Part 11 (2/2)

The shrine of St. Patrick's hand was in possession of the late Catholic Bishop of Belfast. The relic itself has long disappeared; but the shrine, after it was carried off by Bruce, pa.s.sed from one trustworthy guardian to another, until it came into his hands. One of these was a Protestant, who, with n.o.ble generosity, handed it over to a Catholic as a more fitting custodian. One Catholic family, into whose care it pa.s.sed at a later period, refused the most tempting offers for it, though pressed by poverty, lest it should fall into the hands of those who might value it rather as a curiosity than as an object of devotion.

This beautiful reliquary consists of a silver case in the shape of the hand and arm, cut off a little below the elbow. It is considerably thicker than the hand and arm of an ordinary man, as if it were intended to enclose these members without pressing upon them too closely. The fingers are bent, so as to represent the hand in the att.i.tude of benediction.

But there is another relic of St. Patrick and his times of scarcely less interest. The _Domhnach Airgid_[142] contains a copy of the Four Gospels, which, there is every reason to believe, were used by the great apostle of Ireland. The relic consists of two parts--the shrine or case and the ma.n.u.script. The shrine is an oblong box, nine inches by seven, and five inches in height. It is composed of three distinct covers, in the ages of which there is obviously a great difference. The inner or first cover is of wood, apparently yew, and may be coeval with the ma.n.u.script it is intended to preserve. The second, which is of copper plated with silver, is a.s.signed to a period between the sixth and twelfth centuries, from the style of its scroll or interlaced ornaments.

The figures in relief, and letters on the third cover, which is of silver plated with gold, leave no doubt of its being the work of the fourteenth century.

The last or external cover is of great interest as a specimen of the skill and taste in art of its time in Ireland, and also for the highly finished representations of ancient costume which it preserves. The ornaments on the top consist princ.i.p.ally of a large figure of the Saviour in _alto-relievo_ in the centre, and eleven figures of saints in _ba.s.so-relievo_ on each side in four oblong compartments. There is a small square reliquary over the head of our divine Lord, covered with a crystal, which probably contained a piece of the holy cross. The smaller figures in relief are, Columba, Brigid, and Patrick; those in the second compartment, the Apostles James, Peter, and Paul; in the third, the Archangel Michael, and the Virgin and Child; in the fourth compartment a bishop presents a _c.u.mdach_, or cover, to an ecclesiastic. This, probably, has a historical relation to the reliquary itself.

One prayer uttered by St. Patrick has been singularly fulfilled. ”May my Lord grant,” he exclaims, ”that I may never lose His people, which He has acquired in the ends of the earth!” From hill and dale, from camp and cottage, from plebeian and n.o.ble, there rang out a grand ”Amen.” The strain was caught by Secundinus and Benignus, by Columba and Columba.n.u.s, by Brigid and Brendan. It floated away from Lindisfarne and Iona, to Iceland and Tarentum. It was heard on the sunny banks of the Rhine, at Antwerp and Cologne, in Oxford, in Pavia, and in Paris. And still the old echo is breathing its holy prayer. By the priest, who toils in cold and storm to the ”station” on the mountain side, far from his humble home. By the confessor, who spends hour after hour, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, absolving the penitent children of Patrick. By the monk in his cloister. By n.o.ble and true-hearted men, faithful through centuries of persecution. And loudly and n.o.bly, though it be but faint to human ears, is that echo uttered also by the aged woman who lies down by the wayside to die in the famine years,[143]

because she prefers the bread of heaven to the bread of earth, and the faith taught by Patrick to the tempter's gold. By the emigrant, who, with broken heart bids a long farewell to the dear island home, to the old father, to the grey-haired mother, because his adherence to his faith tends not to further his temporal interest, and he must starve or go beyond the sea for bread. Thus ever and ever that echo is gus.h.i.+ng up into the ear of G.o.d, and never will it cease until it shall have merged into the eternal alleluia which the often-martyred and ever-faithful children of the saint shall shout with him in rapturous voice before the Eternal Throne.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PATRICK'S BELL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROMLECH, AT CASTLE MARY, CLOYNE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[125] _Authenticated_.--A copy of this ancient hymn, with a Latin and English translation, may be found in Petrie's _Essay on Tara_, p. 57, in Dr. Todd's _Life of St. Patrick_, and in Mr. Whitley Stokes'

_Goidilica_. We regret exceedingly that our limited s.p.a.ce will not permit us to give this and other most valuable and interesting doc.u.ments. There is a remarkable coincidence of thought and expression between some portions of this hymn and the well-known prayer of St.

Ignatius of Loyola, _Corpus Christi, salve me_. Such coincidences are remarkable and beautiful evidences of the oneness of faith, which manifests itself so frequently in similarity of language as well as in unity of belief. The Hymn of St. Patrick, written in the fifth century, is as purely Catholic as the Prayer of St. Ignatius, written in the sixteenth. St. Patrick places the virtue or power of the saints between him and evil, and declares his hope of merit for his good work with the same simple trust which all the saints have manifested from the earliest ages. This hymn is written in the _Bearla Feine_, or most ancient Gaedhilic dialect. Dr. O'Donovan well observes, that it bears internal evidence of its authenticity in its allusion to pagan customs. Tirechan, who wrote in the seventh century, says that there were four honours paid to St. Patrick in _all monasteries and churches throughout the whole of Ireland_. First, the festival of St. Patrick was honoured for three days and nights with all good cheer, except flesh meat [which the Church did not allow then to be used in Lent]. Second, there was a proper preface for him in the Ma.s.s. Third, his hymn was sung for the whole time.

Fourth, his Scotic hymn was sung always. As we intend publis.h.i.+ng a metrical translation of his hymn suitable for general use, we hope it will be ”said and sung” by thousands of his own people on his festival for all time to come.

[126] _h.e.l.l_.--O'Curry, p. 539. This is translated from the Tripart.i.te Life of St. Patrick.

[127] _Moment_.--Keating, Vol ii. p. 15.

[128] _Land_.--Near the present town of Killala, co. Mayo.

[129] _Protected him_.--Book of Armagh and Vit. Trip.

[130] _Death_.--Vit. Trip. It was probably at this time St. Patrick wrote his celebrated letter to Caroticus.

[131] _Daire_.--Book of Armagh, fol. 6, b.a.

[132] _Confessio_.--This most remarkable and interesting doc.u.ment will be translated and noticed at length in the _Life of St. Patrick_, which we are now preparing for the press.

[133] _St. Tussach_.--All this Dr. Todd omits. The Four Masters enter the obituary of St. Patrick under the year 457. It is obvious that some uncertainty must exist in the chronology of this early period.

[134] _Oracle_.--It is said that, three years before St. Patrick's apostolic visit to Ireland, the druids of King Laeghaire predicted the event to their master as an impending calamity. The names of the druids were Lochra and Luchat Mael; their prophecy runs thus:--

”A _Tailcenn_ will come over the raging sea, With his perforated garment, his crook-headed staff, With his table at the east end of his house, And all his people will answer 'Amen, Amen.'”

The allusions to the priestly vestments, the altar at the east end of the church, and the pastoral staff, are sufficiently obvious, and easily explained. The prophecy is quoted by Macutenius, and quoted again from him by Probus; but the original is in one of the most ancient and authentic Irish MSS., the Book of Armagh.

[135] _Died_.--O'Curry, p. 273.

[136] _Burial_.--”The body of Laeghaire was brought afterwards from the south, and interred with his armour of champions.h.i.+p in the south-east of the outer rampart of the royal rath of Laeghaire, at Tara, with his face turned southwards upon the men of Leinster, as fighting with them, for he was the enemy of the Leinster men in his lifetime.”--Translated from the _Leabhar na Nuidhre._ Petrie's _Tara_, p. 170.

[137] _Always_.--National customs and prejudices have always been respected by the Church: hence she has frequently been supposed to sanction what she was obliged to tolerate. A long residence in Devons.h.i.+re, and an intimate acquaintance with its peasantry, has convinced us that there is incalculably more superst.i.tions believed and _practised_ there of the _grossest kind_, than in any county in Ireland.

<script>