Kitabı oku: «The Life of Saint Columba, Apostle of Scotland», sayfa 5

Columba had many faithful helpers in his missionary labours. Malruve, a kinsman and countryman of his own, soon followed him to Iona to share in his work among the Picts. He became abbot of Appercrossan, now Applecross, on the north-west coast of Caledonia, and suffered the "red martyrdom" some years after the death of Columbcille, at the hands of Norwegian pirates. St. Canice, the companion of Columba and Ciaran at Clonard and Glasnevin, also followed his old friend across the sea. He founded a monastery and a church on the shore of Loch Lagan, and another in Fifeshire. St. Kenneth, as the Scotch called him, was noted for his eloquence and learning, and wrote a commentary on the four Gospels which was much valued in his day.

Drostan, one of the most beloved of the first companions of Columba, was chosen to govern a monastery founded on the east coast in the present district of Buchan. When he realized that the breadth of Scotland would henceforward separate him from the brethren whom he loved, and the father of his soul, he wept so bitterly that Columba declared that the new foundation should be called the "place of tears," and Déar (Deer) it remains to this day, to prove to us that the religious life has not the effect, as some people suppose, of hardening the hearts and freezing the affections of those who embrace it, but asks only that love go hand in hand with sacrifice in order that it may be conformed to the love of Christ.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CONVENTION OF DRUM-CEATT

COLUMBA had been eleven years at Iona when Conal, the King of the Scottish Dalriada, died. He was succeeded by Aidan, his cousin, whose love and veneration for Columbcille led him to choose him for his "soul's friend," and to beg him to come himself to place the crown upon his head and to pray that the grace of God might be with him in his governing. Columba assented to his request, and so it came to pass that the solemn rite of the consecration of a king was performed for the first time in the British Isles.

Aidan was crowned on the famous "Stone of Destiny" which was afterwards removed to Scone and was used as the coronation chair for the Kings of Scotland, until Edward I, "the Hammer of the Scots," carried it away and set it up in Westminster Abbey. Perhaps it was as well for the peace of mind of the ruthless oppressor that he could not look into the future, and see how the royal line of Scotland would in course of time follow the Stone of Destiny, and, crowned once more upon it, rule over the United Kingdom.

For Aidan was the ancestor of Macbeth and Malcolm Canmore, and through

the female line, of the Bruces and the Stuarts, while many of the old

Highland families, such as the Mackenzies, MacKinnons, Mackintoshes,

Macgregors, Macleans and Macnabs, count their descent from the

Dalriadan kinsmen of Columba.

The little kingdom had become powerful, and the yearly tribute to Ireland was galling to the pride of the Scots. They would fain have cast off the Irish yoke, and were quite ready to fight for their independence, but Columba bade them have patience, and all would be well. Diarmaid, his old enemy, had died a violent death, and Aedh MacAinmire, who was of Columba's own branch of the Hy-Nialls, now sat on the throne of Ireland: the time seemed ripe for the Saint to use his influence on behalf of Dalriada.

A large assembly or convention was about to be held at Drum-ceatt near

Derry, to decide several important questions, some of which interested

Columba nearly. It was a fitting moment, he thought, to obtain what they desired; and taking the King of Dalriada with him he set sail for

Ireland.

The chief question which the Irish parliament had met to discuss, was the abolition or the banishment of the Bards. This ancient order of national poets dated from the earliest times, and in olden days had shared the power of the Druids. They were the guardians of the poetry, the history and the music of Ireland, and were held in such honour that the first place at table, after that reserved for the King, was theirs by right. A chief poet was entitled to a retinue of thirty men, and the Bards of a lower grade to fifteen. They had been loaded with honours by those of the princes and kings of Ireland who desired to have their brave deeds in battle handed down to their children or held up to the admiration of their rivals in the songs of the country.

Many abuses had arisen from such an exercise of power. The Bards in course of time had become thoroughly unpopular, and had only themselves to blame for the change of feeling towards them, for even their best friends could not defend their conduct. People had grown weary of an insolence that refused to sing the praises of the heroes and warriors of Erin unless at a price that few could afford to pay, and the Bards threatened to hold up those who displeased them to the contempt and ridicule of the nation.

The King went so far as to drive them from his palace, but so secure were they of their own power that they had the boldness to come back, and to demand of him the royal brooch that he wore upon his breast, the very token of his kingship. Beside himself with anger, the King announced his intention of doing away completely with the order of the Bards at the great Convention which was about to be held at Drum-ceatt, and their enemies, who were not few, resolved to see the threat carried out.

The Bards realized at last that they had gone too far, they could scarcely find a friend to speak for them, the situation was wellnigh hopeless. In their distress they thought of Columba, who had always befriended their order, and sent him a piteous message that their ruin was certain unless he would use his influence in their favour.

The Convention was largely attended. The two kings presided, and the presence of Columba, in company with many other abbots and bishops, gave dignity and order to the councils. The first question raised was that of the supremacy of Ireland over the Scots of Dalriada. Columba was asked to give his opinion, but fearful of being unduly influenced by his affection for Aidan, he asked his friend St. Colman to plead the cause of liberty. It was decided that Dalriada should cease to pay tribute and become an independent kingdom, on the condition that she promised a perpetual alliance with Ireland. The great question of the Bards came next, and on this subject the King himself was the first to speak. Their insolence, their idleness, and their greed, he said, had made them odious in the eyes of the whole nation. He therefore appealed to the assembly to banish them and to do away with all their privileges.

Not a voice was raised in their defence, and in another moment their fate would have been decided, when Columba rose to speak. The whole assembly did him reverence, and his clear voice rang out with all its old charm over the hearts of his countrymen.

It was true, he said, that the Bards had greatly abused their power; let therefore the abuses be corrected, let their power be diminished, let the guilty be punished. But if the great Bardic order were abolished, who would be left to make the records of the nation, to sing the noble deeds of its heroes or to lament the death of the brave? Where would be the glory of Erin? Why should the good grain be torn up with the tares? The poetry of Ireland, which was dear to her as her life, would perish for ever, were the order of poets to be destroyed.

The eloquent pleading of Columba carried all before it. It was decreed that the order should be reformed and that regular schools should be founded for the study of the literature of the nation, where the young poets might be brought up to devote their lives to their art, and to avoid the bad habits that had made the order so unpopular with the people. The Bards, who were themselves present at the assembly under the leadership of their chief, Dallan Forgaill, showed their gratitude to Columba by composing a poem in his praise. They wisely allowed themselves to be guided by his advice in their plans for reform, and in the establishment of the schools to which Ireland owes the preservation of the old chronicles and of the ancient literature in which she is so rich. They justified the plea of their protector and became faithful auxiliaries of the clergy, singing in the times of persecution the glory of the heroes and the Saints of Erin, and the beauty of the ancient faith.

When the assembly broke up, Columba paid a visit to Aedh in his royal palace, when he sought and obtained the freedom of Scandlan Mor, son of the King of Ossory, whom the High King of Ireland had unjustly detained in prison. The eldest son of Aedh was perhaps a little uneasy at the prospect of the visit, for he had received a severe reproof from the Saint for holding the monks of Iona up to ridicule; but Domnal, his younger brother, attached himself to Columbcille with a boy's enthusiastic admiration for all that is great and noble. Columba was delighted with the manly young prince, and prophesied that his reign would be a long and happy one, on condition that he "received the Holy Communion every week, and tried to keep his promises." He would also, he said, "die on his own feather-bed," a rare enough thing in the days when a King of Ireland was pretty sure to fall on the field of battle or to perish by the hand of an assassin.

Aedh himself had reason to be uneasy about the state of his soul, and asked Columba if any of the princes who had died during his reign were in heaven. He was told that three only had escaped the pains of purgatory and had entered into everlasting bliss.

"And I," asked the King, "shall I save my soul?"

"Not unless you repent heartily of all your sins and lead a better life," replied Columba; and Aedh resolved to take his advice.

To all the princes of Ireland, especially to those who were of his own blood, Columbcille preached compassion and mercy towards their enemies, the forgiveness of injuries, and the recall of exiles. Many of the latter had passed by Iona as they went to seek shelter in a strange land, and his heart had grieved with them in their sorrow.

He resolved also to visit his religious foundations in Ireland before he returned to the country of his adoption, and we can imagine the joy of the monks of Derry and Durrow who had never thought to look upon their beloved father's face again. The people came out in crowds to welcome him and carried a canopy of green branches over his head. Adamnan tells us of the miracles worked by the Saint on his journey, and how the labourers would leave their work as he passed and go before him singing hymns of joy.

As he was about to enter one of the monasteries, a poor little boy, who was looked upon by everybody as an idiot on account of his stammering tongue and vacant eye, crept through the crowd and took hold of the border of Columba's cloak. The Saint turned round, and taking the child in his arms embraced him tenderly.

"Show me your tongue," he said to the little boy, who was trembling with fear; and then, making the sign of the Cross over him, he turned to the bystanders, who were vexed that he should pay so much attention to an idiot.

"This child whom you despise so much," he said, "will grow daily in wisdom and virtue; God will give to him eloquence and power; and when he has grown to man's estate he will be counted amongst the great ones of his country."

The Saint's prophecy came true. The little idiot boy grew into the great St. Ernan, venerated both in Ireland and Scotland; and it was he himself who told the story to the abbot Adamnan who wrote the great life of Columbcille.

CHAPTER IX
FOR CHRIST AND HIS LOVE

THE visitation of the Irish monasteries completed, Columba returned to Iona. But it was no longer as an exile that he left the shores of Erin. This time it was to "Hy of his love, and Hy of his heart" that he was bound – to the country that had become dear to him as the land of his adoption and of his mission; where he had suffered and striven for his Master's sake, and where his work had been blessed beyond all that he had hoped or dreamed.

It is especially during the last few years of Columba's life on earth that we can see how the natural fire and arrogance of his nature had been gradually transformed into the gentleness and charity of Christ. It was not without many a struggle that the transformation took place; but Columbcille was a man of great heart and of determined will; what he set himself to do was sure to be done. Now he had set himself – with God's grace – to self-conquest, and the work, though not to be completed in a day nor yet in a year, was at last by dint of prayer and patience gloriously achieved. The gentleness of a naturally strong and fiery temperament won – so to speak – at the sword's point, is always an extraordinary force in the world, and we find the power of Columba over his fellow-men and his influence with them for good increasing every year.

St. Fintan, one of the Saint's first companions in Iona, was asked once towards the end of Columba's life to describe him to one who had heard much of his holiness, but who did not know him.

"He is a king amongst kings," answered Fintan, "a sage amongst wise men, a monk amongst monks. He is poor with God's poor; a mourner with those who weep, and joyful with those who rejoice. Yet amidst all the gifts of nature and of grace that have been so liberally showered on him by God, the true humility of Christ is as royally rooted in his heart as if it were its natural home."

He was the father, the brother and the friend of all who were in want or distress; the dauntless champion of the oppressed and of the weak, the avenger of all who suffered wrong. His prayers and blessing were sought by all the navigators of the stormy seas of the Hebrides as a defence against the dangers of the deep; while during his journeys on the mainland the people would bring out their sick and lay them in his path, that they might touch the hem of his cloak or receive his benediction as he passed. Their simple faith was not in vain: many were the miraculous cures wrought by the Saint, whose prayers were as powerful with God as those of St. Peter and St. John, and with whom he might have said "silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give thee."

He would visit rich and poor alike, and it was often in the houses of the latter that he met with the truest hospitality. He would find out with gentle tact what were the means of his humble hosts, and plan ways of increasing their little store. Once when he was passing through Lochaber on his way to visit King Bruidh in his royal palace, he was offered a lodging in the house of a poor peasant and kindly entertained with the best that the poverty of the house could furnish. In the morning when the little Highland cows of his host were being driven out to pasture, Columbcille blessed them, and foretold that they would increase until in course of time they would number five hundred, and that the blessing of a grateful traveller would rest upon the man and his family.

Columba took an observant interest in all the things of nature, and was often able to advise the peasants how to improve the simple methods of farming, hunting, and fishing on which their daily food depended. On one occasion he profited by the hospitality shown to him by a rich Highland chief to put an end to a deadly feud which in true Highland fashion had existed for many years between his host and one of his neighbours. The enemies were reconciled, and both became fast friends of the peacemaker.

Tender-hearted as Columba was to all who were in sorrow and distress, to none did his ready sympathy extend more fully than to those who were exiles from their native land, for he remembered the early days of his own sojourn in Iona. One of his special friends was a Pictish chief of noble birth who had received him on the occasion of his first missionary journey to Caledonia and treated him with generous hospitality. Some time after he fell into disgrace and was banished from the country. Columba appealed in his favour to Feradagh, the chief of the island of Islay, whom he begged to give shelter and protection to the exile, while he tried what his influence could do with the Pictish king to obtain his friend's recall. Feradagh, after promising hospitality to the fugitive, murdered him treacherously for the sake of his possessions. The news was brought to Columbcille, who cried out in indignation that the punishment of God would overtake the traitor before he had tasted of the flesh of the boars that he was fattening for his table.

Feradagh laughed at the threat but was not a little uneasy, for he had heard of the strange way in which Columba's prophecies were wont to come true. He had a boar killed without loss of time and roasted, in order to reassure himself that this time at least the Saint had been wrong. As he sat down to table, he fell down from his seat and died, to the fear and consternation of his followers.

A certain chief named Donnell, who with his sons and followers feared neither God nor man, was the terror of all the neighbouring country. Although he could claim kinship with the King of Dalriada, Columba excommunicated him for his deeds of violence, and he and his family vowed vengeance on the Saint. Taking advantage of a journey that Columba was making to a neighbouring island with only one or two companions, one of the sons of Donnell resolved to murder him as he slept. But one of Columbcille's companions, a monk named Finn Lugh, was beset that night with an unaccountable fear for the safety of his holy abbot, and begged him to lend him his cowl, in which he wrapped himself and lay down to sleep. In the dead of night the assassin crept upon the little band of travellers, and, seeking out the monk who wore the abbot's cowl, stabbed him, and fled to a place of safety. But the garment of the Saint protected the man who was ready to give his life for his master, and Finn Lugh escaped without a wound.

Another lawless member of the same family fell upon and robbed a man who lived upon the rocky peninsula of Ardnamurchan, and had constantly shown hospitality to Columba on his journeys. The blessing of the Saint had brought him good fortune, and his little patrimony had increased year by year. The people, in honour of the affection shown him by the holy abbot, called him "Columbain" or "the friend of Columba." As the robber was returning, laden with the spoils of the poor man, to the boat that was awaiting him at the water's edge, he met Columba himself, whom he had supposed to be safely distant at Iona. The Saint reproved him sternly for his crimes, and bade him restore the goods that he had stolen. The robber chief maintained a grim silence until he was safely in his boat and well out from the shore. Then he stood up, and bursting into a storm of insults and evil words, shouted defiance and derision at Columbcille as long as his voice could be heard. The oppression of the helpless never failed to rouse Columba's wrath. He strode out into the water after the retreating boat, and, raising his arms to heaven, prayed that justice might be done on the robber. Then returning quietly to his companions he said to them, "That wicked man who despises Christ in His poor will return no more to these shores. The cup of his iniquity is full." Shortly afterwards a storm arose, and the boat with all that were in it sank like a stone between Mull and Colonsay.

But it was not only to the poor and the oppressed that Columba's charity was shown. We find him at the Court of King Aidan, holding his young son Hector "the Blond" in his arms and praying that his life might be as fair as his features. To the nobles who kept the laws of God he was as devoted a friend as he was a steadfast opponent of those who outraged them. To the penitent he was full of mercy and hope, and many sinners were persuaded by his eloquence and power to forsake their evil ways.

But nowhere was his charity more clearly shown than with his own community at Iona. He foresaw the needs of all, and watched over his spiritual sons with a fatherly love and care. During one of the last summers of his life when the monks were coming back in the evening after a day of harvesting, they stopped short at a little distance from the monastery to enjoy the sense of peace and consolation that seemed to come to meet them as they approached their home.

"How is it," asked one of the younger brethren, "that at this spot every night when we return from our daily labours, our hearts rejoice, our burdens grow light, and the very perfume of heaven seems borne to us on the breeze?"