But God shows His love for His Saints in ways which are not the ways of men, and the chastening fires of sorrow and of suffering were to purify that ardent and impulsive nature. The haughty spirit of the descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages had yet to be conformed to that of his great Master Who is meek and humble of heart. CHAPTER IV THE COW AND THE CALF WE have already spoken of the pilgrimage to Rome of St. Finnian of Moville, and of the treasure that he had brought back with him from over the sea--a copy of the Scriptures translated and corrected by the hand of the great St. Jerome himself. Columba, when at Moville, must often have seen and perhaps even have handled the precious volume. In later days, so great was his desire that each of his monasteries should have its copy of the Word of God, that he would seek out and transcribe with his own hand all the most carefully written and most authentic manuscripts to be found in Ireland. The love of these old books, regarded by the Saints of Ireland as their most precious treasure, amounted almost to a passion with Columba, so that we are hardly surprised to find him journeying to Moville to ask permission from his old master to make a copy of his rare and valuable manuscript. But he was met by an unexpected rebuff; St. Finnian guarded his treasure with a jealous eye, and feared to trust it in any hands but his own. He firmly refused the request of his old pupil, and no entreaties of Columba could move him from his decision. But the determination of Columbcille was equal to his own, and he resolved to obtain the object of his desire in spite of St. Finnian's prohibition. He waited until all had gone to rest, and then, armed with parchment and pigments, went softly to the church, where the precious book was kept. Night after night, in spite of weary hand and eye, he laboured at his self-imposed task until the day broke, and men began to stir. To undertake the transcription of the whole book would have been an impossibility, working thus secretly in the night; he therefore confined himself to copying the Psalter. To Columba, poet as he was by nature, the psalms of the "sweet singer of Israel" were particularly clear, and the wording of the new version gave the force and the melody of the original more perfectly than any rendering up till then in use.