He was the ablest friend of the American colonies in England during the Revolution, and harassed Lord North more than any other man. He reached the summit of his influence at the impeachment of Warren Hastings for misgovernment and treason while viceroy in India; and then Burke's sun began to set. He retired upon a pension, and passed from history with the eighteenth century. One of his eulogists has said that "notwithstanding some eccentricities and some aberrations, he made the tide of human destiny luminous." Near Burke's birthplace is the oldest and the quaintest church in Dublin, built by the Danes before the English came to Ireland and consecrated to St. Michan, a Danish saint. Within its walls is the penitential stool, where "open and notorious naughty livers" were compelled to stand and confess their sins in public and make pledges of repentance and reform. The officiating minister, reciting the fifty-first Psalm, led the offending sinner from the altar to the foot of the pulpit,--barefooted, bareheaded, and draped in a long white sheet,--and placed him upon the stool of repentance to hear a sermon directed at his particular sins. The tower of St. Michan's dates from the twelfth century, and is one of the most beautiful things in Dublin. The view from the top of it includes all the city, which is divided into two almost equal parts by the River Liffey and spreads over an uneven surface from the dark green woods of Phoenix Park to the dark blue waters of the Irish Sea. Handel used to play the organ in St. Michan's Church, and it was there the public first heard the score of "The Messiah." The most remarkable feature of St. Michan's, however, is a peculiar preservative effect from the soil in the crypt upon the bodies that are buried there. They mummify before decay sets in and turn into a leathery brown, similar to the mummies of Egypt. The vaults are filled with remains that have lain there for centuries. Among them is the body of one of the kings of Leinster, and beside him is the corpse of a baby, from whose tiny wrists white ribbon has been hanging since its funeral in 1679. Every corpse in the crypt is mummified in the same way, and it is the only place in Dublin where this phenomenon occurs. Nor is there any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. The vaults are absolutely dry. The popular theory is that a subtle gas arising from the peaty soil suspends nature's law of decay.