CHAPTER XVIII--(_continued_).

THE SCHOOL OF GLENDALOUGH.

ST. LAURENCE O'TOOLE.

"And, Thou, O mighty Lord, whose ways Are far above our feeble minds to understand, Sustain us in these doleful days, And render light the chain that binds our fallen land. Look down upon our dreary state; And through the ages that may still roll sadly on, Watch Thou o'er hapless Erin's fate, And shield, at least from darker ill, the blood of Conn." --_Clarence Mangan._

Something like this was the prayer of St. Laurence O'Toole when he was dying in a foreign land. He was the last of our saints; and he was also the associate and intimate friend of the last of our kings. At one time both had high hopes that the demon of civil strife might be banished from the land; and that Celtic learning and Celtic art would find their highest development under the protection of a strong government and a united people.

Together they drew a sword, that could not save, in defence of hapless Ireland. Together they were forced to bow the knee in homage to the Norman king. But St. Laurence did not forget his old master in his new loyalty. He was faithful through all his misfortunes to the unhappy Roderick O'Connor; and it may be truly said that he met his noble death striving to obtain Henry's pardon for the discrowned king, and "to render light the chains that bound his fallen land." The saint's career, from every point of view, is full of interest; and therefore we make no apology for tracing his history at some length.

It is fortunate that in the case of St. Laurence, or Lorcan O'Toole, we are not left to tradition or imagination to enable us to ascertain what manner of man he was. We have an accurate and authentic Life of the saint, rich in all details, and written by one who was in every way qualified for the task. The writer was a member of that community at Eu, in whose bosom St. Laurence found a home and a grave; and he must have had ample and authentic information at his disposal. For the Life was written shortly after the saint's death; its author must have seen and probably conversed with Laurence himself; and, doubtless, he made the acquaintance of the clergy who accompanied him from Ireland to Normandy. Above all, he had at his command the official documents, which were transmitted from Dublin to Rouen, at the request of the Bishop and Chapter of that Cathedral, and which were drawn up by the Bishop of Kildare and the Prior of Christ's Church by command of Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin, for the process of the saint's canonization.

Laurence O'Toole, both by father and mother, came of the noblest stock of Leinster. His father, Murtough, was hereditary prince of the Hy-Murray, a race that inhabited the fertile lands of south-eastern Kildare (which still belongs to the diocese of Dublin), until they were driven into the mountains of Wicklow by the Normans. His mother was the daughter of O'Byrne, the ruler of north-eastern Kildare, who shared the same fate; for both were driven from the plains into the mountains, where they maintained a sturdy but turbulent independence, down to a period within the memory of men still living.

The young Lorcan was baptized at St. Brigid's famous shrine in Kildare, by the hands of the bishop of that ancient see, who seems to have been in some way connected with the family of the saint. We need not dwell on the alleged prophecies of the saint's future greatness--too often these prophecies were composed after the event. A few years at most after the birth of the child, Dermott M'Murrough, of infamous memory, became king of Leinster, and, as Gerald Barry testifies, he was a tyrant from the beginning, a cruel oppressor of the nobles, a man whose hand was against every man, and who had every man's hand against him. The father of the young Lorcan being suspected or defeated by the tyrant, was forced to give his youngest child as a hostage to M'Murrough. Sometimes these hostages were treated with great cruelty; and if any violation of faith, real or imaginary, took place, were not unfrequently put to death with circumstances of the greatest atrocity. M'Murrough was a savage, and treated the child savagely. He had him at the tender age of ten led away in bonds; he caused him to be sent into a desert, stony land, somewhere probably to the north of Ferns, and there the child was left almost without food, until he was nearly starved to death, and his clothes were reduced to rags; so that, as the author of his Life tells us, he had nothing to shelter him from the biting north winds of winter. It was the discipline of the Cross which sometime or other God prepares for those whom he destines for a high degree of sanctity, that they may thus learn the best of all lessons--the lesson of patient endurance at the foot of the Cross.

When his father heard of the sad plight to which his poor son was reduced--knowing that prayers would be fruitless with such a man--he fortunately made prisoners of twelve of M'Murrough's followers, and then gave the tyrant to understand that if his son were not released, he would take summary vengeance on the captives. The threat was effective; M'Murrough could not afford to lose his followers. So he agreed to give up the boy to the Bishop of Glendalough on condition that his own followers were at once released.

It was fortunate for young Lorcan that the chances of war brought him to Glendalough, for it was the crisis of his life. His captivity was, after all, a blessing in disguise, since it ended in thus bringing him to the holy city of St. Kevin. In spite of the ravages of the Danes, and of other spoilers like Dermott M'Murrough, the lamp of learning still burned brightly in the mountain valley, and the virtues of St. Kevin were still cultivated, at least to some extent by his monastic children. There were, it is true, from time to time burnings at Glendalough, and deeds of violence were perpetrated even under the shadow of its holy mountains. But the learning and holiness acquired by St. Laurence in its cloisters--for it was his only school--is the clearest proof that both sacred and profane studies were there cultivated in comparative peace, and that the churches of Glendalough were crowded with holy and learned monks until the Norman spoilers came, when it was made a desert, which afforded refuge only to the robber and the outlaw.

Young Lorcan was at once placed under the protection of the bishop; and when his father came to bring him home, the noble boy asked permission to remain for ever in the family of St. Kevin, and forego his hopes of an earthly and, in those days, a very brilliant inheritance. The father gladly consented; and thus, at the early age of twelve, young Lorcan was given over to God, and like Samuel, was brought up in the temple of the Lord, serving day and night before His altar. His whole time, like that of his young companions, was given to prayer and study. It was his highest privilege to be allowed to attend at the altar, to train his young voice to sing the praises of God with the monks in the choir, and prepare the requisites for the Holy Sacrifice, especially the spotless host, and the wine, and the limpid water from St. Kevin's well. He was assiduous in attendance at all the lessons of the lectors, that is the readers in Divinity and Sacred Scriptures, who were attached to the monastic school, and delivered their lectures in a somewhat free and easy, but very effective, sort of way. In rainy weather they assembled in the church, or the abbot's house, or the reading room; but when the sun shone the professor and monks strolled about, or sat down under the shade of St. Kevin's yew, while the teacher expounded the sacred page, or read the lives of ancient saints, or went through the canons of the Church, explaining how the law was violated, how transgressors were punished, and how the truly repentant after condign penance were reconciled. It was not so elaborate a system as we have at present; but it was admirably suited to the wants of the time. It certainly produced great prelates and great saints; and beyond all doubt it was more healthy for soul and body to hear the Word of God explained in the bracing air of Glendalough, under the shadow of its majestic mountains, than to be cooped up in a dusty hall, where one could hardly ever catch a ray of the glorious sun struggling through the murky atmosphere.

Lorcan was a diligent and keen-witted scholar. He was, says the writer of his Life, "Fervens in audiendo, sagax in repetendo, prudens in discernendo, sollicitus audita tenaci memoriæ commendare." No good quality of a perfect student was wanting. He was not merely an attentive but an eager listener--fervens in audiendo. He went carefully and wisely over what he had heard or read--sagax in repetendo. This improved his natural talents, and made him a youth of keen and penetrating judgment--prudens in discernendo--and the knowledge which he acquired he stored up, not in a confused heap, but with system and order, which helped to strengthen his retentive memory, and enable him to have his knowledge ready for use--sollicitus audita tenaci memoriæ commendare.

For thirteen years he spent his life in the service of God, in the improvement of his mind, and the acquisition of sacred knowledge. They were probably the happiest years of his life; his young heart, pure and free from care, was given to the only love that begets perfect happiness, the love and service of God. Then it came to pass that the abbot of Glendalough, the comarb of St. Kevin, died; and, young as he was, the unanimous voice of the clergy, and of the people, called for Lorcan as his successor. He was only twenty-five--too young, indeed, in ordinary circumstances to be placed at the head of a great community; but his virtues, his learning, and his prudence far exceeded the measure of his years, and so they placed him, reluctant as he was, at the head of the great establishment of St. Kevin, probably about the year A.D. 1153, when we read that the abbot Dunlaing Ua Cathail died.

We cannot stay to recount his wisdom, his zeal, and, above all, his great charity in his new post. The abbey lands were wide; the family of St. Kevin was very large; the duties of the abbot very onerous; but we find young Lorcan discharged all these duties with complete success. Above all, his charity to the poor was remarkable. A time of great scarcity had come upon the people in all that mountain region, and great numbers would, undoubtedly, have perished of cold and hunger, but the abbot found means to be generous to all--no appeal was made to him in vain; no one left the gates of the monastery hungry. When necessary he gave the scanty meal from his own table to feed the starving people. Perhaps it was that he was too profuse of the property of the monastery, or because in the common need he made all give a share to the poor, but it is certain that at this period in his own religious family there were false brethren who calumniated their abbot, whispering evil things against him. Yet he bore all with perfect patience, and took no measures to vindicate his own character, until his enemies, from very shame, were forced to confess that they did injustice to their blameless abbot.

Shortly after the see of Glendalough became vacant and the eyes of all were turned on Laurence as the most suitable person to assume the mitre. But the pious abbot this time absolutely refused; they made him a religious superior against his will; but he would not become bishop at any rate; and that for two very good reasons--first, because he had not yet attained the canonical age; and secondly, because in his humility he thought himself unable to bear so heavy a burden.

But Providence reserved him for greater things.

Shortly after the archiepiscopal See of Dublin became vacant by the death of Gregory in October, A.D. 1161. Next year the abbot of Glendalough was chosen to succeed to the vacant See, and was consecrated in Christ Church Cathedral by the Primate Gelasius, attended by several other prelates and abbots from various parts of the kingdom. The choice of Lorcan to fill the See of Dublin is a singular proof of the great esteem is which he was held by all classes of his countrymen, both clergy and laity. For the citizens of Dublin were mostly of Danish origin, and had small sympathy with the natives. Hitherto their prelates were either of foreign extraction, or Irishmen, who had been trained and educated in England. They were consecrated too by the Archbishops of Canterbury; and they invariably took an oath of obedience and subjection to the see of Canterbury.

But the election of Lorcan inaugurated a new era. He was Irish of the Irish; trained and educated at home, as far as we know, exclusively within the shadow of the Wicklow Mountains. He was consecrated by the Primate of Armagh, and of course he was neither asked, nor if asked, was he a man to promise obedience to the see of Canterbury, which certainly had no claim _de jure_ to the obedience of any Irish prelate. Nor did any prelate after him consecrated for any Irish see promise or pay any such canonical obedience to any prelate except the Pope. So that in the person of Lorcan the Irish Church was finally emancipated from this dependence on the Primate of all England, which in after days, had it continued, might have been the means of causing the shipwreck of our country's faith.

Laurence was consecrated Archbishop of Dublin--Glendalough was not yet united to the Archdiocese--in the year A.D. 1162. In the same year we find that there was a Synod of the Irish prelates held at Clane in the co. Kildare, at which twenty-six bishops and several abbots are said to have assembled for the reformation of abuses, and the enactment of salutary discipline. The Primate Gelasius presided; and it is highly probable that many of the same prelates assisted at the consecration of St. Laurence in Dublin.

At that time the city seems to have been greatly in need of some moral reformation; and the holy prelate at once girt up his loins for the difficult task.

He began with the clergy; for he knew that the people would readily follow their good example. He persuaded the secular clergy of the Cathedral Church to form themselves into a kind of religious community. With the sanction of the Pope they adopted the rule of life followed by the Regular Canons of Aroasia--a reform that had been introduced into the diocese of Arras in France some eighty years before. The Archbishop himself adopted the same rule of life, and became a living model of its perfect observance for all his clergy. We fortunately have accurate details regarding his manner of life at this period; and beyond all doubt it was, as the lessons read on his festival declare, a life of marvellous austerity.

Beneath his episcopal dress he wore the habit of a Canon Regular, but, unlike the others, next his skin he wore a coarse hair shirt night and day; and as if that was not enough to mortify his flesh, he had himself frequently scourged, often no less than three times in the day, by an attendant who knew how to keep the scourging secret. He dined in the same refectory with the other canons, and, as with St. Augustine and his clergy, whilst the body was refreshed with food, the spirit was nourished by spiritual reading. He was most abstemious too at all his meals, and never tasted meat. On Friday his only food was bread and water; and sometimes on that day he absolutely abstained from all food--feeding his soul, however, with meditation on the passion of Christ. Yet he was hospitable as became a great prelate, and had banquets rich and abundant prepared for his guests. He even pretended on these occasions to take a share of the good things provided for the strangers, and coloured his water with a little wine, lest his own abstinence might prevent them from fully enjoying the bountiful hospitality prepared for them.

He was assiduous in prayer, and before all things anxious to promote the beauty of God's house, as well as the splendour and regularity of Divine worship. Here, too, the example of the holy prelate must have exercised a very powerful influence both on the clergy and on the people. We are told by the writer of his Life that he was a constant attendant at all the offices of the Church, when not visiting his diocese; and not content at presiding at the daily offices, he regularly got up at midnight to recite matins and lauds with his canons; and when they retired to rest after the office was completed, he generally remained behind in the choir, before the miraculous crucifix of Christ Church, sometimes standing, or sitting, or kneeling, but always praying; so that he often continued reciting the psaltery until the morning dawned, and then he would go out to the cemetery to say a prayer for the dead before retiring for a few hours' brief repose. Yet in all things which might win popular favour or applause, he loved to hide even his good works, lest they might beget self-esteem or hypocrisy.

Such a life was sufficiently rigorous, but it was not enough for this man of God. His nephew Thomas, whom he greatly loved, became Abbot of Glendalough; and then the holy prelate having one in whom he could confide, used to retire to his beloved mountain valley at the approach of Lent, in order to give himself up to a forty days' retreat in the desert. All the saints of God loved solitude, and longed to fly from the haunts of men. They seem to have been especially anxious to select for their place of retreat those secluded spots where the sights and sounds of nature might be most apt to raise their minds to God. Hence we find them in the islands of the great sea, or of some lonely lake; or they retired to the majestic solitude of some mountain valley, where no mean or sordid thoughts could cross their minds; nay, rather everything around them helped to raise their souls to heaven. It was in this spirit--the spirit of a noble generous soul that Laurence used to leave the city and go out to meet and commune with God in the solitude of the mountains of Wicklow. It was the same Spirit of God that brought Moses to Nebo, and Eliseus to Horeb. Therefore it was that St. Gall sought the inmost recesses of the Alps, and St. Kevin the deepest valleys of the Wicklow mountains. So Laurence, like another Kevin, took up his abode not with his nephew in the monastery at the bottom of the valley, but in the bosom of the hills--in the very cave where St. Kevin himself spent his earliest penitential years. There St. Laurence dwelt in the grotto in the face of Lugduff, under the mountain's brow, overlooking the gloomy lake, to which access could be gained only by a boat, or by a ladder planted in the lake itself. Twice a week his nephew brought him a little bread and water to support life, and ascertained his wishes or commands in all things concerning the government of the diocese. If urgent business called him, he went at once from his retreat; but this rarely happened. Whilst there he saw no one but his nephew. His bed was the rock; his canopy the sky; his lamps the midnight stars that shone above the summit of Comaderry mountain. He was there in cold and hunger, in storm and sunshine, alone all the day and all the dreary night. Yet he was perfectly happy, for he lived with God. The saints are not alone in these solitudes, they are watched by angels; the light of heaven is around them; the glow of perfect love is in their hearts; God speaks to them in all the voices of the mountains, and they see Him in all the majestic sights before their eyes. He spoke by day and night to Laurence, as He spoke to holy Job of old.

But what useful purpose does this extreme austerity serve? We can only answer very briefly that it serves two things--first, it serves to emancipate and ennoble the soul in its conflict with the flesh; second, it serves to assimilate us with Christ crucified. We with our selfish hearts, our sordid ungenerous souls, cannot understand the saints of God; we cannot realize how God speaks to them, and comforts them, and feeds them like the ravens in the wilderness. Yet this bishop was a man like ourselves, a man whose life was cast on evil days, and who lived in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation.

Yes, the prelate was a Saint and an Apostle; but the people were sensual and wicked; they would not hearken to his word, nor turn away from their evil courses. Danish Dublin at this time was not a model city, nor a truly Christian city. It was still, in many ways, half pagan; or if they had faith, they certainly had not works. The Archbishop was sorely grieved; he forewarned them, like another Jeremias, of the wrath to come. He told them, what even human sagacity might perceive, that every kingdom divided against itself must fall; that an evil day was in store for them, as well as for the wicked and perverse generation that was over all the land. God had sent them prophets, and they would not hearken; apostles, but they would not be converted. "So the day is at hand, and thy house will be laid desolate." It was even at their doors--a day of wrath and vengeance--and yet a day of justice and mercy, because their bitter chastisement was yet their salvation.

Shortly after the arrival of the Norman freebooters in the year A.D. 1169, Dermott M'Murrough and Maurice Fitzgerald made their first attack on Dublin. On this occasion the citizens kept within their gates, and the enemy was not strong enough to take the city. But the midnight sky was red with the glare of burning homesteads through all the valley of the Liffey; and when the plunderers departed, scarcely a living thing survived in all that fertile region.

Next year the attack was renewed in force, and this time it was directed against the city itself. The citizens had great reason to fear the vengeance of M'Murrough, for they had put his father to a cruel death in the midst of their city, and had shamefully buried him with a dog. Now M'Murrough, with the Normans led on by Strongbow in person, was thundering at their gates. The city, too, was badly prepared for a siege, and there were traitors within the walls; so the citizens resolved to make the best terms they could, and surrender the city. The Archbishop was asked to negotiate the terms of surrender; but even whilst he and the Earl were in conference outside the walls of the city, Milo de Cogan, and some of the more lawless spirits, burst over the walls, and attacked the town. They burned, robbed, and slaughtered as usual, so that the streets were filled with the dead and dying. Then it was that St. Laurence proved himself a true pastor. Rushing from the false parley, he entered the city, and snatched from the brutal soldiers the palpitating bodies of their victims. A hundred times he interposed his own body to ward off the fatal stroke from others. He went about through the slippery streets in his episcopal robes, with the cross in his hands, imploring the merciless foe for Christ's sake to stop the horrid carnage; and when he could do no more, he gave absolution to the dying, and helped to bury the heaps of dead. It was a fearful foretaste of what his native land was destined to endure in the future.

But the Archbishop was not only a true pastor, but a true patriot. He knew that the first adventurers were simply robbers, some of whom were afterwards imprisoned for daring to effect a hostile landing in Ireland, without the licence of the king, at the invitation of a traitor. So he stimulated the slothful king, Rory O'Connor, to action; he implored the native princes to give up for a while their insane divisions, to unite against the common foe, and come to the aid of the Capital. These efforts were partially successful. Some thirty thousand Irish soldiers under the supreme command of Roderick himself beleagured the city from Dalkey to Clontarf, whilst the ships of Hasculf the Dane crowded the river, and watched the river-gate. It was the supreme moment of Ireland's destiny. Had the Irish been soldiers, or even men, they might have annihilated their foes. But they were neither. After a two months' siege, in which the garrison was reduced to the verge of starvation, Milo de Cogan made a desperate sally with a few hundred soldiers, and routed the hosts of the Irish, almost with a shout, as boys frighten away the flocks of birds from the fields in spring.

The Archbishop doubtless saw clearly enough from what he witnessed on that occasion, that the Irish soldiers had no discipline, that their leaders had no union amongst themselves, and that such a heap of uncementing sand, as the event proved, would have no chance of withstanding the mail-clad warriors, who were victorious on every battlefield in Europe. So when the king himself came over towards the close of A.D. 1171, Laurence O'Toole, with the rest of the Irish prelates, followed the example of the kings of the West, and South, and East, who had all submitted to Henry without striking a blow. Herein, too, he proved himself a true patriot, although submission must have cost him a bitter pang. He had seen enough to prove that resistance was utterly hopeless, and that his duty to God and to the people was to yield to a power which he could not oppose. So we find his name amongst the prelates who assembled at Cashel in A.D. 1171, or the beginning of A.D. 1172, to enact such disciplinary laws as the deplorable state of the times had rendered imperatively necessary for the reformation of morality and the reform of discipline. From the Pope's reply to the Synodical letter of this Council we can readily infer, what indeed we might naturally expect from the disturbed state of the times, that very grave abuses prevailed at this period in various parts of the country--abuses which it was a blessing to have reformed almost at any cost.

Yet the great Archbishop was devotedly loyal to his own sovereign, Rory O'Connor, and continued to be faithful to him to the end, even when he became a crownless king, forsaken by his own subjects, and despised and imprisoned by his own sons. Indeed it is not too much to say that Laurence lost his life in the service of that worthless king, whose misfortunes he had done so much to alleviate.

In A.D. 1175 Rory O'Connor finally and formally gave up all claims to the kingdom of Ireland, and was content to accept his own hereditary kingdom of Connaught as a fief from the English monarch. The treaty is still extant; and we find the name of Laurencius Dublinensis as Chancellor for the unfortunate King of Connaught. He even went over to London in person in company with the Archbishop of Tuam, and the Abbot of St. Brendan's, Clonfert, to negotiate the treaty for his old and beloved monarch. Such fidelity to fallen princes is rare, and is highly honourable to the great prelate of Dublin.

Towards the end of the year A.D. 1178 Alexander III. convoked for the first Sunday of the following Lent a General Council to meet in Rome, in order to heal the deplorable wounds which the Church had received from a schism of some twenty years' standing. The Letters of Convocation did not arrive in Ireland until near Christmas; the journey to Rome was toilsome and perilous, especially in the winter season; yet the good Archbishop at once prepared to obey the voice of the Pope as the voice of God. He started immediately after Christmas, and crossing over to England was, with the Irish prelates, his companions, very rudely treated by the king. Before they were allowed to cross to France the jealous tyrant compelled them to swear that during their stay in Rome they would do nothing derogatory to the dignity of the English crown. But in spite of every obstacle they succeeded in making their way to Rome, and were present at all the sessions of the Council. It is a proud thing to find the names of six Irish prelates amongst the signatories of that great Council--a larger number than came from England and Scotland together--and at their head stands the name of Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin.

But Laurence did more than attend the sessions of the Council. He opened the eyes of the Pope to the true state of affairs in Ireland, and not only secured many privileges for his own Church in Dublin, but also insisted on the Pope recognising and safeguarding the liberty and independence of the Church in Ireland. Unfortunately our information on this question is very scanty. However we are inclined to think that, when it is said St. Laurence secured the liberty of the Church in Ireland, it means not only that, like Thomas à Becket, he took measures to protect it against the encroachments of the civil power, but what was at least of equal importance, he preserved it from all dependence on the See of Canterbury. It was only two years before in A.D. 1177 that the Scottish prelates and abbots were forced to swear obedience to the Archbishop of York as their metropolitan. The same crafty policy would no doubt be also attempted in Ireland; and although we cannot prove it, we are convinced in our own mind that it is to St. Laurence O'Toole we owe the spiritual independence of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The Pope conceived a very strong regard for St. Laurence; he conferred on him the high and special honour of Apostolic Legate in Ireland; and the independence of the Irish Church, having thus been once formally recognised in Rome, could not afterwards be easily undermined. But we must hasten to the end. Laurence came home to Ireland; his stay, however, was very brief, when he was again compelled to travel to England in the interest of Rory O'Connor, the discrowned king. Several abortive attempts were made to get rid of the English influence in the West of Ireland; Rory, or at least his sons, were implicated in these designs, and Henry, who only wanted an excuse, threatened to depose the old king, and confiscate all his territories to the Crown. Rory was alarmed, and what was worse, he was helpless. His own sons had turned against him; so in his misery he implored the Archbishop to be his mediator with the king. He had no one else to rely on, and the Archbishop did not disappoint him. Again he left the shores of Ireland on a mission of charity; and doubtless his eyes were not dry as he gazed on the lessening summits of the far-off Wicklow mountains, and thought of the many happy days he had spent in the wild solitude of his beloved Glendalough. When he arrived in England Henry could not, or would not, see him; moreover, he forbade the prelate to return again to Ireland, and he himself sailed away to Normandy. For three weeks the Archbishop was kept as a sort of prisoner in the monastery of Abingdon, when, revolving to dare all in order to accomplish his purpose, he made up his mind to find out the king beyond the Channel. He embarked at Dover; but a fever had already laid hold of him, so that when he landed, he was unable to travel. He struggled onward, however, for a little until he came to the brow of the hill which overlooks the church and monastery at the little town of Augum or Eu, on the borders of Normandy. Enquiring the name of the place, he learned that it was the Church of the Canons Regular of St. Victor, a branch closely allied to his own. Thereupon he cried out--"Haec requies mea in aeternum, hic habitabo quoniam elegi cam."

Arriving at the monastery, he first paid a visit to the church, and after spending some time in fervent prayer before the altar, he was carried to the hospice. The scene that followed is touching in the extreme, and is taken exactly from the Latin Life written by a brother of the Order. After reposing a little he sent for the Abbot Osbert, and made his confession with great sorrow and humility. But still his mind was not easy; for the task for which he crossed the sea was unaccomplished, and he was no longer able to plead in person before the king. Then he called one of his attendant clerics, David by name, the tutor of Rory's son, who was to be given as a hostage to Henry for his father's loyalty. "Go," said he to David, "find out King Henry, tell him I am dying, and ask him in God's name to forgive the King of Connaught, and receive him again into favour." David bowed his head, and set out to find the king. He was favourably received, for his story made a deep impression on the king, whose hard heart was softened by the sufferings of the Archbishop in the cause of his sovereign. He granted the boon, and pledged his royal word that he would receive Rory again into favour. So David, after four days, returned to the dying prelate, who anxiously awaited his arrival, and told of his success. Then St. Laurence called David to him, made him sit close by his side, for he was almost unable to speak, and laid his head upon the bosom of the priest to imply that he was now satisfied, and that he would die in peace.

Shortly after, his mind being now at ease, he received the Viaticum with the greatest devotion, and then begged to be anointed. Some one of the bystanders suggested that now, as he had received all the sacraments, it were well if the Archbishop made his will. Raising his eyes to heaven he made use of these solemn and memorable words:--"I declare before God that I have not one penny under the sun to dispose of--not one penny"--he was a religious, a Canon Regular; he professed poverty and he kept his vow. Whatever he possessed he gave to the poor; indeed he never possessed anything at all. No sooner was it got than it was gone again. Happy the priest who at his dying hour can make the same declaration with the same truth. Then his thoughts wandered back to his native land--that native land which he loved so wisely and so well, which he tried in vain to save, and which he now saw torn with internal dissensions and trampled under foot by foreign foes--and he dying far away, and leaving no one behind him to guide his people or heal his country's wounds. These bitter thoughts sank deep into his heart; and in anguish of mind he exclaimed--alas! we know how prophetically--"Heu popule stulte et insipiens, quid jam facturus es--quis sanabit aversiones tuas? Quis medebitur tui?" Ah, foolish and misguided people, what will now become of thee? Who will cure thy dissensions? Who will heal thy wounds? He longed to be dissolved and to be with Christ; yet for the sake of his perishing flock he would still remain. But the end was now at hand. With dim eyes he kept reading a MS. copy of the Seven Penitential Psalms which he had brought to him; and when he could read no more, orally or mentally, about twelve o'clock on Friday, the 14th of November, the glorious Confessor closed his eyes in a peaceful, happy death.

The body of the holy Confessor was buried in presence of Cardinal Alexis, the Papal Legate of Scotland. But it remained in its place of burial only four years and six months, when the many wondrous miracles wrought at his tomb caused the remains of St. Laurence to be transferred, and with great solemnity enclosed in a crystal case before the high altar of the church.

Shortly after, at the urgent request of the Canons Regular and the faithful of Eu, a petition for the canonization of the holy servant of God was sent to Rome by the Archbishop and Chapter of Rouen, to which diocese the church of Eu belongs. The Pope, Honorius III., ordered the usual investigation to be made by the ecclesiastical authorities. As St. Laurence came from Ireland shortly before his death, it became necessary to have an official report concerning the life of St. Laurence from that country. The task was committed by the Pope to Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin; but he being absent in England on affairs of State, commissioned the Bishop of Kildare and the Prior of Christ's Church to collect the necessary depositions and transmit them to Rome. After the usual process with legal proof of the practice of heroic virtues during life and miracles after death, Honorius III., in the tenth year of his pontificate, in a Bull issued from Reate, solemnly enrolled St. Laurence O'Toole amongst the canonized saints of the Church. It was the year of our Lord A.D. 1225 that the latest of our saints was thus formally canonized.

It is the greatest glory of the School of Glendalough to have produced such a man--so learned, so holy, so faithful to his king and to his country in the hour of trial. When shall we see his like again? And who will deny that the Church which produced such men as St. Laurence and St. Malachy was sound at the core in spite of many faults and abuses?

After his death the School and Monastery of Glendalough gradually fell into decay, until at length the holy valley of St. Kevin became little better than a nest of robbers and murderers.