Notices of the Early Ecclesiastical History of East Lothian 

 and the Bass, and of Caves as the retreats of the Early 

 Saints. By John Stuaet, LL.D., Secretary to the 

 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 



The missionaries by whom the glad tidings of the Gospel 

 were proclaimed to the rude tribes of the north were led to 

 select for their early settlements such spots as combined the 

 advantages of seclusion with safety. It was thus that in 

 the history of the infant church, we find its monastic bodies 

 nursed sometimes within the walls of a Saxon palace, as at 

 Canterbury, or the palisades of an Irish rath, as at Deny 

 and Armagh, while at other times they betook themselves 

 to solitary islands and gloomy caves. The sentiment which 

 impelled the illustrious Columba to select for his monastery 

 the storm beaten island of Iona, around which there linger 

 so many imperishable memories, was reproduced in the 

 choice of Lindisfarne for a like purpose by the holy Colum- 

 bite Aidan, when he was sent forth from the solitude of Iona 

 at the request . of the Northumbrian king. The monastic 

 ruins on the Isles of Aran, Tory, and Irishmurray on the 

 Irish coast, as well as those on the Welsh islands of Bardsey 

 and Ramsey, are evidences of the diffusion of the feeling 

 referred to. We are thus prepared to find that the Bass and 

 other islands in the Firth of Forth were selected as the 

 retreats of early colonies of monks and hermits. Of these 

 the Isle of May in the mouth of the Firth was the seat of a 

 monastic establishment of St. Adrian, who at first laboured 

 as a missionary among the southern Picts of Fife, but 

 having, like St. Cuthbert, come to desire a place of greater 

 retirement and more uninterrupted devotion, he retreated to 

 the adjacent " May." Here, with his "company," he received 

 the crown of martyrdom at the hands of the Danes, about 

 the time that the first establishments at Iona and Lindis- 

 farne were consumed in the fires kindled by the same pagan 

 bands. In the words of our old chronicler, Wyntown — 



" Apon haly Thurysday 

 Saynt Adriane thai slwe in May, 

 With mony of hys cumpany 

 Into that haly Isle thai ly." 



(2?., vi., o. viii.) 



At an early period Inchcolm afforded an asylum to one of 

 an order of hermits, of whom there were many represen- 



