrast between the present and the Iona of the Columban age! poverty-stricken, and lying, as it were, on the

Iona of the Barren and outskirts of

1 The word Deer, however, seems really to be identical with Daire, "oak-groves ;" and it is to be noted that Columba was partial to founding his communities in the shelter of the great oak-forests, as here, at Deer; and at Durrow and Derry in Ireland.

2 The "Book of Deer," which is still in existence, would seem to have been transcribed by one of the Pictish monks early in the ninth century. It contains the Gospel of John complete, portions of the other Evangelists, and numerous memoranda in Gaelic of grants made by the Celtic chiefs of Buchan, written by a different hand, and at a different date. 3 Burton, "History of Scotland," i. 253.

British_civilization, it is visited in the summer season only by curious tourists, or by pilgrims desirous of paying their homage to a great man's memory. But in the sixth century it was the scene of a busy cultivation; horses, cattle and sheep throve upon its pastures, a large community lived almost entirely upon its produce; a small flotilla of barks and coracles continually hovered about its shores; and illustrious strangers, both civilians and ecclesiastics, repaired to it in such numbers as almost to rival the Miltonic picture of Imperial Rome.1

"See

What conflux issuing forth, or entering in,

Of embassies from regions far remote.'

About A.D. 571 or 574, died Conal, King of the Dalriadic Scots. At the time of his death, Columba was in the island of Hinba, and in a vision an angel appeared to him three times in succession, showing him the "glass book" of the ordination or consecration of kings. Reading in its pages, he found it written that he was to place the crown on the brow of Aidan, nephew of Conal, and son of King Gauran. This was not pleasing to the Saint, as he preferred Aidan's brother, Eogenan. But each night came the angel with the mystic book, and each night he smote the saint with a whip, saying:-" Know for certain that I am sent to thee by GOD, in order that thou mayest ordain Aidan to the kingdom, according to the words which thou hast read." So that at last Columba was forced to obey, and returning to Iona, he was met by Aidan, and he laid his hands upon him, and blessed him, and foretold the fortunes of his dynasty.

How much of the fabulous mingles with this narrative it is impossible to say, but I cannot attribute to its incidents the importance claimed for them by some enthusiastic writers. Montalembert, for instance, gravely asserts that Columba thus claimed, in respect to the Scottish or Dalriadic kingdom, the same authority with which the Abbots of Armagh, as successors of S. Patrick, were already invested in respect to the "kings" of Ireland. Dr. Lingard with equal gravity

1 Milton, "Paradise Regained," iv. 61-67.

2 The Vitreux Codex, so called because it was enclosed in a glass or crystal cover.