ever, how in watery Ireland and Scotland a
mere dribblet of the element so generally abounding should have been an
object of veneration for centuries, we must look to something beyond
physical wants and their supply.

The principal cause of the sanctification of springs must, of course, be
explained by the first of Christian ordinances. The spring close by the
dwelling or cell of the saint--the spring on account of which he
probably selected the centre of his mission--had not only washed the
forefathers of the district from the stain of primeval heathenism, but
had applied the visible sign by which all, from generation to
generation, had been admitted into the bosom of the Church. This might
seem to afford a cause sufficient in itself for the effect, yet it
appears to have been aided by other causes more recondite and
mysterious. Notwithstanding all the trash talked about Druids and other
persons of this kind, we know extremely little of the heathenism of the
British Isles. The little that we do know is learned from the meagre
notices which the biographers of the saints have furnished of that
which the saints superseded. It is not their function to commemorate
the abominations of heathenism; they would rather bury it in eternal
oblivion--_premat nox alta_--but they cannot entirely tell the triumphs
of their spiritual heroes without some reference, however faint, to the
conquered enemies.

The earliest recorded conflicts between the new and the old creed are
connected with fountains. In one page of the Life of Columba we find the
saint, on a child being brought to him for baptism, in a desert place
where no water was, striking the rock like Moses, and drawing forth a
rill, which remained in perennial existence--a fountain surrounded by a
special sanctity. In the next page he deals with a well in the hands of
the Magi. They had put a demon of theirs into it to such effect, that
any unfortunate person washing himself in the well or drinking of its
water, was forthwith stricken with paralysis, or leprosy, or blindness
of an eye, or some other corporeal calamity. The malignant powers with
which they had inspired this formidable well spread far around the fear
of the Magi, and consequently their influence. But the Christian
missionaries were to show a power of a different kind--a power of
beneficence, excelling and destroying the power of malignity. The
process adopted is fully described. The saint, after a suitable
invocat