582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Picts and Scots, and also among tbe northern Irish. No fewer than 

 thirty-two separate religious foundations among the Scots, twenty-one 

 among the Picts, and thirty-seven among the Irish, many of which 

 occupied conspicuous places in the monastic history of the earlier 

 middle ages, seem to have been planted by himself or his immediate 

 disciples ; the most celebrated of all these being the college of the 

 Culdees, at lona, which kept alive the flame of learning during a pro- 

 longed period of general ignorance and superstition, and became a 

 centre of religious influence, which extended far beyond the range of 

 its founder's personal labors, and caused his memory to be held in the 

 deepest veneration for centuries afterward. The point on which I 

 here desire to lay stress is the continuity of history^ as trustworthy as 

 any such history can be ; the incidents of St. Columba's life having 

 been originally recorded in the contemporary fasti of his religious 

 foundation, and transmitted in unbroken succession to Abbot Adam- 

 nan, who first compiled a complete " Vita " of his great predecessor, of 

 which there still exists a manuscript copy, whose authenticity there is 

 no reason to doubt, which dates back to the early part of the eighth 

 century, not much more than one hundred years after St. Columba's 

 death. Now, Adamnan's " Vita " credits its subject with the posses- 

 sion of every kind of miraculous power. The saint prophesied events 

 of all kinds, trivial as well as grave, from battles and violent deaths 

 down to the spilling of an ink-horn, the falling of a book, the omission 

 of a single letter from a writing, and the arrival of guests at the mon- 

 astery. He cured numbers of people afllicted with inveterate dis- 

 eases, accorded safety to storm-tossed vessels, himself walked across 

 the sea to his island-home, drove demons out of milk-jDails, outwitted 

 sorcerers, and gave supernatural powers to domestic implements. 

 Like other saints, he had his visions of angels and apparitions of 

 heavenly light, which comforted and encouraged him at many a try- 

 ing juncture, lasting, on one occasion, for three days and nights. 



Now, it seems to me beyond all reasonable doubt that St. Columba 

 was one of those men of extraordinary energy of character and earnest 

 religious nature who have the power of strongly impressing most of 

 those with whom they come into contact, moulding their wills and 

 awakening their religious sympathies, so as to acquire a wonderful in- 

 fluence over them; this being aided by the commanding personal 

 " presence " he is recorded to have possessed. And it is not surprising 

 that, when themselves the subjects of what they regarded as "super- 

 natural " power, they should attribute to him the exercise of the same 

 power in other ways. In fact, to their un scientific minds it seemed 

 quite " natural " that he should so exert it ; its possession being, in 

 their belief, a normal attribute of his saintship. That he himself be- 

 lieved in his gifts, and that many wonders were actually worked by 

 the concurrent action of his own faith in himself and his followers' 

 faith in him, will not seem unlikely to any one who has carefully 



