Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-06-25
THE HOLY ISLE.
1t Is to Become Once More Habita-
 ton for Monks.


 ton for Monks.
 It is strange news and stirring to the imagination that colony of Cath olic monks expelled from France should find refuge in, Presbyterian Scotland. Especially is 1t strange that the Duke of Argyll. who comes as near to being Presbyterian Pope as the nature of Scotch Presbyterian ism admits, should have sold the Car thusians the land upon which they are to settle, and that they should flee to the rocks of Scotland from their her m1tage In the sunny land of France. AS at1matter of fact the change Of eli mate will not be so severe for the good Carthusians as might appear, for a few thousand feet of altitude are climatically equivalent to many de- grees of latitude, and the Grande Char treuse, 4.26S feet above sea level, must be nearly as bleak and inhospitabIe if not so foggy, as the northern shores of Caledonia. And there is a great fitness in the flight of these monks to a Christian shrine which was estab- lished almost a thousand years before there was any division in the Church Catholic or the word Protestant had been heard in Europe as an ec- clesiastical slogan. For when, that enterprising Trishman St Columbia sailed eastward from his native island to t'evangelize'' Scotland,
 Breaking the silence of the seas
 Among the furthest Hebrides," the broad division between Christian ity and heathendom was all the saint ly missionary knew.
 How the monks will get their nv- ings in their new refuge remains to be seen. That they will do it somehow, their past record leaves no doubt. They cannot continue to concoct that aromatic, sacchar.r1e, and vari-colored fluid which has made the name of their bleak and austere "Hospice'' known In all the haunts of luxury and fashion throughout the world. They may manage, out of the scanty herb age of their new half-frozen island to make an equally wonderful distfl- lation, or in default of that, they may devote themselves to the Improvement of the existing brands of Scotch whis- key and compete successfully with the Presbyterian distillers by means of q new "Chartreuse." At any rate, there is particular appropriateness in their flight to the early and ruinous shrine which Is said to contain the re mains of forty eight Kings of Scot, land, four Kings of Ireland, and eight Kings of Norway Their presence on the island will give new point to the eloquent apostrophe of the learned Samuel Johnson, LL.D.:-
 we are now treading that illustri- ous island which was once the lumi nary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and rowing barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if 1t were endeavored and would be foolish if 1t were pos sible. Whatever withdraws us iron, 1 the power of senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, ad vances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and un moved over any ground which has been dignfffed by wisdom, bravery, ol virtue. Thataman is little to be .enviec whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona. ."---New York Times