in full armor. On one of these slabs the traveller may behold the effigy of Angus MacDonald, Scott’s Lord of the Isles, and the contemporary of Robert Bruce.
In the centre of the graveyard stands the ruin of a chapel which was built at the close of the eleventh century by St. Margaret of Scotland, and dedicated to St. Oran, the first Irish monk who died in Iona after the landing of St. Columba. Near by is the ancient Irish cross which is said to mark the spot where St. Columba rested on the eve of his death, when he had walked forth to take a last view of his well-beloved island. A little farther north lies the cathedral, ruined and roofless, with its square tower, which is the first object to attract the eye of the pilgrim as he approaches the sacred isle. Iona is but three miles in length and about two miles wide. Unlike the islands by which it is surrounded, it has a sandy beach, which slopes to the water’s edge, and its highest point is but little over three hundred feet above the level of the sea. The ruins all lie on the eastern shore, and are but a few paces from one another. Some little care is taken of them, now that the facilities of travel have turned the attention of travellers to this former home of learning and religion. The chapel of the nunnery is no longer used as a cow-house, nor the cathedral as a stable, as in the time of Dr. Johnson’s visit. Nevertheless, many interesting relics which he saw have since disappeared. Still, enough remains to awaken emotion in the breasts of those whom the thought of noble deeds and heroic lives can move. In treading this sacred soil, and walking among the graves of kings and princes of the church, surrounded by broken walls and
crumbling arches which once sheltered saints and heroes, we are lifted by the very genius of the place into a higher world. The present vanishes. The past comes back to us, and throws its light into the dim and awful future. How mean and contemptible seem to us the rivalries and ambitions of men! This handful of earth, girt round by the sea, holds the glories of a thousand years. All their beauty is faded. They are bare and naked as these broken walls, to which not even the sheltering ivy clings. The voice of battle is hushed; the song of victory is silent; the strong are fallen; the valiant are dead, and around forgotten graves old ocean chants the funeral dirge. Monuments of death mark all human triumphs. And yet St. Columba and his grand old monks are not wholly dead. To them more than to the poet belongs the non omnis moriar. Their spirit lives even in us, if we are Christians and trust the larger hope. What heavenly privilege, like them, to be free, and in the desert and ocean’s waste to find the possibility of the diviner life; like them, to be strong, leaning upon God only! The very rocks they looked upon seem to have gained a human sense; in the air is the presence of unseen spirits, and the waves approach gently as in reverence for the shore pressed by their feet. To have stood, though but for a moment and almost as in a dream, amid these sacred shrines, is good for the soul. It is as if we had gone to the house of one who loved us, and found that he was dead. The world seems less beautiful, but God is nearer and heaven more real.
We have lingered too long among the ruins of Iona. Our ship puffs her sail, and we must go; but our faces are still turned towards the
blessed isle; the cathedral tower rises sadly over the bleak shore, and in a little while the rough and rock-bound coast of the Ross of Mull takes the vision from our eyes. And now I am in Ireland. Landing at Belfast, I went south to Dublin; thence to Wicklow, where I took a jaunting-car and drove through the Devil’s Glen, to Glendalough, through Glenmalure and the Vale of Avoca, and back to Wicklow.
Returning to Dublin, I went southwest to the Lakes of Killarney, passing through nearly the entire extent of the island from east and west. Having made the tour of the lakes and visited Muckross Abbey and Ross Castle, I went to Cork, where I took the train for Youghal, on the Blackwater. I sailed up this beautiful river to Cappoquin, near Lismore. From this point I visited the Trappist monastery of Mt. Melleray. Again taking a jaunting-car, I drove over the Knockmeledown Mountains into Tipperary, along the lovely banks of the river Suir, into Clonmel, thence to Cashel, to Holy Cross Abbey and to Thurles. Returning to Cork, I of course visited Blarney Castle, and then, sailing down the noble sea-avenue that leads to Queenstown, went aboard the steamer which was to bring me home again.
In Rome, it has been said, none are strangers. So much of what is greatest and best in the history of the human race centres there that all men instinctively identify themselves with her life and are at home. In Ireland a Catholic, no matter whence he come, forgets that he is in a foreign land; and in proportion to the love with which he cherishes his faith is the sympathy that draws him to the people who
have clung to it through more suffering and sorrow than have fallen to the lot of any other. More than other races they have loved the church; more than others they have believed that, so long as faith and hope and love are left to the heart, misery can never be supreme. The force with which they realize the unseen world leaves them unbroken amid the reverses and calamities of this life. They are to-day what they were in ages past—the least worldly and the most spiritual-minded people of Europe.
They live in the past and in the future; cling to memories and cherish dreams. The ideal is to them more than the real. Their thoughts are on religion, on liberty, honor, justice, rather than upon gold. They fear sin more than poverty or sickness. When the mother hears of the death of her son, in some distant land, her first thought is not of him, but of his soul. Did he die as a Catholic should die, confessing his sins, trusting in God, strengthened by the sacraments? When he left her weeping, her great trouble was the fear lest, in the far-off world to which he was going, he should forget the God of his fathers, the God of Ireland’s hope; and when in her dreams she saw him back again, her heart leaped for joy, not that he was rich or famous, but that the simple faith of other days was with him still.
The life that is to be is more than that which is. The coldest heart is warmed by this strong faith. In the midst of this simple and pure-hearted people, so poor and so content, so wronged and so patient, so despised and so noble, one realizes the divine power of religion. Whithersoever our little