THE WORLD'S DEBT TO THE IRISH 
fore or even throw them off. We who are beginning 
to know how many of the ills of mankind are due to 
dreads and fears of various kinds that come over 
people and how they can be cured if only they will 
release their own spirits, can appreciate that many 
an ailing person must have gone away from Bridget 
better than before, even though there were no special 
influence from on High to further her efforts, but 
the people of her generation insisted that there was 
something of divine aid that came through her 
administrations. 
Many writers particularly in recent years since the 
special study of old Irish history has flourished, even 
though without sympathy for Bridget’s religious 
aspirations, have come to realize that here indeed 
was a very great woman who deserves all the praise 
that has been given her, and merits a place among 
the world’s greatest women of all times. His 
Eminence, Cardinal Moran, in his life of the saint 
gives an extract from the work of a Protestant 
churchman of distinction, entitled “St. Bridget and 
the See of Kildare,” in which the writer thus testifies 
to the veneration in which the name of St. Bridget 
was held at home and abroad: 
“Extraordinary veneration for the name of St. 
Bridget was displayed by the Irish in the Middle 
Ages. One writer says that the Scots, the Picts, the 
Irish and those who live near them, the English, put 
her next after the Virgin Mother of God. It is 
said that her feast was celebrated in every Cathedral 
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