The religion which thus sprang out of the heart of a people and penetrated every part of their national life, shone with a radiant spiritual fervour. The prayers and hymns that survive from the early church are inspired by an exalted devotion, a profound and original piety, which won the veneration of every people who came into touch with the people of Ireland. On mountain cliffs, in valleys, by the water-side, on secluded islands, lie ruins of their churches and oratories, small in size though made by masons who could fit and dovetail into one another great stones from ten to seventeen feet in length; the little buildings preserved for centuries some ancient tradition of apostolic measurements, and in their narrow and austere dimensions, and their intimate solemnity, were fitted to the tribal communities and to their unworldly and spiritual worship. An old song tells of a saint building, with a wet cloak about him—
"Hand on a stone, hand lifted up,
Knee bent to set a rock,
Eyes shedding tears, other lamentation,
And mouth praying."
Piety did not always vanquish the passions of a turbulent age. There were local quarrels and battles. In some hot temporal controversy, in some passionate religious rivalry, a monastic "rath" may have fallen back to its original use as a fort. Plunderers fell on a trading centre like Clonmacnois, where goods landed from the Shannon for transport across country offered a prize. Such things have been known in other lands. But it is evident that disturbances were not universal or continuous. The extraordinary work of learning carried out in the monastic lands, the sanctuary given in them for hundreds of years to innumerable scholars not of Ireland alone, shows the large peace that must have prevailed on their territories.
The national tradition of monastic and lay schools preserved to Erin what was lost in the rest of Europe, a learned class of laymen. Culture was as frequent and honourable in the Irish chief or warrior as in the cleric. Gaiety and wit were prized. Oral tradition told for many centuries of a certain merryman long ago, and yet he was a Christian, who could make all men he ever saw laugh however sad they were, so that even his skull on a high stone in the churchyard brought mirth to sorrowful souls.
We must remember, too, that by the Irish system certain forms of hostility were absolutely shut out. There is not a single instance in Irish history of the conflicts between a monastery and its lay dependents which were so frequent on the continent and in England—as, for example, at St. Albans, where the monks paved their church with the querns of the townsfolk to compel them to bring their corn to the abbey mill. Again, the broad tolerance of the church in Ireland never allowed any persecution for religion's sake, and thus shut the door on the worst form of human cruelty. At the invasion of the Normans a Norman bishop mocked to the archbishop of Cashel at the imperfection of a church like the Irish which could boast of no martyr. "The Irish," answered the archbishop, "have never been accustomed to stretch forth their hands against the saints of God, but now a people is come into this country that is accustomed and knows how to make martyrs. Now Ireland too will have martyrs." Finally, the Irish church never became, as in other lands, the servant, the ally, or the master of the state. It was the companion of the people, the heart of the nation. To its honour it never served as the instrument of political dominion, and it never was degraded from first to last by a war of religion.
The free tribes of Ireland had therefore by some native instinct of democratic life rejected for their country the organisation of the Roman state, and had only taken the highest forms of its art, learning, and religion, to enrich their ancient law and tradition: and through their own forms of social life they had made this culture universal among the people, and national. Such was the spectacle of liberty which the imperial Agricola had feared.