seas.
An Irish missionary, Columban, founded monasteries in Burgundy and the
Apennines. The canton of St. Gall still commemorates in its name another
Irish missionary before whom the spirits of flood and fell fled wailing
over the waters of the Lake of Constance. For a time it seemed as if the
course of the world's history was to be changed, as if the older Celtic
race that Roman and German had swept before them had turned to the moral
conquest of their conquerors, as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was
to mould the destinies of the Churches of the West.

[Sidenote: Aidan]

On a low island of barren gneiss-rock off the west coast of Scotland an
Irish refugee, Columba, had raised the famous mission-station of Iona. It
was within its walls that Oswald in youth found refuge, and on his
accession to the throne of Northumbria he called for missionaries from
among its monks. The first preacher sent in answer to his call obtained
little success. He declared on his return that among a people so stubborn
and barbarous as the Northumbrian folk success was impossible. "Was it
their stubbornness or your severity?" asked Aidan, a brother sitting by;
"did you forget God's word to give them the milk first and then the
meat?" All eyes turned on the speaker as fittest to undertake the
abandoned mission, and Aidan sailing at their bidding fixed his bishop's
see in the island-peninsula of Lindisfarne. Thence, from a monastery
which gave to the spot its after name of Holy Island, preachers poured
forth over the heathen realms. Aidan himself wandered on foot, preaching
among the peasants of Yorkshire and Northumbria. In his own court the
King acted as interpreter to the Irish missionaries in their efforts to
convert his thegns. A new conception of kingship indeed began to blend
itself with that of the warlike glory of AEthelfrith or the wise
administration of Eadwine, and the moral power which was to reach its
height in AElfred first dawns in the story of Oswald. For after times the
memory of Oswald's greatness was lost in the memory of his piety. "By
reason of his constant habit of praying or giving thanks to the Lord he
was wont wherever he sat to hold his hands upturned on his knees." As he
feasted with Bishop Aidan by his side, the thegn, or noble of his
war-band, whom he had set to give alms to the poor at his gate told him
of a multitude that still waited fasting without. The king at once bade
the untasted meat before him be car