Uses 'of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 193 



fact. We see the result of this feeling exhibited very remarkably in the con- 

 servation, down to a late period, of the humblest and rudest oratories of the 

 first ecclesiastics in all those localities where Irish manners and customs remained, 

 and where such edifices, too small for the services of religion, would not have 

 been deemed worthy of conservation but from such feeling. And of this tena- 

 city of ancient customs, as well as of the repugnance of the Irish to innovation, 

 we have a striking evidence in the fact to which I have already alluded, and shall 

 have occasion again to notice, that previously to the twelfth century, or, as I might 

 say, to the time of St. Malachy, the Irish never appear to have named churches 

 after any but their own saints, who were, in most instances, the original 

 founders. But of this aversion to innovation, we have a still stronger evidence 

 in the reply which, according to St. Bernard, the Irishman at Bangor made to 

 that great innovator St. Malachy, when he was about to erect a church there, 

 not, as is usually supposed, different in material from the churches with which 

 the Irish were already acquainted, but, as we may well believe, in an ornate 

 fashion, such as he had seen on the continent, and with the style of which the 

 Irish had not been familiarized. I have already alluded to this passage, and given 

 its purport in a translated form, as cited by Harris at p. 122, but it so strongly 

 illustrates the point, which I am now arguing, that I cannot resist the temptation 

 of presenting it to the reader in St. Bernard's own words : 



" . . . . visum est Malachiaj debere construi in Benchor, oratorium lapideum, instar illorum qui 

 [j] in alijs regionibus extructa conspexerat. Et cum coepisset iacere fundamenta, indigenes quidain 

 mirati sunt, quod in terra ilia necdum eiusmodi sdificia inueniretur. Verum ille nequam : sicut 

 erat prEesumptuosus & insolens, non modo miratus est, sed & indignatus. Ex qua indignatione 

 concepit dolore, & peperit iniquitatem. Et factum susurro in populis, nunc secrete detrahere, 

 nunc blasphemare palam, notare leuitatem, nouitate horrere, sumptus exaggerare. Istiusmodi 

 venenatus sermonibus sollicitans & inducens multos ad prohibendum. Sequimini me, inquit, & 

 quod non nisi per nos fieri debet contra nos fieri non sinamus. Itaque cum pluribus, quibus suadere 

 valuit, descendit ad locum, repertum conuenit hominem Dei, primus ipse dux vcrbi, qui erat prin- 

 cipium mali. O bone vir, quid tibi visum est nostris hanc inducere regionibus nouitate ? Scoti 

 sumus, no Galli. Qutenam leuitas hsec ? quid opus erat opere tarn superfluo, tam superbo ? vnde 

 tibi pauperi & inopi sumptus ad perficiendum ? quis perfectum videbit ? Quid istud prsesumptionis, 

 inchoare quod non queas, non dico perficere, sed nee videre perfectum ? quanquam amentis magis 

 est qua prudentis conari quod modum excedit, vincit vires, superat facultates ; Cessa, cessa, desine 

 a vesania hac : alioqui nos no sinimus, non sustinemus. Hoc dixit prodens quid vellet, non quid 

 posset considerans. Nam de quibus praesumebat, & secum adduxerat, viso viro mutati sunt, & iam 

 VOL. XX. 2 C 



