monastery of Derm Each, 'the field of oaks,' which we call Derry, and
went away at the risk of his life to preach to the wild Picts of
Galloway, and founded the great monastery of Iona, and that
succession of abbots from whom Christianity spread over the south of
Scotland and north of England, under his great successor Aidan.

Aidan has his myths likewise. They tell of him how he stilled the
sea-waves with holy oil; how he turned back on Penda and his Saxons
the flames with which the heathen king was trying to burn down
Bamborough walls. But they tell, too (and Bede had heard it from
those who had known Aidan in the flesh) of 'his love of peace and
charity, his purity and humility, his mind superior to avarice or
pride, his authority, becoming a minister of Christ, in reproving the
haughty and powerful, and his tenderness in relieving the afflicted,
and defending the poor.' Who, save one who rejoiceth in evil,
instead of rejoicing in the truth, will care to fix his eyes for a
moment upon the fairy tales which surround such a story, as long as
there shines out from among them clear and pure, in spite of all
doctrinal errors, the grace of God, the likeness of Jesus Christ our
Lord?

Let us look next at the priest as Tribune of the people, supported
usually by the invisible, but most potent presence of the saint,
whose relics he kept. One may see that side of his power in
Raphael's immortal design of Attila's meeting with the Pope at the
gates of Rome, and recoiling as he sees St. Peter and St. Paul
floating terrible and threatening above the Holy City. Is it a myth,
a falsehood? Not altogether. Such a man as Attila probably would
have seen them, with his strong savage imagination, as incapable as
that of a child from distinguishing between dreams and facts, between