Ossian Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

?S4 THE LIFE OF
useful upon earth, and (o Itad an innumerable company of souls
to heaven.
Colurnba was born in the year 521, and his parents being thus,
as they believed, admonished of the part which their son was
destined to act in life, and to which they soon perceived his
g'^nius, and early disposition to piety to be peculiarly adapted,
lost no time in providing him with such education as tended to
qualify him for the sacred office. They first put him under the
care of Cniineachan, a devout presb)'ter, who discovered, as he
thought, in his disciple, while yet a child, extraordinary symp-
toms of his future glory and gteStness. Some time after, he
studied under f'innian, bishop of Clonard, a man (according to
Ware) of considerable learning, who was charmed with the
piety of Columba ; while he was yet but a chiid, he used to give
him the appellation of saint; and believed, from his uniformly
holy and regular life, that he had obtained from God an an<;cl
from heaven, to be his companion and guardian.
Fenbar also, a bishop and saint, is mentioned as oup of Co-
lumba's masters; and likewise Genman, a teacher of Leinster,
who, like his other masters, used to give his pupil the name of
saint; and, notwithstanding the great disparity of their years,
seems to have treated him more as a companion and friend tiian as a
scholar; sometimes asking his opinion about the most dark and
mysterious dispensations of Providence. Under him the piety
of Columba, now in deacon's orders, became conspicuous, and
Ids fame spread over a great part of the kingdom, to which the
following incident seems to have contributed not a little. One
day as the old man read his book in the fields, a young girl, pur-
sued by a barbarian, fled to him for protection. He immedia-
tely cried to his pupil, who was reading at a little di-^tance. The
aid of both was unavailable; the ruffi-in, wilh one thrust of his
spear, left her dead at their feet. *' Ah (said Genman), how
long will Cod, the rif^hteous judge, allow this atrocious deed to
go unpunished. " The soul of the murderer (replied Colun.l>;i)
iii-iy yet be in hell as 'oon as that of the murdered in heaven."
At that insiant tli'\v observed the u:ihnppy man fal! doad at