Though rough in their treatment of themselves, they were tender-hearted and kind to bird and beast and man. It was through a frightened fawn flying for refuge to S. Petrock that Constantine was brought to repentance. S. Columba prayed with his arms extended till the birds perched on his hands. Another Columba, the founder, as I suspect, of Columb Major and Minor, was almost incommoded with their affection, fluttering about his face. "How is it," asked one of his disciples, "that the birds avoid us and gather round you?" "Is it not natural," answered the saint, "that birds should come to a bird?" A play on his name, for Columba signifies a dove. S. Cainnech saw a rich lady with a starved dog. "Who feeds that poor brute?" he asked. "I do," answered the lady. "Feed it? Maltreat it. Go and eat what you cast to the poor hound, and in a week return and tell me how you relish such treatment." One day an abbot saw a little bird with drooping wings. "Why is the poor thing so wretched?" he asked. "Do you not know," said a bystander, "that Molua is dead? He was full of pity to all animals. Never did he injure one. Do you marvel then that the little birds lament his decease?" It was the same with regard to children. One day King Eochaid sent his little son with a message to S. Maccarthen. The child's mother gave him an apple to eat on the way. The boy played with it, and it rolled from him and was lost. He hunted for his apple till the sun set, and then, tired, laid himself down in the middle of the road and fell asleep. Maccarthen was going along the road and found the sleeping child there. He at once wrapped his mantle round him, and sat by him all night. Many horsemen and cars passed before the child woke, but the old man made them get by as best they might, and he would neither suffer the child to be disturbed, nor let an accident befall him in the dark. Great as were the powers conferred on the Celtic saints or arrogated to themselves, there can be no doubt but that they employed them mainly as a means of delivering the innocent, and in putting down barbarous customs. S. Erc--in Cornwall Erth--made use of his influence to prevent the king of Connaught from baptising his new lance, after pagan custom, in the blood of an infant; S. Euny his in rescuing a boy from being tossed on the spears of some soldiers. Again, finding after a battle that it was the custom to cut off the heads of all who had fallen, and stack them at the king's door to be counted, he with difficulty induced the victors to take turves instead of the heads. I do not think we at all adequately appreciate the service the saints rendered to the Celtic nations in raising the tone of appreciation of woman. Next to founding their own monastic establishments, they were careful to induce their mothers or sisters to establish communities for the education of the daughters of the chiefs and of all such maidens as would be entrusted to them.