"Gelasius O'Cullenan, born of a noble family in Connaught . . . joined the Cistercian order. Having competed his studies in Paris, the monastery of Boyle was destined as the field of his labors. On his arrival in Ireland, he found that the monastery, with its property, had been seized on by one of the neighboring gentry, who was sheltered in his usurpation by the edict of Elizabeth. The abbot . . . went boldly to the usurping nobleman, admonishing him of the guilt he had incurred; and the malediction of Heaven, which he would assuredly draw down upon his family. Moved by his exhortations, the nobleman restored to him the full possession of the monastery and lands; and, some time after, contemplating the holy life of its inmates, . . . he, too, renounced the world and joined the religious institute." CHAPTER IX. THE IRISH AND THE TUDORS.--ELIZABETH.--THE UNDAUNTED NOBILITY.-- THE SUFFERING CHURCH. On January 12, 1559, in the second year of the reign of Elizabeth, a Parliament was convened in Dublin to pass the Act of Supremacy; that is to say, to establish Lutheranism in Ireland, as had already been done in England, under the garb of Episcopalianism. But the attempt was fated to encounter a more determined opposition in Dublin than it had in London. Sir James Ware says, in reference to it: "At the very beginning of this Parliament, her Majestie's well-wishers found that most of the nobility and Commons--they were all English by blood or birth--were divided in opinion about the ecclesiastical government, which caused the Earl of Sussex (Lord Deputy) to dissolve them, and to go over to England to confer with her Majesty about the affairs of this kingdom. "These differences were occasioned by the several alterations which had happened in ecclesiastical matters within the compass of twelve years. "1. King Henry VIII. held the ecclesiastical supremacy with the first-fruits and tenths, maintaining the seven sacraments, with obits and mass for the living and the dead. "2. King Edward abolished the mass, authorizing the book of common prayers, and the consecration of the bread and wine in the English tongue, and establishing only two sacraments. "3. Queen Mary, after King Edward's decease, brought all back again to the Church of Rome, and the papal obedience. "4. Queen Elizabeth, on her first Parliament in England, took away the Pope's supremacy, reserving the tenths and first-fruits to her heirs and successors. She put down the mass, and, for a general uniformity of worship in her dominions, as well in England as in Ireland, she established the book of common prayers, and forbade the use of popish ceremonies." Such is the very lucid sketch furnished by Ware of the changes which had taken place in religion in England within the brief space of twelve years.