THE PRESTDBNT's ADDRESS. 375 



On the Steppes of Tibet there is a practical reason for the 

 development of Buddhish monasticism. That elevated and sterile 

 plateau can maintain only a limited population, and it is to keep 

 the growth of the population down that so large a proportion 

 of the males are consigned to celibacy. Precisely the same 

 cause provoked the ascetic and celibate societies of the Druids 

 first and the Christian monks afterwards. When no new lands 

 were available for colonisation, when the three field system was 

 the sole method of agriculture known, then the land which 

 would maintain at least three families now would then support 

 but one. To keep the equipoise there were but migration, war, 

 and compulsary celibacy as alternatives. That this really was 

 a difficulty that confronted the old Celtic communities we can 

 see by a story told in the preface to the old Hymn of S. 

 Colman. In 657 the population in Ireland had so increased, 

 that the arable land proved insufficient for the needs of the 

 country; accordingly an assembly of clergy and laity was 

 summoned by Dermot and Blaithmac, kings of Ireland, to take 

 counsel. It was decided that the amount of land held by any 

 one person should be restricted from the usual allowance of nine 

 ridges of plough land, nine of bog, nine of pasture, and nine of 

 forest ; and further the elders of the assembly directed that 

 prayers should be offered to the Almighty to send a pestilence 

 "to reduce the number of the lower class, that the rest might 

 live in comfort." 



S. Fechin of Fore, on being consulted, approved of this 

 extraordinary petition. And so the prayer was answered from 

 heaven, by the sending of the terrible Yellow Plague ; but the 

 vengeance of God caused the force of the pestilence to fall 

 on the nobles and clergy, of whom multitudes, including the 

 Kings and Fechin of Fore himself, were carried off.* 



When the Brythons conquered Britain, they found the 

 Religious Tribal institutions in full vigour, but Christianity 

 infiltrated the Celtic community without subverting institutions. 

 It entered into them and invested them with new significance, 

 gave them a new force, just as in the old empire, Christianity 

 running into the mould of imperial organisations took 



*The Irish "Liber Hymnorum," 1898, II, pp. 12, 114. 



