ical order. But
as he was contemporary with all those whose lives have already been
given, the anachronism, if such it may be called, can be of no great
importance."

That is just the way I feel about it. After living for a whole week
in such close contact with the residence of St. David, I feel a real
interest in him. Just who he was and when he lived, if at all, is a
matter of no great importance.

* * * * *

Yet there are limits to the historical imagination. It must have
something to work on, even though that something may be very vague. We
must draw the line somewhere in our pursuit of antiquity. A relic may be
too old to be effective. Instead of gently stimulating the imagination
it may paralyze it. What we desire is not merely the ancient but the
familiar. The relic must bring with it the sense of auld lang-syne. The
Tory squire likes to preserve what has been a long time in his family.
The traveler has the same feeling for the possessions of the family of
humanity.

The family-feeling does not go back of a certain point. I draw the line
at the legendary period when the heroes have names, and more or less
coherent stories are told of their exploits, People who had a local
habitation, but not a name, seem to belong to Geology only. For all
their flint arrow-heads, or bronze instruments, I cannot think of them
as fellow men.

It was with this feeling that I visited one of the most ancient places
of worship in Ireland, the tumulus at Newgrange. It was on a day filled
with historic sight-seeing. We started from Drogheda, the great
stronghold of the Pale in the Middle Ages, and the scene of Cromwell's
terrible vengeance in 1649. Three miles up the river is the site of the
Battle of the Boyne. It was one of the great indecisive battles of the
world, it being necessary to fight it over again every year. The Boyne
had overflowed its banks, and in the fields forlorn hay-cocks stood like
so many little islands. We stopped at the battle monument and read its
Whiggish inscription, which was scorned by our honest driver. We could
form some idea of how the field appeared on the eventful day when King
William and King James confronted each other across the narrow stream.
Then the scene changed and we found ourselves in Mellefont Abbey, the
first Cistercian monastery in Ireland, founded by St. Malachy, the
friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. King William and King James were at
once relegated