In view of the arguments which are sometimes adduced to prove that the early Irish Church did not teach this doctrine of prayer for the dead, it is curious to observe how in St. Patrick's second Council he expressly forbids the holy sacrifice being offered up after death for those who in life had made themselves unworthy of such suffrages. At the Synod of Cashel, held just after the Norman conquest, the claim of each dead man's soul to a certain part of his chattels after death was asserted. To steal a page from the time-worn chronicles of Scotland, it is told by Theodoric that when Queen Margaret of Scotland, that gentle and noble character upon whom the Church has placed the crown of canonization, was dying, she said to him: "Two things I have to desire of thee;" and one of these was thus worded, "that as long as thou livest thou wilt remember my poor soul in thy Masses and prayers." It had been her custom in life to recite the office of the dead every day during Lent and Advent. Sir Walter Scott mentions in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border "a curious league or treaty of peace between two hostile clans, by which the heads of each became bound to make the four pilgrimages of Scotland for the benefit of those souls who had fallen in the feud." In the Bond of Alliance or Field Staunching Betwixt the Clans of Scott and Ker this agreement is thus worded: "That it is appointed, agreed and finally accorded betwixt honorable men," the names are here mentioned, "Walter Ker of Cessford, Andrew Ker of Fairnieherst," etc., etc., "for themselves, kin, friends, maintenants, assisters, allies, adherents, and partakers, on the one part; and Walter Scott of Branxholm," etc., etc., etc. For the staunching of all discord and variance between them and so on, amongst other provisions, that "the said Walter Scott of Branxholm shall gang, or cause gang, at the will of the party, to the four head pilgrimages of Scotland, and shall say a Mass for the unquhile Andrew Ker of Cessford and them that were slain in his company in the field of Melrose; and, upon his expence, shall cause a chaplain to say a Mass daily, when he is disposed, in what place the said Walter Ker and his friend pleases, for the weil of the said souls, for the space of five years next to come. Mark Ker of Dolphinston, Andrew Ker of Graden, shall gang at the will of the party to the four head pilgrimages of Scotland, and shall gar say a Mass for the souls of the unquhile James Scott of Eskirk and other Scots, their friends, slain in the field of Melrose; and, upon their expence, shall gar a chaplain say a Mass daily, when he is disposed, for the heal of their souls, where the said Walter Scott and his friend pleases, for the space of the next three years to come." We may mention that the four pilgrimages are Scoon, Dundee, Paisley, and Melrose. This devotion of praying for the dead seems, indeed, to have taken strong hold upon these rude borderers, who, Sir Walter Scott