To weaken the clans and the bond of union existing between them unrighteous charters were granted to certain lands in favour of pretenders that could present no valid claim. Hence the majority of the clan feuds which frequently drenched the Highland hills and glens with blood. One particular result of the early teaching has been the national respect for woman. It is one of the finest moral traits in the character of the Gael. At this day it is among the Gael of the Outer Hebrides and of the more recognised Celtic districts of Ireland, such as Munster and Connaught, that the Registrar General finds the smallest percentage of illegitimacy. The high-toned morality which the poems of Ossian exhibit in this respect has been used as an argument against their authenticity. And yet it should be no argument at all for one who can trace out and analyse the early sources whence developed the moral elements of the national character. The Celt has been generally very religious. The religion of the Gael of Scotland, like that of the Kymry of Wales, whether in ancient or in modern Christian times, has always flourished in an atmosphere of deep severity. The rigid ethics of the early religion, combined with a hard life at a distance from enervating centres of civilisation, help to explain this. This sternness of doctrine also, no doubt, prepared the modern Gael to accept with such absolute entirety, and with such earnest heartiness, the Calvinistic system of Christian truth which many regard as severe and harsh. The higher results of the literary and moral culture of the Druidic religion we have embodied in the relics of Ossianic poetry. The order of Druids, with their ideals of philosophy and religion, have vanished; but their power for good remains embedded in the foundation of the national name, with its educating influences and its inspiring associations. In this power lay the moral strength of our early ancestors. Christianity, in its early Celtic and Reformed stages, developed into higher and purer issues this national virtue; and the character of the people is exponent of the results of the process. Other tribes and communities have had Christianity among them too, but with different results. This line of thought suggests an explanation of why, as has been already remarked, the Irish Gael appears to be somewhat unlike the Scottish Gael. A glance may now be appropriately bestowed upon that other somewhat mysterious body—those heroes called the Féinne.