the ancient history of Caledonia, its native people, and its colonists, they would have known that there were no Scoti" in that country till the commencement of the next century, and that the mission of S. Palladius was to the "Scoti" in Ireland. It is true, he afterwards came to Caledonia, and actually died at Fordun in the Mearns, but his mission there was to the Picts. To him, and to his two companions, SS. Serf and Ternan, do the southern Picts owe the completion of the work of conversion begun by S. Ninian. Mr. Grub well observes that real Ecclesiastical history commences with the appearance of S. Columba. We pass then from the region of tradition, to that of history.

"Fergus, the youngest son of Erc, is said to have received the blessing of S. Patrick, who foretold his future greatness, and the glory of his descendants. When considerably advanced in life, he and two of his brothers, led a colony of Dalriads to Britain, and founded the Scottish monarchy there, in the year 503. He was succeeded by his son Domangart, whose son and successor, Comgal, was the father of Conal, by whom the island of Iona was bestowed on Columba.”—Ibid. p. 44.

This was the beginning of the Scottish monarchy, which was afterwards to supersede the Pictish, and to give its name to the whole country. But let it be carefully borne in mind, that the name Scotland was not given to North Britain till the tenth century. S. Columba, was by birth a relation of Erc, the king or chief of the Scoti; he left his native country, Ireland, to settle among his kinsmen, who had established themselves in Argyll and the southern Hebrides. He landed in Iona in 563, with twelve companions. This island was bestowed upon the saint and his attendants.

"The island of Iona is about three miles long, and a mile and a half broad. It is separated from Mull by a narrow sound, about half a mile in breadth. Besides the name it generally bears, it is known also as Hy, the island, and Icolmkill, the island of Columba of the Churches.

"The first task of S. Columba, after taking possession of the island, was to erect a monastery and a Church. These buildings were exceedingly humble. The Church was probably of hewn timber, thatched with reed, like that erected at Lindisfarne by Bishop Finan, after the manner of the Scots, as described by Bede. The monastic buildings were of a still more unpretending kind, as is implied in the whole narrative of Adamnan; they were no doubt of the same character with those which are known to have existed in Ireland at that time, contrasting remarkably with the magnificent structures of after ages. The glory of these early buildings was within.

"The monastery of Iona, like those previously founded by Columba, in Ireland, was of the kind already described, in connection with the account of Candida Casa. It was not a retreat for solitaries, whose chief object was to work out their own salvation; it was a great school

of Christian education, and was especially designed to prepare and send forth a body of clergy, trained to the task of preaching the Gospel among the heathen."— Ibid. p. 51.

Here was established that anomaly, which has, like the primus Episcopus Scotorum, before mentioned, helped to confirm the notion of a Presbyterian polity in the primitive Scottish Church. Former writers have tried to explain away the anomaly; Mr. Grub boldly meets it. It is this; the Abbot of Iona was invariably a Presbyter, not a Bishop; he also, for a considerable time, exercised primatial authority over the Scottish Church. Here then, say the Presbyterians, is our charter of Church polity in the early Scottish Church. On this point Mr. Grub remarks :—

"The origin of the primacy of Iona may be easily explained. Columba had naturally great influence with his kinsmen, the sovereigns of the British Scots; they were not converted by him, but he was their chief teacher, and the head of an illustrious order, to which their clergy chiefly belonged; he had inaugurated the most powerful of their kings, and by his means, their territory had become the seat of the most famous monastery of their nation. Among the Picts, his claims were still greater; he had converted their king and a large part of their nation, from heathenism. To him it was owing that they were Christians at all; and when the Church was set up among them, they looked upon him as their supreme earthly head. The northern Picts, among whom the sovereign resided, would naturally extend the system adopted by themselves over their less powerful countrymen of the south; and if, after a period of decline, religion was restored among the latter by means of Columba, his authority would be the more readily admitted. In this way the primacy of the Scots and Picts, was vested in Columba and his successors; in virtue of it, all, of whatever rank or degree, were subjected to their rule; even Bishops themselves, after a manner very unusual in the Church, were subordinate in point of jurisdiction, to the Presbyter-Abbot of Iona."-Ibid. p. 136.

Ecclesiastical writers have endeavoured to account for this anomaly-which seems on the face of it to tell against the divine right of Episcopacy-by comparing it to a modern Cathedral Chapter, in which Bishops were frequently Canons of the Cathedral, and as such subject to the Dean; or by supposing that the subjection was not Ecclesiastical but secular; neither of which, Mr. Grub says, at all meets the case. A Dean has no jurisdiction out of his Cathedral, while it is quite clear that the PresbyterAbbot had, and that jurisdiction was Ecclesiastical, and not secular. We must admit the fact, and say with Bede, that it existed ordine inusitato; but we must not admit that it proves the Presbyterian position; for, 1st, it is admitted to be an anomaly; 2ndly, there were actually Bishops who conferred orders, confirmation, &c., which the Presbyter-Primate never did. This, we need hardly

say, at once overthrows the Presbyterian assertion; all it proves is, that there were no diocesan Bishops. The case seems to be this,-Caledonia was looked upon as a great Mission field, of which the centres were the monasteries; in them were trained the future clergy; from them issued the priest and preacher; there also lived the Bishop, who went forth to exercise his functions, wherever they were required. Parishes, in our sense of the term, there were none; dioceses were unknown, but the whole spiritual work of the Church was carried out in all its various functions.

The Northern Picts and the Scots were united under one King in Kenneth Macalpine, in the middle of the ninth century; he founded the church and monastery of Dunkeld, and, curiously enough, transferred the primatical dignity from the successor of S. Columba to the Presbyter-Abbot of Dunkeld, where it remained for half a century; the circumstances of its removal deserve notice, for with that event commences a new era in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. In the reign of Constantine, son of Aodh, Dunkeld was destroyed by the Danes:

"From that time the superiors of Dunkeld appear to have been not ecclesiastics, but laymen of high rank, bearing the name of Abbots, and inheriting the possessions of the monastery. We are further told that in the sixth year of his reign, Constantine the King, and Kellach the Bishop, with the Scots, swore to observe the laws and discipline of the faith, and the rights of the Churches and the Gospels; and that this took place at the hill, near the royal city of Scone, called thenceforth from that event, the Hill of Belief. Kellach is the first Bishop residing at S. Andrew's, whose name has been preserved. From the manner in which he is here spoken of, it may naturally be inferred that he was now the chief Bishop, or Primate, of the Scots; and this is confirmed by the position which S. Andrew's, from that time, assumed in our ecclesiastical history."-Ibid. p. 167.

From that time till 1472 the ecclesiastical head of the Scottish Church retained only the title of Bishop; for, as Pope Clement declared in 1188, that Church was the special daughter of Rome, and immediately under the Apostolic see. In the former year, Sixtus IV. created S. Andrew's into an archiepiscopal and metropolitan see, with twelve Bishops for suffragans. At the same

time, by letters from the same Pope, the dioceses of Glasgow and Whithern, over which the Archbishop of York had long claimed Metropolitan jurisdiction, were formally placed under that of S. Andrew's; so also those of Orkney and the Isles, which had been hitherto subject to the Archbishop of Drontheim, were connected to S. Andrew's. In 1492 the like archiepiscopal dignity was conferred, by a bull of Innocent VIII., on Glasgow, with privileges resembling those enjoyed by the Metropolitan Church of York.

In spite, however, of this apparent and peculiar affinity to Rome,

the Scottish Church could act independently when there was a determined monarch on the throne; the closeness of the ecclesiastical alliance with Rome resembled the like close political alliance with France in cause and effect; both proceeded from the reiterated claims of England to both ecclesiastical and political supremacy over Scotland; prudence, and a love of independence, made the nation court the favour and assistance of the Pope against one claim, and the King of France against the other; in neither case, however, does it seem that the nation had the slightest intention to forfeit its independence; for we read that a national Synod was quite ready to assert its own competency to rule the Church without assistance from Rome. In 1237 a Papal legate proposed to enter Scotland to inquire into the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom, but was prevented by the resolute conduct of King Alexander, who declared that there was no need for such a visitation. It is true that in 1239, the legate Otho did visit Scotland, and held a Synod at Edinburgh, but only on the condition that the visit should not be construed into a precedent.

We should be omitting an important matter if we passed over in silence Mr. Grub's conclusions respecting the Culdees. Every one acquainted with Scottish ecclesiastical history knows the difficulties attending a clear comprehending of this institution. A fabulously remote, and equally improbable, eastern origin has been assigned to this order.

"The fables which speak of the Culdees as a religious society or order existing under that name from the fifth century may be dismissed at once. It has been already seen what the true history of Palladius was, and what was the system established by Columba and his followers. To call the Monks of Iona Culdees is wrong, because no writer of their own time speaks of them under that name, and because to do so perpetuates the error which identifies the religious teaching and institutions of the sixth and seventh centuries with those of the tenth. But to hold simply that the ancient Columbites were, in many instances, the direct predecessors of the Culdees, and that the rule of the former differed no otherwise, in most respects, from that of the latter, than a system in its original purity differs from the same system in its corruption, is not repugnant to authentic historical testimony, but rather receives confirmation from it."--Ibid. p. 228.

After examining evidence, Mr. Grub concludes that the Culdees. were only known in Scotland by that title, at the earliest in the beginning of the tenth century.

"Northern Britain was not the only seat of the Culdees; there were ecclesiastics, so named, in England, in Wales, and in Ireland. The Canons of York were styled Culdees in the reign of Athelstane, and the secular clergy of the cathedrals generally seem to have been distinguished by the same title. Giraldus Cambrensis says that there were Culdees in

the island of Bardsey-the holy isle of Wales-unmarried, and living a most religious life. In Ireland the Culdees had numerous establishments, and retained the name at Armagh down to the time of Archbishop Usher."-Ibid. pp. 229, 230.

While it may be said that the Culdees were the successors of the Columbites and other Monastic institutions in Scotland, we must look on them as having considerably degenerated from primitive discipline, and in many cases become completely secularized. The incursions of the Northmen, both in England and Scotland, desolated the monasteries; the places of the murdered monks were supplied by secular clergy, who did not submit to the regular discipline. Instead of living under rule, they began to have separate dwellings entirely apart, and to have goods and possessions of their own. Another abuse quickly followed; powerful noblemen, under various pretexts, acquired a great part of the endowments of the monasteries, and converted them into hereditary lordships; with these possessions the usurpers also assumed the ecclesiastical titles. Thus there were lay Abbots of Dunkeld and Abernethy and other places; while the real ecclesiastical superior was the prior. The reformation that took place in the twelfth century under king David was not more complete than was needed; the degenerate Culdees were displaced by Regulars, the new monastery often rose on the site of the old Columbite house, and was endowed with the old ecclesiastical possessions, which had been seized by the lay-abbots. The country was divided into parishes; churches were built and secular clergy regularly appointed under Diocesan bishops; while the monasteries became schools of learning. Scotland, so long isolated from the rest of the world, was now admitted to the brotherhood of Western Christendom; and this happy union was attended by an increase of religious zeal and devotion, and by the improvement in the lives and manners, and general welfare of the people.

Mr. Grub shows very clearly that the alleged purity of faith among the Culdees is, like many other suppositions about them, incapable of proof: their independence of Rome is probably a fact, but it proceeded, not from opposition to Papal claims, but to the isolation of Scotland; their opposition to the Regulars arose, not from any protestant' feeling, but from a fear of their power, and a dread lest they should be brought under a stricter rule; there is no reason to doubt that they held in common with the rest of Western Europe, all that was believed in the tenth and eleventh century. There certainly was a difference in ritual, but that difference was to the disgrace of the Culdees, rather than to their honour it was in the carelessness-to use no stronger word-with which their offices were performed, the infrequency of them; all arising from a relaxed discipline, a love waxen cold, a faith of little