"The Easter Eve, 433, is falling dark and cold upon the realm of Ireland--dark and cold because to-morrow is sacred to the idols--and it has long been ruled in Druids' law that on the night preceding the great fast of Tamhair no fire is to burn on hearth or hill--no light is to gleam from palace or hovel until the flame of the sacred pile, kindled by the king on the green 'rath' at Tara, shall be seen burning over the plains of Meath. So the twilight comes down, the light lessens in the west, and the wide landscape is wrapt in deep and solemn gloom, as though it had been a land in which man's presence was unknown. While yet the sun was high in heaven, the missionary had quitted his boat in the estuary of the River Boyne, and had passed on foot along the river valley towards the interior of Meath. Evening found the little band encamped upon a grassy ridge on the north side of the Boyne, and overlooking the winding channel of that river. To the south, some miles away, the hill of Tara was in sight. The March evening fell chilly upon the pilgrims; but the hillside yielded store of furze-faggot and oak-branch, and soon a camp fire blazed upon the ridge, casting around a wide circle of light into the momentarily deepening sea of darkness. What memories of far-off nights on the Antrim hills come to the pilgrim over the mists of thirty years, as here he stands in the firelight, on Irish soil again! How much has passed since last the furze-faggot warmed his lonely shepherd's bivouac! How much has yet to be in all yon grim surrounding gloom ere his task shall be accomplished! Never in all the ages of the world has the might of savage man been more manifest on earth. Already the Vandal king is in Carthage; the Visigoths are seated at Toulouse; Attila has reached the Rhine, having ridden his charger over the ashes of the Eastern Empire.
"And here, in the light of the solitary fire, stands an unarmed, defenceless man, who, even now, keeps this Easter Eve as a vigil of battle against the powers of Pagan darkness, throned over yonder in all the might of armed multitudes.
"The darkness deepens over the scene; the March winds smite the faggot flame, and around the lonely bivouac the breezes come filled with the vast sadness of the night. Feeble to outward sense must seem the chances of the coming struggle. But the inner sense of the Great Missionary may this night be looking upon a different vision. Beyond the bleak ridge and circle of firelight--out beyond void of darkness, perchance those deep-sunk eyes are beholding glimpses of future glory to the Light he has come to spread; and it may be that his ear, catching in the echoes of the night wind the accents of ages yet to be, is hearing wondrous melodies of sound rolling through the starlight.