“The God omnipotent, who made the world, Is subject to no change. He was, He is, And He shall be: th’ Eternal is his name. Equal in Godhead and eternal power, Is Christ the Son; so is the Holy Ghost. These sacred glories three are but the same, In persons different, but one God and Lord. This God created all the heavenly hosts: Archangels, angels, potentates, and powers; That so the emanations of His love Might flow to myriads diffusing good. But from this eminence of glory fell Th’ apostate Lucifer, elate with pride, Of his high station and his glorious form. Fill’d with like pride, and envying God himself, His glory, other angels shared his fate, While the remainder kept their happy state. Thus fell a third of the bright heavenly stars, Involv’d in the old serpent’s guilt and fate; And with him suffer, in th’ infernal gulf, The loss of heaven, in chains of darkness bound.” Further remarks on the poetry attributed to Columba will be found in the next chapter. [Illustration: (decorative end-of-chapter icon)] CHAPTER IV. LATIN HYMNS OF THE CELTIC CHURCH. The following entry among the Irish Charters in the famous Book of Kells illustrates the fate of much of our ancient Celtic literature, especially in Scotland: “Anno Domini m^o ui^o (_alias_ 1007). Soiscela mor coluim cille do dubguit is ind aidci as ind iardom iartarach in daimliacc moir cenannsa,” &c. A.D. 1006 (_alias_ 1007)—The great Gospel of Calum-cille was sacrilegiously stolen at night out of the western portions of the great church of Kells. This was the chief relic of the west of the world on account of the singular cover. This Gospel was found in twenty nights and two months, with its gold stolen off, and a sod over it. Thus the “great gospel” of Columba was preserved from destruction by the merest accident. But cupidity has not been the only foe that the Celt’s ancient manuscript literature has had to contend with. The ignorance and indifference of many into whose hands it fell have also played their part;—a tailor was seen last century in the Hebrides cutting down Gaelic manuscripts for patterns. More fatal than ignorance has been the active depreciation of a hostile church operating on the animosity of a rival race. It is only now—a thousand years after the era of the ancient Celtic Church—that scholars and unprejudiced historians have succeeded in showing us a little of it. The “sod over it” has been partly removed; and the “find” has not been altogether uninteresting, although the “gold” has been “stolen off.” Zeuss has furnished us with materials for the reconstruction of the ancient Celtic language; Skene and others have given us some account of the early Iro-British Church; but Church history has not fully examined the available existing material that would show us the character of