power of the popes in the year 1475. While William Sherwood, bishop of Meath, was lord deputy of Ireland, he held a parliament in Dublin, at which it was declared high treason to bring bulls or rescripts from Rome. And the acts of this assembly were never repealed. It may here also be mentioned, as an illustration of the Anglo-Irish policy, that this same parliament gave permission to any of the English who suffered loss from an Irishman not amenable to the law, to take reprisals for the injury upon the whole sept or nation.1

Such was the political and religious condition of Ireland during all this period. It was truly deserving of commiseration. The natives of the same land, who were intended to live together in peace and quietness, were divided into two opposing parties, entertaining for each other the deepest enmity, and always plunged in civil warfare. These dissensions were carried even into matters of religion. The Church was not the home of all the people; for a large section were excluded from the shelter of its monastic houses and from its pastoral employments, except at a sacrifice too dear to be generally made.

We have thus endeavoured shortly to describe the state into which the Irish Church had gradually fallen. It is painful to mark the progress of decay; and in this instance the pain is increased by the contrast between these dark days of secularity and the holy zeal of other times. The nursery of so

1 Ware's Annals in An.

many missionaries saw her own children (in a manner) abandoned by those who should have been their guides. The seat of so many schools, once the resort of other nations, had no university in which to train up her own youth. In the very neighbourhood of those monasteries, so remarkable for ascetic piety, the indiscreet use of ecclesiastical censures was making discipline nothing but an empty name; and few in the land of St. Patrick and St. Colum-cille "were able to teach or preach the word of God."

Such were the miserable effects of abusing spiritual influence to secular objects. From the day that spiritual weapons were employed for the purpose of abetting political schemes, and the catholic spirit of the Church narrowed to party-purposes, evils took their rise which have not yet come to a termination. The unhappy divisions which have existed so long-the estrangement of those who should have knelt before a common Altar-may in a measure be regarded as the result of this unhallowed policy. Alas! the seed has borne its fruit only too abundantly; and what will the end be? Let us not grow faint in earnest prayer and fasting, in humiliation for our sins and the sins of our forefathers, and it may yet please God to satisfy the yearnings of so many hearts, and to make us once again even as “a city that is at unity with itself.”

APPENDIX.

No. I.

COLGAN, in his Trias Thaumaturga (Lovan. 1647), has published seven tracts on the life of St. Patrick. The first is an ancient metrical life, written in the Irish language, and ascribed to Fiech, bishop of Sletty, and one of Patrick's earliest disciples. There is internal evidence, however, to make us doubt that Fiech is its author, although unquestionably it is of great antiquity. The three next accounts, which he terms vita 2da, vita 3tia, vita 4ta, are not of very great value, though probably translations from the Irish. Vita 5ta, supposed to have been written by Probus, a monk of the tenth century, is much valued by Dr. Lanigan. Vita 6ta is Jocelyn's life of the saint. It was drawn up in the 12th century, according to Colgan in the year 1185; and although valuable on account of many topographical allusions, contains nevertheless a monstrous collection of legendary fables. Vita 7ta-to which Colgan gives the name of "Tripartita," because it is divided into three parts-is in many respects an important work, although disfigured, like Jocelyn's, by fabulous stories. The Tripartite was originally written partly in Irish, and partly in Latin, but is published by Colgan altogether in the Latin tongue. The authorship of at least a portion of it is attributed to St. Evin, who lived in the sixth century.

R

Besides the lives of St. Patrick published by Colgan, a few others are extant in Ms. There is a very ancient one, written in the Irish language, in the Leabhar Breac; and another, in the same tongue, in the Book of Lismore both мss. of some antiquity, in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. They are not entirely the same, though drawn from the same source, but differ more or less in matters of local detail. The "life" preserved in the Leabhar Breac is the more ancient and the more valuable of the two. Tirechan's "Annotations on the Life of St. Patrick," a Latin tract in Irish characters, is extant in the Book of Armagh, a valuable Ms. of the seventh century, in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Brownlow of Dublin. Sir William Betham has published the text of Tirechan, with a translation, in his "Irish Antiquarian Researches."

No. II.

As it is generally believed that St. Patrick was ordained a bishop by Pope Celestine, I think it desirable to state the authority on which I have founded my assertion in pages 8, 9, that he was consecrated by a Gallican prelate. Jocelyn's Life of St. Patrick, and the Tripartite, are the principal authorities for the more common opinion; but the other is far better supported. Colgan's Vita 2da, Vita 3tia, Vita 4ta, and Vita 5ta, relate that Patrick was consecrated by a bishop named Amator, or Amathorex. The scholiast on the Life by Fiech (n. 14, p. 5) says that this Amator was bishop of Auxerre: but both Ussher and Colgan object, that if Patrick were consecrated by him, he would have been a bishop

before his own master, St. Germain, which was not probable. However, the agreement of these four tracts and the scholiast on Fiech, in the opinion that he was raised to the episcopal order by a Gallican bishop, forms a strong presumption in favour of its correctness. And this amounts almost to certainty when the testimony of the ancient life in the Leabhar Breac is taken into consideration. This tract, without mentioning any name, states that "Patrick then set out for the successor of Peter. He went to a noble person on the way, who conferred the dignity of bishop on him." It is this testimony that I have followed. Dr. Lanigan (vol. i. p. 198) is also of opinion that he was consecrated by a bishop of Gaul. However, the мs. life of St. Patrick in the Book of Lismore agrees with Jocelyn and the Tripartite; and hence it is probable their statement has been taken. The "life" in the Book of Lismore relates that "Patrick then went to Rome, from Germanus, and received the dignity of bishop from the successor of Peter, Celestinus, who sent him into Ireland."

No. III.

"Here he resolved to pass the night, and accordingly his companions lighted a fire, most probably to prepare their food."-Pp. 11, 12.

The published lives of St. Patrick notice this fire as a“ paschal, or divine, or sacred fire," forming a part of the ceremonies of Easter-eve. But was there any ceremony in the Church, of which lighting "a sacred fire" formed a part? Perhaps there was some reference to the eastern practice of burning torches or candles upon the