trembled, who never had trembled at the sight of armed hosts.

Who would deny that man the name of saint? And who, if by that
sagacity which comes from the combination of intellect and virtue, he
sometimes seemed miraculously to foretell coming events, would deny
him the name of prophet also?

If St. Severinus be the type of the monk as prophet, St. Columba may
stand as the type of the missionary monk; the good man strengthened
by lonely meditation; but using that strength not for selfish
fanaticism, but for the good of men; going forth unwillingly out of
his beloved solitude, that he may save souls. Round him, too,
cluster the usual myths. He drives away with the sign of the cross a
monster which attacks him at a ford. He expels from a fountain the
devils who smote with palsy and madness all who bathed therein. He
sees by a prophetic spirit, he sitting in his cell in Ireland, a
great Italian town destroyed by a volcano. His friends behold a
column of light rising from his head as he celebrates mass. Yes; but
they also tell of him, 'that he was angelical in look, brilliant in
speech, holy in work, clear in intellect, great in council.' That he
'never passed an hour without prayer, or a holy deed, or reading of
the Scriptures (for these old monks had Bibles, and knew them by
heart too, in spite of all that has been written to the contrary),
that he was of so excellent a humility and charity, bathing his
disciples' feet when they came home from labour, and carrying corn
from the mill on his own back, that he fulfilled the precept of his
Master, 'He that will be the greatest among you, let him be as your
servant.'

They also tell of him (and this is fact and history) how he left his