and the empty stone coffin where his body was laid together with that of his servant; his bones were removed afterwards to Dunkeld. The old convent was destroyed and the monks were killed by the wild Danes and Norsemen in the tenth century. The remaining ruins of Iona-a cathedral, a chapel, a nunnery, a graveyard with the tombstones of a number of Scottish and Norwegian and Irish kings, and three remarkable carved crosses, which were left of three hundred and sixty that (according to a vague tradition) were thrown into the sea by the iconoclastic zeal of the Reformation—are all of the Roman Catholic period which succeeded the original Keltic Christianity, and which lived on its fame. During the middle ages Iona was a sort of Jerusalem of the North, where pilgrims loved to worship, and kings and noblemen desired to be buried. When the celebrated Dr. Johnson, in his Tour to the Hebrides, approached Iona, he felt his piety grow warmer. No friend of missions can visit that lonely spot, shrouded in almost perpetual fog, without catching new inspiration and hope for the ultimate triumph of the gospel over all obstacles.'

1 "Hither came holy men from Erin to take counsel with the Saint on the troubles of clans and monasteries which were still dear to him. Hither came also bad men red-handed from blood and sacrilege to make confession and do penance at Columba's feet. Hither, too, came chieftains to be blessed, and even kings to be ordained—for it is curious that on this lonely spot, so far distant from the ancient centres of Christendom, took place the first recorded case of a temporal sovereign seeking from a minister of the Church what appears to have been very like formal consecration. Adamnan, as usual, connects his narrative of this event, which took place in 547, with miraculous circumstances, and with Divine direction to Columba, in his selection of Aidan, one of the early kings of the Irish Dalriadic colony in Scotland.

"The fame of Columba's supernatural powers attracted many and strange visitors to the shores on which we are now looking. Nor can we fail to remember, with the Reilig Odhrain at our feet, how often the beautiful galleys of that olden time came up the sound laden with the dead,—' their dark freight a vanished life.' A grassy mound not far from the present landing-place is known as the spot on which bodies were laid when they were first carried to the shore. We know from the account of Columba's own burial that the custom was to wake the body with the singing of psalms during three days and nights before laying it to its final rest. It was then borne in solemn procession to the grave.

Columba directed his zeal

The arrival of Columba at Iona was the beginning of the Keltic church in Scotland. The island was at that time on the confines of the Pictic and Scotic jurisdiction, and formed a convenient base for missionary labors among the Scots, who were already Christian in name, but needed confirmation, and among the Picts, who were still pagan, and had their name from painting their bodies and fighting naked. first to the Picts; he visited King Brude in his fortress, and won his esteem and co-operation in planting Christianity among his people. "He converted them by example as well as by word" (Bede). He founded a large number of churches and monasteries in Ireland and Scotland directly or through his disciples. He was involved in the wars so frequent in those days, when even women were required to aid in battle, and he availed himself of military force for the overthrow of paganism. He used excommunication very freely, and once pursued a plunderer with maledictions into the sea until the water reached to his knees. But these rough usages did not interfere with the veneration for his name. He was only a fair type of his countrymen. "He had," says Montalembert, "the vagabond inclination, the ardent, agitated, even quarrelsome character of the race." He had the "perfervidum ingenium Scotorum." He was manly, tall

How many of such processions must have wound along the path that leads to the Reilig Odhrain! How many fleets of galleys must have ridden at anchor on that bay below us, with all those expressive signs of mourning which belong to ships, when kings and chiefs who had died in distant lands were carried hither to be buried in this holy Isle! From Ireland, from Scotland, and from distant Norway, there came, during many centuries, many royal funerals to its shores. And at this day by far the most interesting remains upon the Island are the curious and beautiful tomb-stones and crosses which lie in the Reilig Odhrain. They belong, indeed, even the most ancient of them, to an age removed by many hundred years from Columba's time. But they represent the lasting reverence which his name has inspired during so many generations, and the desire of a long succession of chiefs and warriors through the Middle Ages and down almost to our own time, to be buried in the soil he trod." The Duke of Argyll, l. c., pp. 95-98.

1 See a list of churches in Reeves, p. xlix.-lxxi., and Forbes, Kalendar, etc., p. 306, 307; comp. also Skene, II. 127 sqq.

and handsome, incessantly active, and had a sonorous and farreaching voice, rolling forth the Psalms of David, every syllable distinctly uttered. He could discern the signs of the weather. Adamnan ascribes to him an angelic countenance, a prophetic fore-knowledge and miracles as great as those performed by Christ, such as changing water into wine for the celebration of the eucharist, when no wine could be obtained, changing bitter fruit into sweet, drawing water from a rock, calming the storm at sea, and curing many diseases. His biography, instead of giving solid facts, teems with fabulous legends, which are told with childlike credulity. O'Donnell's biography goes still further. Even the pastoral staff of Columba, left accidentally upon the shore of Iona, was transported across the sea by his prayers to meet its disconsolate owner when he landed somewhere in Ireland.'

Columba died beside the altar in the church while engaged in his midnight devotions. Several poems are ascribed to himone in praise of the natural beauties of his chosen island, and a monastic rule similar to that of St. Benedict; but the "regula ac præcepta" of Columba, of which Wilfrid spoke at the synod of Whitby, probably mean discipline or observance rather than a written rule."

The church establishment of Columba at Iona belongs to the second or monastic period of the Irish church, of which it formed an integral part. It consisted of one hundred and fifty persons under the monastic rule. At the head of it stood a presbyter-abbot, who ruled over the whole province, and even the bishops, although the episcopal function of ordination was recognized. The monks were a family of brethren living in rommon. They were divided into three classes: the seniors, who attended to the religious services, instruction, and the tran

1 Montalembert's delineation of Columba's character assumes, apparently, the truth of these biographies, and is more eloquent than true. See Skene, II. 145. "On the regula Columbani, seẹ Ebrard, 147 sqq.

8 Bede, H. E., III. 4; V. 9.

scribing of the Scriptures; the middle-aged, who were the working brethren, devoted to agriculture, the tending of the cattle, and domestic labor; and the youth, who were alumni under instruction. The dress consisted of a white tunica or under garment, and a camilla or outer garment and hood made of wool. Their food was bread, milk, eggs, fish, and on Sundays and festivals mutton or beef. The doctrinal views and ecclesiastical customs as to the observance of Easter and the tonsure were the same as among the Britons and the Irish in distinction from the Roman system introduced by Augustin among the Saxons.'

The monastery of Iona, says Bede, held for a long time the pre-eminence over the monasteries and churches of the Picts and Northern Scots. Columba's successors, he adds, were distinguished for their continency, their love of God, and strict attention to their rules of discipline, although they followed " uncertain cycles in their computation of the great festival (Easter), because they were so far away from the rest of the world, and had none to supply them with the synodical decrees on the paschal observance; wherefore they only practised such works of piety and chastity as they could learn from the prophetical, evangelical, and apostolical writings. This manner of keeping Easter continued among them for a hundred and fifty years, till the year of our Lord's incarnation 715."

Adamnan (d. 704), the ninth successor of Columba, in consequence of a visit to the Saxons, conformed his observance of Easter to the Roman Church; but his brethren refused to follow him in this change. After his death, the community of Iona became divided on the Easter question, until the Columban monks, who adhered to the old custom, were by royal command expelled (715). With this expulsion terminates the primacy of Iona in the kingdom of the Picts.

The monastic church was broken up or subordinated to the hierarchy of the secular clergy.

1 For a very full account of the economy and constitution of Iona, see Reeves, Introduction to Life of Saint Columba, pp. e.-cxxxii. 2 H. E. III. 4.

19. The Culdees.

After the expulsion of the Columban monks from the kingdom of the Picts in the eighth century, the term Culdee or Ceile De, or Kaledei, first appears in history, and has given rise to much controversy and untenable theories. It is of doubtful origin, but probably means servants or worshippers of God.' It was applied to anchorites, who, in entire seclusion from society, sought the perfection of sanctity. They succeeded the Columban monks. They afterwards associated themselves into communities of hermits, and were finally brought under canonical rule along with the secular clergy, until at length the name of Culdee became almost synonymous with that of secular canon.

The term Culdee has been improperly applied to the whole Keltic church, and a superior purity has been claimed for it.

There is no doubt that the Columban or the Keltic church of Scotland, as well as the early Irish and the early British churches, differed in many points from the medieval and modern church of Rome, and represent a simpler and yet a very active missionary type of Christianity.

The leading peculiarities of the ancient Keltic church, as distinct from the Roman, are:

1 To Adamnan and to Bede, the name was entirely unknown. Skene (II. 226) says: “In the whole range of ecclesiastical history there is nothing more entirely destitute of authority than the application of this name to the Columban monks of the sixth and seventh centuries, or more utterly baseless than the fabric which has been raised upon that assumption." The most learned and ingenious construction of an imaginary Protestant Culdee Church was furnished by Ebrard and McLauchlan.

2 The word Culdee is variously derived from the Gaelic Gille De, servant of God; from the Keltic Cuil or Ceal, retreat, recess, and Cuildich, men of the recess (Jamieson, McLauchlan, Cunningham); from the Irish Ceile De, the spouse of God (Ebrard), or the servants of God (Reeves); from the Irish Culla, cowl, i. e. the black monk; from the Latin Deicola, cultores Dei (Colidei), worshippers of God the Father, in distinction from Christicola (Calechrist in Irish), or ordinary Christians (Skene); from the Greek кɛλ2ɛārαι, men of the cells (Goodall). The earliest Latin form is Kaledei. In Irish Keile as a substantive means socius maritus, also servus. On the name, see Braun, De Culdeis, Bonn, 1840, McLauchlan, pp. 175 sq.; Ebrard, pp. 2 sq., and Skene, II. 238.