“The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He survived her only forty days. A violent fever having seized him, he caused himself to be carried into the chapel of S. John the Baptist. He had before ordered to be opened the tomb in which his sister slept. There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the viaticum: then, placing himself at the side of the open grave, at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards heaven, he died standing, murmuring a last prayer. “Died standing!—such a victorious death became well the great soldier of God.”[3] He was buried beside his sister, on the very spot where had stood the altar of Apollo which he had cast down. [Illustration: S. BRIDGET OF KILDARE.] IX _S. BRIDGET_ One would have to look through many centuries, and over a wide tract of the earth’s surface, to find a woman who possessed in her own generation so large an influence, and who so deeply impressed her personality on after generations, as S. Bridget. A woman she was, with no advantages of birth; but who by the mere force of character and her marvellous holiness, became a predominating power in the Church of Ireland after the death of S. Patrick. It is said of the sick that the nurse is as important as the doctor; and in the spread of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church, the part of Bridget was only second to that of the great Apostle of Ireland. The lives of S. Bridget that we possess are, unhappily, late, and intermixed, nay, overloaded with fable; the most grotesque and preposterous miracles are attributed to her. Nevertheless, when sifted, and the extravagances have been eliminated, sufficient of truth, of real history and biography remains behind for us to distinguish the main outline of her story, and to discern the real characteristics of the Saint. It would seem to be a law of Divine providence, that at such periods of transformation as arise periodically, suitable persons should rise to prominence for giving direction to the disturbed minds of men in the general dislocation of received ideas. To understand the exact position of S. Bridget, and the work she wrought, it is necessary for us to look at the condition of Ireland before it received the Gospel. The whole political organisation was tribal, and not territorial. The chief of the clan was almost absolute, and about him, as a centre of unity, the tribesmen clung, as bees about their queen. The chiefs had their Druids or Medicine-men, who blessed their undertakings and cursed their enemies, and the most unbounded confidence was placed in the efficacy of these blessings or curses. The Druids were endowed with lands, and probably in Ireland, as in Britain, constituted sacred tribes within the tribal confines of the secular chiefs.