5 28 CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY. 



everything to the Divine inspirations of faith, to the nohle impulses of the 

 human conscience, and, above all, to the ardour of Christian feeling. 



The invasions, which were continually letting loose a fresh torrent of 

 barbarians into Gaul, the intestine struggles of conquerors and invaders, 

 and the laborious transformation of pagan society had in nowise checked 

 the impulse of Christian proselytism. It was then that Ireland, which had 

 not long since received the Gospel revelation conveyed to that country by 

 St. Patrick, in her turn supplied a noble band of missionaries who preached 

 the Christian religion. Amongst them shone in the first rank (540 615), 

 St. Columba, the founder of the Monastery of Luxeuil, whose utterances, 

 bearing the impress of the most burning zeal, were marked by a vehemence 

 of ideas which anticipated, so to speak, his words. In one of his sermons 

 he exclaims, " Oh, fragile life ! Thou art the way, and not the life. Thou 

 startest from sin to arrive at death. An arid road, long for some, short for 

 others ; sometimes dreary, and sometimes pleasant, but alike rapid for all ; 

 many follow thee, without asking whither thou leadest. Human life is a 

 tiling to dread, and it is beset by dangers ; it passes like a bird, like a shadow, 

 like an image, like nothing." One might imagine that Dante had this passage 

 in his mind when he began to write his "Divine Comedy." These Irish 

 missionaries made, especially in Northern Gaul, numerous disciples, who also 

 devoted themselves to preaching the Gospel. They were to be met with 

 everywhere, in the towns and the country districts, travelling from place to 

 place on donkeys, preaching as they went, and stopping at the houses on the, 

 road. The people humbly saluted them as they passed, the rich and the 

 great esteemed it an honour to accord them hospitality, and even kings were 

 proud to give a seat at table to these holy men, who, as a hagiographer has 

 said, "placed beside the master of the house, and amidst the pleasures of the 

 festive board, served also to the guests the wholesome food of the Divine 

 word." 



Germany, like Gaul, was visited by these Catholic missionaries from 

 Ireland. The most celebrated of them was St. Boniface (675 755), whom 

 Michelet described as " a hero who crossed the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea 

 so often that he was, as it were, the connecting link between nations. It was 

 through him that the Franks came to an understanding with Rome and the 

 other Germanic tribes. He it was who attached these nomad tribes to the soil 

 by means of religion and civilisation, and unwittingly prepared the way for 



