The Rule of St. Carthage (who was familiarly called _Mochuda_) has already been published in full in the December and January numbers of the _Record_. Frequent mention is made in it of the holy sacrament of penance, and as St. Carthage died before the year 640, we are thus enabled to trace back the Catholic tenets of our fathers even to the beginning of the seventh century. At page 116, among _the duties of a priest_ is commemorated: “If you go to give communion At the awful point of death, You must receive confession Without shame, without reserve. Let him receive your sacrament If his body bewails. The penitence is not worthy Which turns not from evil.... If you be anybody’s soul-friend, His soul thou shalt not sell; Thou shalt not be a blind man leading the blind; Thou shalt not allow him to fall into neglect; Let them give thee their confession Candidly and devoutly”. Whilst confession was thus enjoined on the faithful, it was not less necessary for the religious themselves: “When you come unto the mass— It is a noble office— Let there be penitence of heart, shedding of tears, And throwing up of the hands, ... With confession of vices, When you come to receive”. And again, when laying down special rules for monks, St. Carthage commands them to exercise modesty and meekness: “With inculcation of every truth; With denunciation of every wickedness; With perfect frequent confessions, Under the directions of a holy abbot”.(25) The testimony of these religious rules is of great importance: they not only convey to us the teaching of individuals remarkable for their piety and learning, but they moreover record for our instruction those disciplinary enactments which received the solemn sanction of the greatest saints of our ancient Church, and which guided in the paths of perfection thousands of our countrymen whose virtues and miracles won for our island a wide-spread fame for sanctity throughout the sixth and succeeding centuries. We may now refer to facts connected with these sainted fathers of our Church which throw much light on the practice of confession, from the earliest period of faith in our island. Thus, of St. Adamnan we read that, being troubled about some sin of his early youth “he resorted to a priest from whom he hoped to learn the way of salvation, and confessing his fault prayed for such counsel as might enable him to flee from the avenging anger of God”.(26)