rod of Jesus,' and they rolled over the cliff, in hideous rout,
and perished in the Atlantic far below. But it matters much to a wise
man that under all these symbols (not childish at all, but most grand, to
the man who knows the grand place of which they are told), there is set
forth the victory of a good and beneficent man over evil, whether of
matter or of spirit. It matters much to him that that cell, that bell,
that image are tokens that if not St. Patrick, some one else, at least,
did live and worship on that mountain top, in remote primaeval times, in
a place in which we would not, perhaps could not, endure life a week. It
matters much to him that the man who so dwelt there, gained such a power
over the minds of the heathen round him, that five millions of their
Christian descendants worship him, and God on account of him, at this
day.

St. Ita, again. It matters little that she did not--because she could
not--perform the miracles imputed to her. It matters little whether she
had or not--as I do not believe her to have had--a regularly organized
convent of nuns in Ireland during the sixth century. It matters little
if the story which follows is a mere invention of the nuns in some after-
century, in order to make a good title for the lands which they held--a
trick but too common in those days. But it matters much that she should
have been such a person, that such a story as this, when told of her,
should have gained belief:--How the tribes of Hy-Connell, hearing of her
great holiness, came to her with their chiefs, and offered her all the
land about her cell. But she, not wishing to be entangled with earthly
cares, accepted but four acres round her cell, for a garden of herbs for
her and her nuns. And the simple wild Irish were sad and angry, and
said, 'If thou wilt not take it alive, thou shalt take it when thou art
dead. So they chose her then and there for their patroness, and she
blessed them with many blessings, which are fulfilled unto this day; and
when she migrated to the Lord they gave her all the land, and her nuns
hold it to this day, the land of Hy-Connell on the east Shannon bank, at
the roots of Luachra mountain.'

What a picture! One hopes that it may be true, for the sake of its
beauty and its pathos. The poor, savage, half-naked, and, I fear, on the
authority of St. Jerome and others, now and then cannibal Celts, with
their saffron scarfs, and skenes, and darts, and glibs of long hai