and be filled with the love of Jesus. It alone can satisfy thee in time and eternity. It burnt so hotly in this Apostle, that he felt not the heat of that boiling oil into which his enemies cast him ; so, too, if thou lovest fervently like him, shalt thou not be sensible of the fiery persecution which is to try every disciple of the suffering Jesus.

S.S. INNOCENTS.

Hail ye flowers of martyrdom,

Whom the ruthless sword hath shorn,
On the threshold of the morn-
Rosebuds by the whirlwind torn!

All regardless of your doom,
'Neath the altar where ye lay,
With your palm and chaplet gay,
Little simple ones ye play.

Tyrant, what avails their tomb?
He shall 'scape the bloody blade,
Which hath many childless made,
Infant born of mother-maid.

Thus the type of Him to come,
Restorer of lost Israel,,
Moses 'scaped the tyrant fell,
Guarded by the Invisible.

Jesus, born of Virgin's womb,
Father, Spirit, One and Three,
Sing we glory unto Thee-
Sing we everlastingly. Amen.

FERIA VI.-AD VESPERAS.

Lugete, pacis angeli :
Mortalis en ultro Deus,
Culpæ gerens imaginem,
Pænam nocentum sustinat.

Poetry.

FOR FRIDAY EVENING.

Angels of peace, bend down and weep,
And God in mortal semblance see,
The Sinless One 'made sin,' to keep
From sinful man sin's penalty.

Burn, glorious stars!-with ardour Peace, heavenly-peace

TO AN OLD COMMUNION CUP.

Ecclesiastical Entelligence.

IONA, OR CATHEDRAL INSTITUTIONS.

(Concluded from Page 542.)

'Seven years before that awful day
When time shall be no more,
A watery deluge shall o'ersweep
Hibernia's mossy shore.

The green-clad Isla, too, shall sink;
While with the great and good,
Columba's happier isle shall rear
Her towns above the flood.'

THESE lines are the substance of an ancient prediction, long preserved in Iona, which has been translated as above from the Gaelic language, by a Dr Smith at Campbelltown: the date of the original is unknown. As we have referred in our last number to a forthcoming publication, designed to contain some account of Iona, or more properly, its ecclesiastical remains, we shall content ourselves at present with merely remarking, that the present Cathedral, of which only the ruins remain, were probably erected in the thirteenth century, though the architectural features of two distinct periods may be discovered, the earlier of which is more properly referable to the twelfth century. We learn from a recent publication,* that St Columba, who is said to have flourished in the sixth century,+ landed upon the island in the bay of Port-na-Gurrach from Ireland, and instituted a community of monks in this remote region, who, until A.D. 716, differed in various particulars from the Church of Rome. ‡ The establishment flourished, and sent forth bishops and priests to many quarters for two centuries, but in A.D. 807, the Danes invaded the island, slew some of the brotherhood, and compelled the others, with the abbot at their head, to seek safety by flight. When the Danes retired, Iona was seized by monks of the Cluniac order, who retained it till the dissolution of the monasteries at the Reformation, when the revenues were annexed to the bishopric of the Isles; and after the Revolution, the islands became the property of the family of Argyll. The true amount of the revenues of Iona are unknown, *Lawson's Gazetteer of Scotland. Born 521, died 597.

In the observation of Easter, and the clerical tonsure.-Pennant.

as the Earls of Argyll seized all the registers and papers connected with the religious houses in the bishoprics of Argyll and the Isles, and appropriated the temporalities to themselves. The earlier revenues of the monastery of Iona were partly, it is said, derived from several smaller islands, which had been conferred on it by the Scottish kings, as also, according to Pennant, a considerable number of churches and chapels in Galway, * with large estates annexed, all which were subsequently taken from them, and granted to the canons of Holyrood House by William I. between the years 1172 and 1180.'+

After the disjunction, in the reign of Edward III., of the Sodor or Southern Isles from the See of Man, with which they had been for centuries connected, the abbots of Iona granted the Bishops of the Isles the use of their Church, reserving to themselves, however, their original jurisdiction and powers, which they had formerly acquired by a grant, according to traditionary accounts, from the Pictish monarch Bradeus, who had been induced to confer this island on St Columba, after witnessing some miracles which he performed soon after his arrival from Ireland. This reservation of their very high powers and jurisdiction by the successors of St Columba, even after the Bishops of the Isles were constrained to make Iona their residence on the separation of Man, may probably account for the comparatively private position of the bishops of this diocese in the monastery of Iona, from which the opponents of Episcopacy have endeavoured to draw an argument, favourable to the system of Presbyterian equality, and hostile to the ancient and invariable usage of the Church. This subject has been, however, ably and sufficiently discussed by the late Bishop of Glasgow in his learned dissertation on the true origin and nature of the Culdee Institutions. After the reign of Edward III., Iona long continued to be the Episcopal residence of the bishops of the Isles, and on the dissolution of monastic orders, the Church and its revenues were annexed to the See of Argyll. It would appear, however, that the bishops of the Isles occasionally made Rothesay their residence, and its principal Church their Cathedral, in which some of them were interred. Among the memorials there are monuments of two bishops posterior to the Reformation.

Though now reduced to a melancholy state of desertion and neglect,

* Galloway, probably; not Galway in Ireland.-Ed.

See Sir James Dalrymple's Coll. 271, 272; referred to by Pennant.
See page 382 in the number for August.

Iona had been for ages renowned as a place of learning and religion, and also highly reverenced from the sanctity of St Columba, and perhaps also in consequence of the prediction which has been prefixed to these remarks. In the chapel of St Aran, the disciple of the saint, forty-eight kings of Scotland are said to have been interred, four kings of Ireland, eight kings of Norway, and one monarch of France. Munro, a former dean of the Isles, who visited the island in the sixteenth century, mentions having seen on these royal places of interment the inscriptions Tumulus Regum Scotia-Tumulus Regum Norwegia -Tumulus Regum Hiberniæ. Besides these royal sepulchrcs there may be seen, or rather, might more properly be formerly observed, tombs and monuments of many Lords of the Isles, as also numerous distinguished personages, and chiefs from Scotland, Ireland, and other neighbouring nations. All now, however, is now consigned to oblivion and neglect, though some attention has recently been paid by the ducal house of Argyll, to whom the Island now belongs, to preserve these interesting memorials of former times. Many of the monumental inscriptions are fast fading from view, and becoming obliterated by the mouldering accumulations of time, and from the unprotected condition of the ruins, unroofed, and long exposed to the severity of that tempestuous climate.

But still the influence of long-cherished association in connection with this ancient luminary of Christendom retains, in some measure, its mysterious power, probably enhanced by the alleged prediction of St Columba, current among the natives, that after a long period of profanation and neglect, Iona would one day be restored to its original splendour and renown. We shall be excused, we feel assured, for concluding this summary account with the admirable and oft-quoted reflection of Johnson, on his visit to this hallowed and interesting isle :-'We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man