In all his travels through Ireland-and there is scarcely a spot which he did not visit and evangelize-St. Patrick meets with only one idol, or rather group of idols, situated in the County Cavan, which was an object of veneration to the people. Nowhere else are idols to be found, or the saint would have thought it his duty to destroy them also. This first fact certainly places the Irish in a position, with regard to idolatry, far different from that of all other polytheist nations. In all other countries it is characteristic of polytheism to multiply the statues of the gods, to expose them in all public places, in their houses, but chiefly within or at the door of edifices erected for the purpose. Yet in Ireland we find nothing of the kind, with the exception of Crom Cruagh. The holy apostle of the nation goes on preaching, baptizing, converting people, without finding any worship of gods of stone or metal; he only hears that there is something of the kind in a particular spot, and he has to travel a great distance in order to see it, and show the people their folly in venerating it. But what was that idol? According to the majority of expounders of Irish history, it was a golden sphere or ball representing the sun, with twelve cones or pillars of brass, around it, typifying, probably, astronomical signs. St. Patrick, in his "Confessio," seems to allude to Crom Cruagh when he says: "That sun which we behold by the favor of God rises for us every day; but its splendor will not shine forever; nay, even all those who adore it shall be miserably punished." The Bollandists, in a note on this passage of the "Confessio," think that it might refer to Crom Cruagh, which possibly represented the sun, surrounded by the signs of the twelve months, through which it describes its orbit during the year. We know that the Druids were, perhaps, better versed in the science of astronomy than the scholars of any other nation at the time. It was not in Gaul and Britain only that they pursued their course of studies for a score of years; the same fact is attested for Ireland by authorities whose testimony is beyond question. May we not suppose that a representation of mere heavenly phenomena, set in a conspicuous position, had in course of time become the object of the superstitious veneration of the people, and that St. Patrick thought it his duty to destroy it? And the attitude of the people at the time of its destruction shows that it could not have borne for them the same sacred character as the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon did for the Greeks or that of Capitoline Jove for the Romans. Can we suppose that St. Paul or St. Peter would have dared to break either of these? And let us remark that the event we discuss occurred at the very beginning of St. Patrick's ministry, and before he had yet acquired that great authority over the minds of all which afterward enabled him fearlessly to accomplish whatever his zeal prompted him to do.