Kingdom. On the other hand, all the vices of the race ranged
themselves against the new religion.

In the main the institutions and traditions of Ireland were
favourable to Christianity. She had preserved in a large measure
the patriarchal system of the East. Her clans were families, and
her chiefs were patriarchs who led their households to battle, and
seized or recovered the spoil. To such a people the Christian
Church announced herself as a great family--the family of man. Her
genealogies went up to the first parent, and her rule was parental
rule. The kingdom of Christ was the household of Christ; and its
children in all lands formed the tribes of a larger Israel. Its
laws were living traditions; and for traditions the Irish had ever
retained the Eastern reverence.

In the Druids no formidable enemy was found; it was the Bards who
wielded the predominant social influence. As in Greece, where the
sacerdotal power was small, the Bards were the priests of the
national Imagination, and round them all moral influences had
gathered themselves. They were jealous of their rivals; but those
rivals won them by degrees. Secknall and Fiacc were Christian
Bards, trained by St. Patrick, who is said to have also brought a
bard with him from Italy. The beautiful legend in which the Saint
loosened the tongue of the dumb child was an apt emblem of
Christianity imparting to the Irish race the highest use of its
natural faculties. The Christian clergy turned to account the Irish
traditions, as they had made use of the Pagan temples, purifying
them first. The Christian religion looked with a genuine kindness
on whatever was human, except so far as the stain was on it; and
while it resisted to the face what was unchristian in spirit, it