204 Mr. Turnbull on Saint Bathan. 



Connell, now known as the parish church of Taughboyne 

 (locally called Toboyne) in the barony of Raphoe, county of 

 Donegal,^ 



There is no mention of Baithen having personally visited 

 or preached in this district, but that he did so is by no means 

 improbable. It was from lona that Christianity was intro- 

 duced into Northumbria. Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, 

 (who left it in 667,) was a disciple of the seminary of lona, 

 though not of Columba himself as is erroneously stated in 

 Jamieson's history of the Culdees.'^ In the Firth of Forth 

 there is the island of Inchcolm with its ancient cell and pic- 

 turesque ruins. On its shores Dalmeny and other churches 

 consecrated by the same sect, and nearer still St. Bothans or 

 Gifford, all serving as so many stepping stones to this eastern 

 district. 



There is, therefore, no improbability that Baithen himself 

 visited this very spot, and transporting ourselves in imagina- 

 tion backward for 1,300 years, we may be allowed to figure 

 him of athletic frame — of commanding mien — energetic and 

 active — zealous for the propagation of his religion — animated 

 by a love of adventure — as the old poem says " noble and 

 angelical," and having humbly received a blessing from Col- 

 umba leaving the island monastery of lona — after crossing 

 Mull, visiting with all the freedom of an equal, his relative, 

 Aidan, King of Argyle, at Dun Monadh — stirring afresh the 

 pure fire which had there been lighted by Columba — thence 

 travelling, often alone and on foot, through tangled forests and 

 dreary swamps — preaching the gospel on every opportunity 

 to a wild people, and exhibiting its power in his own character 

 of meekness as well as courage — enduring fatigues and priva- 

 tions without complaint — journeying from place to place, 

 sometimes living with a lone monk in a lowly cell, and anon 

 received with honor by the King of Strathclyde — enjoying a 

 season of holy converse with St. Mungo, in his cell on the 

 banks of the pure waters of Clyde, where now stands the 

 manufacturing capital of Scotland, with the din of its thou- 

 sands of factories, the merchant fleets on the polluted waters 

 of its river, and the virtue, vice, and wealth of its half million 

 of inhabitants — thence across to the Forth, where on Stirling's 

 Castle-hill Agricola's ramparts had fallen to decay, but had 

 not been succeeded by any later buildings — lingering on the 

 lovely shores of the Firth to visit the cell of Dalmeny and that 

 other island monastery of Inchcolm, to found, perhaps, a 



a Adam, p 372. 



^ Jamieson's Culdees, p. 19. 



