The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1897-02-13

arrival that he had forgotten his book
| OF prayers. Word was passed down the
! line to this effect. and it was found that
the last Of the procession was only just
| leaving the Church of Kllmalkedar. He
returned to find the book, and it was
| PASSED from hand to hand right up the
mountain.
St. Brendan, like so many of the early
Irish saints, was Of noble birth, of the
race Of the Hy Alta. His father was a
Christian, and put himself under the
| spiritual direction Of Bishop Ere, who
! lived at place three miles north
of Ardfert; but at the age OF
| one year the child Brendan was
received as foster-child by St. Ida, who
| reared him with the devoted care of a
! mother until he was old enough to profit
| by the instructions of the good Bishop
| Frs, man Of high authority in the
| kingdom and called the t'sweet-spoken
! Judge Of st. Patrick" Both of these
seem to have lavished the love of their
hearts upon the youth, and to have guild
ed him wisely and instructed him dill
gently, for tia was prudent in word and
work, sweet and winning in her address.
but constant of mind and firm Of pur-
{ pose.' But call was coming to st.
| Brendan. After travelling through Ire
!, land to make careful study of the rules
of the various monastic settlements, and
| spending a heightened period at Anain-
| fois for the study of Latin and the
(; Scritures, he returned to Bishop Ere
| and received ordination from his hands.
F.; The Gospel read that day. sank deep into
! his mind, and seemed to. him to be
I call from heaven. Everyone that hath
| forsaken father or mother or sisters or
lands shall receive a hnpdredfold and
shall possess everlasting life" (st.
! Mathew, XIX, 29.)
After that we read In an; old life OF the
/! Saint, 1.-THE love of ches,Lord grew ex-
| ceedingly in his heart ami. he desired TO
,
| parents and his fatherland, and he
! urgently besought the Lard to give him
a land secret, hidden, seeurey delightful,
separated from men," Then he arose and
/, went alone to a mountain beside "1he
mighty into1erable ocean," and there an
angel met him and promised to teach
! him how to find the beautiful land that
/ he desired to obtain. Thus was the I'M
/ pulse given to St. Brendan's two voy-
| ages, around which in the hands of me-
diaeval writer's SO many strange legends
| have grown that we hardly can distin-
| guish truth from falsehood; but the
length of the second voyage, and the
fact that on st .Ita's advice he ex-
! changed his skin~covered canoe for
a large vessel of wood, we'll man
ned and provided with guides and
workmen as we'll as sailors. and with
plants and seeds as well as provisions,
together With mention of islands of fair
birds and lands of great. rivers, suggests
that he may have reached America a
thousand years before Columbus
Thinking these thoughts we descended
the hill and reached the little harbor at
it's foot just in time to witness practi-
cal illustration OF the use of canoes on
the broad Atlantic. The fishermen We're
preparing for their evenings work, and
a quaint and picturesque scene it was.
All along the ledges of the cliff lay the
black canoes turned bottom upward. The
men were launching them by carrying
them down On their heads, two under
each boat, to the edge Of the slip, and
turning them over into the water AS
we only saw the legs OF these men rising
from beneath the black boat, the whole
| place had the aspect Of a swarm of i'm
mense moving beetles marching in pro-
cession to the brink of the sea. some
were busy running out their nets and
lines, and others were getting into their
well-used tarpaulins, without which they
would many a time be wet in to the skin.
They were a fine manly race Of fellows,
and we could hear them chatterino
away in subdued fashion in Irish, as
men do who have hard toll before them,
and see them crossing themselves before
they took their narrow-biaded oars in
hand, for is not the ocean treacherous
while their barks are fran and might
there not be some who wotld come home
no more in the morning unleas it pleased
God to give them fair night and good
fishing?
Dingle Is place as yet almost un-
visited by tourists, and: rerhaps more
than any spot in Misunderstanding it's
pristine simplicity and it's old dstraditions.
Yet it is ons of those out,okthe-way cor
ners that keep special teeasures for the
archacologist, the hotani9 and the geolo-
gist. Every spot, too, II fragrant with
tradition and historic association; below
us, in smerwick HarboF LIE the Spanish
!, graves that speak Of a:wind- devastated
Armada; the Fort De Fore" around
which curious legendss hang; the spot
where the famous Little Revenge of
Sir Richard Greville reeeiyed her "bap-
80.