On reading over this remarkable document we are struck with the truth of the remark of the eloquent Ozanam in the chapter of his work _Etudes Germaniques_, he has devoted to the "preaching of the Irish". He says: "We must not here repeat that accusation so often brought against the Church of Ireland, viz., that being instructed in sacred learning from Asia, she rejected the authority of the Popes; and that in union with the Culdees of Brittany, her monks preserved their religious independence in the midst of the universal spiritual bondage of the middle ages. If the founders of Irish monasteries, in the provisions and very terms of their rules, often recall to mind the institutions of the east, it was at Lerins and in the writings of Cassian they learned them. It was from Rome that Patrick received his mission; from Rome he received the language of his liturgy, the dogmas he taught, and the religious observances he propagated. Run over all that remains of these first centuries (of the Irish Church), the decrees of national synods, the penitentials, the legends: you will find in them everything which the enemies of Rome have rejected; the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, the practice of confession, of fasting, and of abstinence. The differences between her and the Churches of the continent are reducible to three points: the form of the tonsure, some of the minor ceremonies of baptism, and the time of keeping Easter, and these slight differences disappeared when the Fathers of the Council of Lene (A.D. 630), 'having had recourse', as they tell us, 'to the chief of Christian cities, _as children to their mother_', adopted the customs of the rest of Christendom. The religious communities of Ireland were not, then, the jealous guardians of some unheard-of heterodox Christianity. They were the colonies and (as it were) the out-posts of Latin civilization. They maintained learning as well as faith, and their schools imitated the Roman schools in Gaul, whence had come forth the bright luminaries of the Church, Honoratus, Cassian, Salvian, and Sulpicius Severus". How beautiful is the description of one of these monastic rules, that of Benchor, found in the ancient Antiphonary of that monastery, published by Muratori, and quoted by the same distinguished writer:-- "Benchiur bona regula. Recta atque divina. Navis nunquam turbata, Quamvis fluctibus tonsa, Necnon vinca vera, Ex Ægypti transducto, Christo regina apta, Solis luce amicta. Simplex simul atque docta. Undecumque invicta Benchiur bona regula".