The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-05-03
THE ISLAND OF SAINTS.
Most Picturesque Land on the Globe.
HER ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
From the Catholic World !

From the Catholic World
Nature has been lavish of her gifts to this
school of the godly and learned. Though
fallen from her high estate, though no longer
the unrivaled land Of science, she is still the
Land Of wild beauty and romantic shapes,
Of the bright garden and ,hs tangled brake
Rugged, precipitous cliffs protect her coasts,
while her shores are indented by the most
magnificent bays and harbors. Her bosom is
stored with precious metals, and the most fer
tile soil in the world crowns her granite base.
geous one, for she is placed, as it were, an adj
vanced guard on the outskirts of Europe-she
opens the route to the great Western world,
and she offers the first eastern port to the
American mariner.
"Moist, bright and green, her landscape
smiles arouEd :" pellucid lakes reflect as in
mirror the hills, rocks and precipices on their
margins; here are unaulating plains Of I'M
equalied veIdure; there, garden-like tracts,
where the myrtle, the rose and the laurel need
no culture; where the evergreen arbutus, in
wonderful luxuriance Of growth, appears to be
indigenous; where every spot is enameled
with flowers and fragrant herbs.
Beautiful Ireland most picturesque land on
the face Of the globe! Alas why not also the
Religion and learning early found a welcome
home in this "emerald gem of the ocean"
Even in the dark days of paganisn,, the priest
and-poet Druid of Erin appears to have been
superior in intelligence and culture to his breth-
rem of England and of the Continent; and
when Christianity was first preached in the
land, no other people ever welcomed it with
such ardent enthusiasm as did the Irish f; no
other people ever clung to their faith with
such inviolable fidelity as Irish Catholics have
since done.
apostolic labors of st. Patrick, great was
the multitude of holy personages who trod in
the way which he traced out eminent the
sapctity of their lives; SO illustrious their
learning. that Ireland received the proud title
of "Island of Saints and Scholars" The
number of her churches was infinite, and her
monasteries and converts were at once the
abodes of piety and the sheltering homes of
the poor and the stranger. Her theological
schools and colleges were the most renowned
of Europe. Their halls were open to the stu
&" were there received with greater hospitality
than in any other country in the Christian
world" Hither, as to the emporium of lit
erature," the youth of France, Germany and
Switzerland and repaired in Jealous search
of knowledge. But to the English nobility
and gentry especially, the Venerable Bede
tells us, Ireland showed the most cordial hos
pitaisy and generosity, for, great though their
numbers, they were all most willingly received
maintained, supplied with books, and instruct
ed without fee or reward"
Aud the tide of sarctity and learning over
flowed the shores of the holy i-le many were
the pioUs missionaries who, in those days OF
religious fervor, went forth to labor for the
salvation of souls among the nations of Europe.
in the countries which reaped the fruits Of
their zeal. The Italian town, San Columbano o,
still bears the name of the great Columbauus,
o native of Leinster; and st. GALL in Switzer-
land, still reminds us of his friend and dis
ciple Gallus. The hermitage of st. Fiacre,
another Irish saint is still one of Frances
Cannaught man, St. Fridolin, " the Traveller"
is still blessed on the banks of the Rhine. The
| famous universities of Paris and of Pavia owe
their origin to the learning and industry of
Clement and John, both Irishmen. From Ire
land the Anglo-Saxons derived their first en-
| lightenment, and till the thirteenth century
the literature of Scotland was the special pro-
| vince of the Irish clergy.
when we look into the ecclesiastical lifo
| of this people," says the learned CORES, we
are almost tempted to believe that some potent
spirit had transported over the sea the cells of
the Valley of the Nile, with all their hermts,
its monasteries with all their inmates, and
had settled them down in the Western isle
an isle which, in the lapse of three centuries,
Church won over to Christianity the north
of Britain and, soon after, a large portion of
the yet pagan Germany; and, while it devoted
the utmost attention to the sciences, cultivated
with especial care tho mystical contemplation
in her religio communities, as we'll as in the
saints whom they produced"
Numerous vestiges are still to be found in
| Ireland of those days of enthusiastic faith.
| Ivy-grown abbeys and churches, and the hab
itations of saints; and the emblem of our holy
creed, now rudely cut on pillar-stones, now
exquisitely carved in fine proportions. are to
| be met with scattered over the whole length
and breadth of the land" memorials" we are
told by celebrated archRologist, not only
of the piety and magnifcence of q people
whom ignorance and prejudice have too often
| sneered at as barbarous, but also as the finest
works of sculptured art, of their period, now
existing"
In the wild and lonely valley of Glendaough,
County Wicklow, are yet to be seen the re-
mains of the noble monastery, "once the lu-
minary of the Western world" founded in the
beginning of the sixth century by St. Kevin,
around which city rose, hourished and de-
cayed. Gloomy mountains encompass the
silent and now almost uninhabited glen, in
whose bosom lie the ruins of shrines which
| nearly thirteen centuries ago were raised in
honor of their God by men joyous and thank
fnl in the feeling of certain mortality-men
whose fathers their youth reverenced the
Druid as a more than human counsellor.
"Yes peopled these silent shades
With sanity forms of days departed,
When holy and yotive aids
Lived humble hero and heavenly hearted"
Here are assembled dismantled churches
crumbling oratories, broken crosses, shattered
monumental stones, and tombs, no longer to
b-l rfh ,kofo