the fire of his genius, and facing the reality of
life, he set himself to work, spreading the teaching of the New Way
among the Picts of the north--the same Picts who, in years gone by, had
raged against the barrier of Hadrian between Forth and Clyde. The year
of his setting out was 563; the great center of his work was in the
sacred isle of Iona, off the Ross of Mull. Iona stands in the rush of
Atlantic surges and fierce western storms, yet it is an island of rare
beauty amid the tinted mists of summer dawns. Under the year 592, a
century after Saint Patrick's death, we find this entry in the
Chronicle: "Colum Kill, son of Feidlimid, Apostle of Scotland, head of
the piety of the most part of Ireland and Scotland after Patrick, died
in his own church in Iona in Scotland, after the thirty-fifth year of
his pilgrimage, on Sunday night, the ninth of June. Seventy-seven years
was his whole age when he resigned his spirit to heaven." The corrected
date is 596.

We can see in Colum of the Churches the very spirit of turbulence and
adventure, the fierce impetuosity and readiness for dispute, which led
to the contests between the chieftains of Ireland, the wars between
province and province, often between valley and valley. It is the same
spiritual energy, working itself out in another way, transmuted by the
sacred fire into a divine mission. In the same way the strong will of
Meave, the romantic power of Deirdre and Grania, transmuted to ideal
purposes, was the inspiration of Saint Brigid and so many like her, who
devoted their powers to the religious teaching of women.

We should doubtless fail utterly to understand the riddle of history,
were we to regret the wild warring of these early times as a mere
lamentable loss of life, a useless and cruel bloodshed. We are too much
given to measuring other times and other moods of the soul by our own,
and many false judgments issue from this error. Peaceful material
production is our main purpose, and we learn many lessons of the Will
embodied in the material world when we follow this purpose honestly. But
before our age could begin, it was necessary for the races to come to
personal consciousness. This end seems everywhere to have been reached
by a long epoch of strife, the contending of man against man, of tribe
against tribe. Thus were brought to full consciousness the instinct of
personal valor, personal honor and personal readiness to face death.

Only after this high persona