others would do. A countless army of missionary men and women
marching from the Irish shore would conquer the world's conquerors,
regain for the Church the Anglo-Saxon race. Once in the far past Irish
men and women had Christianized Europe, and Ireland had won her glorious
title, 'Island of Saints.' Now the great day was to dawn again, the
great race to be reborn. For this end had Ireland been kept faithful and
pure for centuries, just that she might be at last the witness to
the spiritual in a materialized world. For this end had the Church in
Ireland gone through the storm of persecution, suffered the blight of
the world's contempt, that she might emerge in the end entirely fitted
for the bloodless warfare.

'And I am one of the race, a daughter of Ireland. And I am a
worker--nay, one who has accomplished something--in the vineyard of the
Church. Ah, God!'

She was swept forward on a wave of emotion. Thought ceased, expiring
in the ecstasy of a communion which transcended thought. Then suddenly,
sharp as an unexpected pain, an accusation shot across her soul,
shattering the coloured glory of the trance in an instant.

'Who am I that I should boast?'

The long years of introspection, the discipline of hundreds of
heart-searching confessions, the hardly-learned lesson of self-distrust,
made it possible for her to recognise the vain-glory even with the halo
of devotion shining round it. She abased herself in penitence.

'Give me the work, my Lord; give others the glory and the fruit of it.
Let me toil, but withhold the reward from me. May my eyes not see it,
lest I be lifted up! Nay, give me not even work to do, lest I should be
praised or learn to praise myself. "Nunc dimittis servam tuam, Domine,
secundum verbum tuum in pace."'

There stole over her a sense of peace--numb, silent peace--wholly unlike
the satisfaction which had flooded her in her own room or during the
earlier ecstasy before the altar. She raised her eyes slowly till they
rested on the shrine where the body of the sacrifice reposed.

'Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum.'

At last she rose. The lines of care and age gathered again upon her
face. Her eyes gleamed with keen intelligence. She braced herself with
the thought of all that might still lie before her. The advice of Iago,
strangely sanctified, clamoured in her heart--' Put money in thy purse.'

CHAPTER XXIV

The Reverend Mother was not the only person well satisfied with the