oral
life inspired the students, a life rich also in purely intellectual and
artistic force. The ancient churches speak for themselves; the artistic
spirit of the time is splendidly embodied in the famous Latin
manuscript of the Gospels, called the Book of Kells, the most beautiful
specimen of illumination in the world. The wonderful colored initial
letters reproduce and develop the designs of the old gold work, the
motives of which came, it would seem, from the Baltic, with the De
Danaan tribes. We can judge of the quiet and security of the early
disciples at Kells, the comfort and amenity of their daily life, the
spirit of comity and good-will, the purity of inspiration of that early
time, by the artistic truth and beauty of these illuminated pages and
the perfection with which the work was done. Refined and difficult arts
are the evidence of refined feeling, abundant moral and spiritual force,
and a certain material security and ease surrounding the artist. When
these arts are freely offered in the service of religion, they are
further evidence of widespread fervor and aspiration, a high and worthy
ideal of life.

Yet we shall be quite wrong if we imagine an era of peace and security
following the epoch of the first great Messenger. Nothing is further
from the truth. The old tribal strife continued for long centuries; the
instincts which inspired it are, even now, not quite outworn. Chief
continued to war against chief, province against province, tribe
against tribe, even among the fervent converts of the first teachers.

Saint Brigid is one of the great figures in the epoch immediately
succeeding the first coming of the Word. She was the foundress of a
school of religious teaching for women at Kildare, or Killdara, "The
Church of the Oak-woods," whose name still records her work. Her work,
her genius, her power, the immense spiritual influence for good which
flowed from her, entitle her to be remembered with the women of
apostolic times, who devoted their whole lives to the service of the
divine. We have seen the esteem in which women were always held in
Ireland. St. Brigid and those who followed in her steps gave effect to
that high estimation, and turned it to a more spiritual quality, so that
now, as in all past centuries, the ideal of womanly purity is higher in
Ireland than in any country in the world.

This great soul departed from earthly life in the year 525, a generation
after the death of the first Mess