ST. 'COLUMBA AND ST. NINIAN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—As Lady MacDonald of the Isles protests, I should certainly have mentioned St. Ninian in my brief account of St. Columba's transforming influence on Scotland. For, as Miss Underhill points out on another page of the same issue,- "behind every Saint stands another Saint."
All honour to St. Ninian and his mission. Yet St. Columba's labours were mainly those of a pioneer. St. Ninian died in A.D. 432, not long after the end of the Roman occultation ; and the subsequent invasion of Saxon hordes undid much of St. Ninian's work, and many of his converts lapsed into paganism, though his church was never wiped out. Its scattered outposts did not greatly help St. Columba. Lady MacDonald mentions St. Columba's visit to the King of the Picts; but she does not tell us what he found there ; namely, that King Brude's Court was the centre of Druidical power in Scotland, his foster-father, teacher and chief adviser being Broiehan, the Arch-Druid. It is in view of this and of many other points on which for lack of space I dare not enter that a mere Menzies ventures to differ from a MacDonald of the Isles and think it impossible to describe Christianity in Scotland as either " organized " or " recognized " before St. Columba's time.—I am, Sir, &c., Lucy MENZIES. Pleshey, Chelmsford.
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