Such was not the case with the Celtic peoples; that gentle little race was naturally Christian.  Far from changing them, and taking away some of their qualities, Christianity finished and perfected them.  Compare the legends relating to the introduction of Christianity into the two countries, the Kristni Saga for instance, and the delightful legends of Lucius and St. Patrick.  What a difference we find!  In Iceland the first apostles are pirates, converted by some chance, now saying mass, now massacring their enemies, now resuming their former profession of sea-rovers; everything is done in accord with expediency, and without any serious faith.

In Ireland and Brittany grace operates through women, by I know not what charm of purity and sweetness.  The revolt of the Teutons was never effectually stifled; never did they forget the forced baptisms, and the sword-supported Carlovingian missionaries, until the day when Teutonism took its revenge, and Luther through seven centuries gave answer to Witikind.  On the other hand, the Celts were, even in the third century, perfect Christians.  To the Teutons Christianity was for long nothing but a Roman institution, imposed from without.  They entered the Church only to trouble it; and it was not without very great difficulty that they succeeded in forming a national clergy.  To the Celts, on the contrary, Christianity did not come from Rome; they had their native clergy, their own peculiar usages, their faith at first hand.  It cannot, in fact, be doubted that in apostolic times Christianity was preached in Brittany; and several historians, not without justification, have considered that it was borne there by Judaistic Christians, or by disciples of the school of St. John.  Everywhere else Christianity found, as a first substratum, Greek or Roman civilisation.  Here it found a virgin soil of a nature analogous to its own, and naturally prepared to receive it.

Few forms of Christianity have offered an ideal of Christian perfection so pure as the Celtic Church of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.  Nowhere, perhaps, has God been better worshipped in spirit than in those great monastic communities of Hy, or of Iona, of Bangor, of Clonard, or of Lindisfarne.  One of the most distinguished developments of Christianity—­doubtless too distinguished for the popular and practical mission which the Church had to undertake—­Pelagianism, arose from it.  The true and refined morality, the simplicity, and the wealth of invention which give distinction to the legends of the Breton and Irish saints are indeed admirable.  No race adopted Christianity with so much originality, or, while subjecting itself to the common faith, kept its national characteristics more persistently.  In religion, as in all else, the Bretons sought isolation, and did not willingly fraternise with the rest of the world.  Strong in their moral superiority, persuaded that they possessed the veritable canon of faith and religion, having