The mother had remained at Tara, with her husband and the chieftains, for the night; and the children were alone in the house, under the charge of the old nurse, with the rest of the household.
“I felt the bishop’s hands rest on my head,” said Baithene, in a low tone, “and his deep voice went through me. The words were Latin, but I think I understood most of them. We belong to the Father; He is the God of all men, of heaven and earth, of the sea and of the rivers, of the high mountains and the lowly valleys; above heaven, and in heaven, and under heaven. We are His children. And we belong to the Son. He is the King of all men. He died for us all. And we are His soldiers, and His clansmen, of His flesh and blood. And we belong to the Spirit. He is within our hearts, and will teach us and give us strength to be good children of the Father, and good soldiers of the Son, the Heavenly King. And this whole land of ours is only a little bit of His great kingdom. And this whole world of ours is only one of the halls of His great world. But it is worth while to be the son and daughter of an earthly king, for we may lead our whole people to the Heavenly King. Wonderful things have to be done, Ethne. Ireland has to be won for Him. The world has to be won for Him.”
“Is not the world His already?” said the maiden. “Beyond that sea are they not all Christians? Our Patrick was made a Christian there, like the rest, before he was taken captive and brought to our land to be a slave, that he might make our country free; just as the great Christ came to this world to suffer and to die like a slave, to set the world free. Beyond the sea are the Britains, where Patrick’s father lived. And beyond the Britains is Rome, the great Christian Empire of the world, and the great wonderful Christian city. We have been outside this Kingdom of God; but now we have come into it.”
“But if the Britons on the other side of the sea (whose coasts we can see sometimes from ours) are Christians, why did they not tell us the glad tidings before?” said Baithene.
“Perhaps they tried, and could not make us listen,” said Ethne. “People do not seem always to attend at first; father does not quite listen yet.”
“He is the chief. The rights and the wrongs of the clan are his, and he must not pass them by,” said Baithene.
“Must we not forgive?” said the girl. “Patrick forgave, and went first to those who had wronged him most and held him in bondage. And they tell us that the Christ when He rose went first to those who had murdered Him, the people of the Jews.”
“We must forgive our own wrongs, I suppose,” said Baithene, “but perhaps not other people’s wrongs. At least not kings. Kings have to set the wrongs right. And there is the great blood-feud with the other branch of the O’Neills who killed our grandfather.”
“It does not seem so very hard to forgive the people who killed our grandfather,” said Ethne. “For one thing, they must be dead. And how long have we to go on not forgiving their grandchildren, who did not kill our grandfather?”
“I cannot tell,” said Baithene, meditatively. “We have a great deal to learn; we must ask Patrick. We must learn more Latin, and read the Testaments of God.”