himself in an amiable light, and yet shows that he has power, and can use it when required. Earl Edmund shut himself up from no one. Any Irishman who pleased could have access to him at any time, and his native eloquence recommended him strongly to their easily touched feelings. But his beneficent reign did not last long, and perhaps his short tenure of power was quite as well for his popularity. Human nature, in all countries, is apt to become accustomed to kindness, and to take advantage of it. And doubtless the Earl’s popularity was partly due to the fact that he succeeded rulers harsher and less attractive than himself. One great disadvantage on the part of England was that while she realised to the full the inferior civilisation of the Irish, she failed to discover that they possessed a faith purer than her own. The true old and Catholic religion implanted by St. Patrick and others of his type had received far less corruption from Rome than the religion of England. But the English were much more concerned in improving the manners of the Irish nobles than in improving their own spirituality. That an Irish king wore no trousers, and that his attendant minstrel shared his plate and glass, struck them infinitely more than the condition of his morals. When once they had satisfied themselves that the Irish believed in the Triune God, and had heard of the existence of a Bishop at Rome who was the Pontiff of Western Christendom—points apparently of equal importance to them—they gave themselves no further trouble on the religious question. Political and social questions came nearer and pressed more heavily. With the usual individuality of our race, they resented the use of a separate language, to which the Irish, as individual in their way, clung as for very life. If, instead of trying to suppress the venerable and beloved tongue, England had given Ireland an open Bible in it—if she had insisted on the study of Holy Writ, and had left the manners to take care of themselves under its influence, what a different future there might have been! Are we still as blind as five hundred years ago, or shall we some day see that peace for Ireland, as for every other land and soul, must come through the teaching of the Spirit, and the blood of the Cross? *CHAPTER II.* *WATCHWORDS.* "Then out and spake a gude auld man— A gude death micht he dee!— ’Whatever ye do, my gude maister, Take God your Guide to be.’" —OLD BALLAD.