The Life of Saint Columba, Apostle of Scotland

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Forbes Frances Alice. The Life of Saint Columba, Apostle of Scotland

CHAPTER I. CHILD OF THE MOUNTAIN AND THE LAKE

CHAPTER II. THE SCHOOLING OF A SAINT

CHAPTER III. DERRY AND DURROW

CHAPTER IV. THE COW AND THE CALF

CHAPTER V. A BITTER PENANCE

CHAPTER VI. THE ISLE IN THE WESTERN SEAS

CHAPTER VII. THE APOSTLE OF SCOTLAND

CHAPTER VIII. THE CONVENTION OF DRUM-CEATT

CHAPTER IX. FOR CHRIST AND HIS LOVE

CHAPTER X. THE GIFT OF VISION

CHAPTER XI. THE LIGHT ETERNAL

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THOUGH more than 1300 years have gone by since the death of St. Columba, there are few saints whose memory is so living and so strong. This is partly due to his vivid and attractive personality, but in a great measure also to the fact that we have his Biography or Life written at great length by Adamnan, ninth abbot of Iona, who was born only twenty-seven years after Columba's death. Adamnan, who was very young when he entered the community at Iona, could have gathered the materials for his book from the lips of those who had personally known the great Apostle of Scotland, and who had been eye-witnesses of the events recorded. We know that these friends were many, and drawn from all classes, for Columbcille, above all the men of his time, had the gift of being loved, and many instances are related of the passionate devotion of the monks of Iona to their great abbot, no less than that of the multitudes with whom in his long and busy life he had come in contact. Adamnan is considered to be a sober and trustworthy author, and has not exaggerated, as many of the later writers undoubtedly have, the miraculous element in the life of the Saint.

Carlyle, who cannot be considered as an advocate of the supernatural, remarks of the Life of St. Columba: "You can see that the man who wrote it could tell no lie. What he meant you cannot always find out; but it is clear that he told things as they appeared to him."

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"Well hast thou chosen, Columba," said the angel, "they shall be thine, and God will add to them yet another gift."

So it came to pass in the course of time that there appeared one day before Columba three beautiful maidens, who would have embraced him, but he pushed them roughly away.

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