m I
LIBRARY OF
COiXGRESS.
#
^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.!
J^^ 3 c/
:
Saint Patrick, Oj /
AND
'i
THE EARLY CHURCH OF IRELAND.
BY THE
Rev.
WM. M.'bLACKBURN,
D.D.,
author of "
William Farel," "Aonio Paleario,"
"
Ulrich Zwingli," Etc., Etc.
PHILADELPHIA PEESBYTERIAN BOAED OF PUBLICATION, No. 821
CHESTNUT STREET. /
CA
r.
^s^ Entered according
to
Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
THE TRUSTEES OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, In the Clerk's
Office
of the District Court of the United States for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ^.'^./"^-'^-»'^^.'*«s.'*V•>'>s./~
./'^^-.
Westcott
&
Thomson,
Stereotypers, Philada.
—
CONTENTS. PREFACE. The Myth and the Man
—Book
of
Armagh — Writings
oi
— Evidences of Authenticity—Other Ancient — Modern Writers
Saint Patrick Authorities
CHAPTER
7
I.
HOME AND PARENTAGE.
—Good
— Potitus the Presbyter— Calpurnius the Deacon, and Decurio — Culdee Cells — Conchessa— First Missions in Scotland— Ninian, a specimen
Alcluyd
Blood
...«
CHAPTER
21
IL
THE YOUNG CAPTIVE.
—Foolish Legends — The Lad not a Saint —Patrick Sold in Ireland — Tends the Cattle Rough Days — Remembers his Sins — Turns to God — His
Patrick Baptized Pirates
Religion
39
CHAPTER
IIL
THE ESCAPE.
—The Fugitive—On Shipboard—A Storm—A Desert —A Strange Spell —Home Again —Dreams of Ireland— Will
Dreams
be a Missionary
54
,
3
—
CONTENTS,
4
CHAPTER
IV.
THE FAILURES OP PALLADIUS.
— Churches — Celestine Interested —Palladius Sent—Kot well Received—Goes to Scotland His Disciples — Servanus — Ternanus
Early Missions in Ireland
CHAPTER SIFTING
Germanus Fable
—Stories
— Was
of
63
V.
THE LEGENDS.
Patrick's
Patrick ever at
Wanderings
— Climax
Rome? — Was he
of
Sent forth
— Silence of Ancient Authors on — Sechnall —Fiacc-^Prosper— Bede— Patrick with Palladius — Silence of the Confession —
by the Bishop of Rome? the
Question
Confounded
Roman
Mission a Legend
CHAPTER AMONG THE
75
VI.
DATES.
— Where Labour before he Went? —Any with Germanus? — Germanus and Lupus in Britain — Glastonbury — Movement in Armorica — Patrick Goes to Ireland—Young at Forty-five
When
did Patrick go to Ireland to Preach
?
ties
96
CHAPTER VIL FIRST LABOURS OF PATRICK IN IRELAND.
—A Wrathy Master—Patrick not a Pirate — Fury Calmed — Preaching in a Barn — A Church Rises — Patrick's Visit his Old Master— Repulse — Looking toward Tarah— The Young Benignus — Patrick's Tent
An
Affrighted
Herdsman
to
before
Tarah
110
—
CONTENTS. CHAPTER
6
Vlir.
THE DRUIDS.
— Sacrifices — Baal —Sun-worship —Priests — Superstitions — Holy Wells Charms— Beltine Fires —Bards — Scotch Plaids — Irish Hospitality — Danger from the Druids
Cutting
the
Mistletoe
Druids' Doctrines
CHAPTER
123
IX.
SAINT Patrick's armour.
—King sees Patrick's Fire —The Court —Patrick in the Great Hall Preaching—Dubtach and Fiacc Listen — The Hymn of Patrick 140
Great Feast at Tarah
on the Move
,
CHAPTER
X.
CAUSES OF SUCCESS.
A Commanding Teaching
Legend
Presence
—King's
of the
— Conall
— Mode
of
—Doctrine of the Trinity —Treatment of Superstition
Daughters
Shamrock
The Grom-cruach
Converted
—Patrick
destroys
the
Great
Idol
— Centres of Influ—Enthusiasm—Patrick's Extended Travels — Daring Spirit— Goes into Connaught Robbed — Many Baptized — Endurances — Refusals of Gifts Attention to Young Men — Redemption of Captives — All done in the Name of the Lord — Willing to be a Martyr Power of Prayer — National Form of Early Christianity in Ireland — Persecution — Patrick's Charioteer dies in place of his Master — The Leinster Men Pagan Custonds Adopted by Christians ence
— Love
of
Pioneering
151
—
CONTENTS.
e
CHAPTER
XI.
Patrick's creed.
—Tillemont's View of —The Doctrines in — Christian Captives — — Noble Appeal by Patrick —An Embassy Scorned —Doc-
His Confession
it
it
Occasion of the Epistle to Coroticus
trines of the Epistle
183
CHAPTER
XII.
THE CHURCH OF SAINT PATRICK. Controversy— Students under Patrick — Cell of —Culdee System of Schools — Young Men ordained Bishops — Fiacc made Bishop of Sletty — Certain Conclusions — More Bishops than Churches — Her Synods — Glory of the Early Irish Church — The Decline — Invasions by delivers Ireland to the Danes and English — Henry Pope — Two Churches in Ireland — Strange Reversions in
Theme
of
Ciaran
II.
History
196
CHAPTER
XIII.
LAST DAYS.
—Patrick's Purgatory— Old Age—Toiling —Patrick dies— Ireland in Patrick" — Canonization — True Character... 220
Eeform of the Laws to the Last '*
Litany of
—
St.
St.
Brigid
griefs
PREFACE. There
profit in
is
*'
guesses at tnith,"
when they expose
They
are like links of
and widely prevalent.
errors long
them
circumstantial evidence, no one of positive
when
value, but
chain not
joined and welded, they
broken.
easily
singly of
They
much
make a and,
are probabilities,
according to their degree of strength, they afford convictions I do not claim to set forth in this volume a
of certainty.
series of events all of
which are the undoubted
verities
of
I do claim that the statements are as near to the
history.
complete truth concerning the subject treated as
been possible for
me
to exhibit
them
after long
it
has
and labo-
rious research.
No
concession
is
of " saint" to the
made
to superstition
man whose name
and, after fourteen hundred years,
shamrock and green as the emerald. would hardly be character.
assumed
A
identified
or
by giving the
is still
as fresh as the
Without the
seen in
his
Testament charter we may claim
however humble
he
distinctive
Rome
upon eminent Christians the honour of
being saints, and limited the term to them.
7
title
good gospel word was abused when
to confer
title
has become so popular,
or
unknown.
it
for
all
By
the
New
true Christians,
PREFACE,
8
Was
there ever such a
man
as Saint Patrick ?
was wise
It
to consider this question before attempting to write his Hfe.
By some
it
But
has been doubted, by a few others denied.
in such cases there has usually been a strong party feeling,
or an ignorance of certain original sources of history. is
a distinction to be
made between
the
myth and
Imagination has given us a Robinson Crusoe
was Alexander Irish heart
is
fifth,
life is
The
certainly very mythical. ;
are manufactured to order and
made
when
which he could not have known
He
constantly working miracles,
divine revelations are
made
too wonderful to be real.
to
all
a
that was
especial benefit
Moses or Paul.
The myth
it
is
which cause a greater
He
is
business was entirely
some time be restored
In the Middle Ages "
and
some of them very
The manufacturers did not
sense might
job,
in the fifth century.
For his
to him,
amazement than any ever made
overdone.
him
certain errors pre-
and some of them astounding, beyond
ever recorded of a mere man.
mon
by the
This Patrick
of the baldest legends.
vailed,
trifling,
portrait of
the colours are not those of
fully-developed Papist of the time,
is
man
the real
;
but those of the twelfth or fourteenth century.
The deeds the
the man.
The Saint Patrick of the ordinary
Selkirk.
was drawn from imagination the
There
perceive that comto the
human
race.
was customary with the monks
to exercise their scholars in writing the lives of imaginary saints
;
way of
asserting that
it
was a pious and very improving
exercising the imagination
!
!
The
best of these
fanciful biographies were laid aside for future after the lapse of a few ages,
when
use
;
and
their statements could
not be disproved, were produced and published as genuine.
^
PREFACE. It
monks of Holywell applied
said the
is
He
Stone, a
them the
writer of the thirteenth century, to write for
of their patron saint.
De
to
life
asked for materials, but on being
informed that they had none, he volunteered to write
In this way the
without any.
it
of St. Patrick were
lives
greatly multiplied, and were filled with the
most marvellous
legends." * Dr. Geoffrey Keating, more than two hundred j^ears ago,
"We
said:
by a manuscript chronicle of
are informed
antiquity that sixty-four persons have severally written the
of this reverend missionary.
life
would not have been Dr. Lanigan, a
'
'
As to the
'
antiquity,
ssljs
seem
are full of fables, and
to
such stories have been collected.
up
have been copied, either
It
would be
in
which
idle to
men-
proofs which they exhibit of being patched
And
at a late period."
Bollandus, one of their learned
writers, says concerning them,
"They have been patched
together by most fabulous authors, and are none of
more ancient than the twelfth century.
' '
This
is
them
not said
the accounts given of Patrick by the annalists, some
of
all
of
whom
wrote at a
fuller lives.
Yery
much
In them
different
is
earlier period.
It
is
said of the
seen Patrick, the myth.
was the man Patrick.
the burdening growth of wild *'
it
of these lives that " they
from each other, or from some common repository
many
'
Catholic historian, felt ashamed of
the legend-makers, and he
tion the
'
most of them.
so very antique with
Roman
'
ivies,
If
we
we may
strip
away
get at the
Ireland and the Irish, by Kirwan (Eev. N. Murray, d.d.)
This
title
was given
Observer, 1856,
and
to
to
a series of letters published in the K. Y.
which
I
am much
indebted.
'
PREFACE,
10
genuine sturd}^ oak of fables
may have
of the
monks
a foundation in
there can be traced a thread of historic truth.
most absurd,
called miracles of Patrick are
follow that the history
Whilst there are
a romance.
is
we may
sifting,
lose a
If we allow that the so-
few gems hidden in the mass.
*'
grossest
Often in the legends
fact.
If we cast away the rubbish without
all
Even the
cliaracter.
liis
many and good
of the lives of Saint Patrick as so
it
Dr.
does not at
Murray
said
:
reasons for the rejection
many monkish
fables, as
stupid as they are nonsensical, yet that there was a very de-
voted and greatly useful missionary of that name, endued with
and about the time
apostolical zeal, in Ireland,
history refers,
we
are compelled to admit.
to
which
'
Traditions are of some value in regard to his existence '
and general history.
Armagh,
' '
'
says Dr. Todd,
The ' '
traditions in
the
Book of
cannot be later than the third
half century after the date usually assigned to the death of
Saint Patrick. all
parties
They assume
his existence as admitted
Had
and never questioned.
Patrick been then of recent
origin,
by
the story of Saint
some remarks
or
legends in the collection would certainly have betrayed the fact.
That the
collectors of these traditions indulged in
the unscrupulous use of legend strengthens the argument.
There were men
alive,
at the time,
might have conversed with the
who was of the
said to
fifth
whose grandfathers
disciples of the Patrick
have converted the Irish
Had
century.
in the latter half
the existence of this Patrick
been a thing to be proved, or even doubted, some of these
men would have been produced tell their
experience.
' '
as witnesses,
and made
to
For there was a great assumption
PREFACE. made over
it
;
all
11
was that Armagh had a right
other churches in Ireland
To prop
admitted.
it
up these
—a
to the jurisdiction
claim not generally
were
traditions
collected.
All was based upon the existence and acts of Patrick, and yet in this curious record there
he had actually lived to
admit it
A whole people was ready
in Ireland.
—so ready indeed
high regard for the man,
no attempt to prove that
is
upon
that,
up a very
is built
church authority.
The foundation was
was of wood, hay,
stubble.
"It
is
incredible that a
their admission
faulty theory of
solid
— the structure
whole nation could have com-
bined thus to deceive themselves
;
and
it is
even more
upon a whole nation
imaginary services
—an
so indelible an impression of
impression which continues to the
present day in their fireside
lore, their local traditions,
warm-hearted devotion and gratitude its lasting
which has
left also
and villages, churches and monasteries through-
out the country.
to
;
^
' '
is this all.
There are certain writings which claim
have come from the very pen of Saint Patrick.
One
a hymn, which gives us no historic information, but great value in a spiritual light. ix.
,
The
the
memorial in the ancient names of hills and head-
lands, towns
Nor
in-
have
credible that a purely mythological personage should left
and
with the reasons for giving
is
is
of
It will be found in chapter it
a place in this volume.
only others which I assume to be genuine are the Con-
fessw Patricu, and the Epistola writers include
or refer to
them both under
them
as the " Cotton
* Todd.
St.
ad
Coroticum,
either one of these
MS."
Some titles,
It is only in their
Patrick, preface.
PREFACE,
12
simpler, and doubtless earliest form, that they are thus ad-
what
mitted
;
almost
all rejected.
evidently interpolated by later hands
is
They
is
are quite universally admitted to
be authentic and genuine by Protestant historians, some of
whom
also give a place to certain tracts, such as
Hahitaciilis.
The evidence
De
Trihus
in favour of the Confession is
somewhat stronger than that
for the Epistle;
but both are
adopted, for the following reasons
extant,
If one goes to a
under their
find,
fables.
are older than any of the lives
and they are largely quoted in almost
biographies.
face
They
Their antiquity.
1.
But the
and better
Romish
book-stall,
all
the
he may
a mixture of facts and ridiculous
titles,
come
older copies
to us with a
About the
credentials.
more honest
close of the eighth
century a copy of the Confession was transcribed into the
Book of Armagh.
collection entitled the
no
copyist com-
was becoming quite obscure, which
plains that the original is
The
slight evidence of authenticity.
At
the close are the
words, " Thus far the volume which Patrick wrote with his
own hand.
'
This copy manuscripts.
much
shorter than those found in later
Did the
transcriber condense or abridge the
is
copy before him ? So thought Dean Graves, for an
sometimes occurs. original
Armagh
life
its
age, or that only the lead-
were intended to be preserved in It
collection.
cetera
might only mean that the
this
was dim by reason of
ing facts of Patrick's
the
But
et
was
not,
however, the fashion
of that age to abridge documents by leaving out the
wonders and miracles
;
the style was rather to leave out
the sober facts of history.
If
we
find in this
copy chiefly
;
PREFACE. we may conclude
facts,
vented.
The
bears the
it
not in the
is
Book of
marks of the same age and
It also quotes the Latin version of the Bible,
authorship.
made
that the miracles were not yet in-
Epistle to Coroticus
But
Armagh.
13
before that of Jerome, which Patrick would hardly
have used,
for the older translation
would have won his
heart in his younger days.
They
Their purity.
2.
are not entirely free from errors
but the errors are just such as we should expect to find in the writings of a
An
man
in the decline of the fifth century.
orthodox Augustine was a rare being at a
period.
But the
little
earlier
older copies of these writings are free
from ridiculous legends of miracles and saint-worship.
As
we may
infer
such fables are contained only in
later copies,
that they were foisted in by the makers and mongers of
huge
Of
fictions.
work bears
in
its
simple,
rude
style
an impress that
There
corresponds entirely to Patrick's stage of culture. are to be found in
it
"The
the Confession, Neander says:
none of the traditions which, perhaps,
proceeded only from English monks [after the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the twelfth century]
what may be explained on this
;
nothing wonderful, except
ps3^chological principles.
vouches for the authenticity of the piece.
knew
the edition of Sir
Armagh
is still
purer.
James Ware
;
'
'
^
that in the
All
Neander
Book
I have consulted the Liber
of
Ard-
meachce in Sir William Bentham's Irish Antiquarian Besearches. 3.
Their design.
It
of church government.
was not
to
prop up certain theories
They were not written
* Hist. Ch. Church,
ii.
p. 122, note.
in the interest
PREFACE.
14
Roman
Such
of any party,
certainly'-
a purpose
manifest only in some of the later interpola-
is
tions, thrust in
when
not that of the
it
power.
was thought desirable
make
to
the
people believe that Ireland had received her great bishop
and her Christianity
from the banks of the Tiber. " If it be a Dr. Todd says of the Confession, especially directly
:
forgery,
it
not easy to imagine with what purpose
is
could have been forged." ^ If a " pious fraud,"
one who thought
it
it
it
was by
important to assume the name and to
get forth the experiences of Patrick in accordance with
Scripture.
Would such
The avowed
object
a
was
man
to
forge such a
document ?
show why Patrick
felt called to
he
preach the gospel to the Irish people
;
to declare that
was not sent by man, but by the Lord
;
to furnish evidence
God had approved of his mission and labours to record some of his experiences; to "make known God's grace that
;
and everlasting consolation, and of God's name in the earth." leave
it
on record
had baptized
sion,
and
knowledge
to spread the
wished in his old age " to
after his death, for his sons
work
whom
he
In the proper places I have
in the Lord.'*
referred to this
He
as a defence of himself
to the Epistle as
and his mis-
a noble appeal for Christian
rights and liberty. 4,
Their scriptural character.
the inspired writers are quoted. statements of Gospel truth in
them a
;
Not the "fathers," but
"They abound
in simple
but there cannot be discovered
single one of those doctrines invented in later
times, and set forth as necessary to salvation, in the Creed
of Pope Pius IV.
The
Scriptures are treated by
'^^SaintPatrick, p. 347.
him with
PREFACE, deep reverence, as
infallible
and
15 In support of
sufficient.
his teaching, Patrick appeals to no other authority than to
Word
that of the wiitten
;
and in the few chapters of his
Confession alone there are thirty-five quotations from the
Holy Scriptures."
The
5.
"^
honesty, humility and gratitude everywhere ap-
The Confession
parent.
' '
is
altogether such an account of
himself as a missionary of that age, circumstanced as Saint Patrick was, might be expected to compose."
Todd * '
I,
:
"Its Latinity
is
rude and archaic.
Patrick, a sinner, a rustic, the least of
" a poor, with the
sinful, despicable
—" apostles
man
—"
all
not at
' '
Says Dr. Its tone is
the faithful all
:
—
* '
" on a level
"appointed a bishop in Ireland, I
certainly confess that,
by the grace of God, I
am what
I
am." Yet here an
objection has been urged.
"Who
believe," asks Casimir Oudin, "if Patrick was a
can
man
of
learning and celebrity in the fifth century, that he could
have written it is
in a semi-Latin
and barbarous style?"
not claimed that he was a
on the Continent, and passing teries.
Such a view
of the man. style.
We
The very
is
man
But
of learning, educated
thirty-five years in
not consistent with what
monas-
we know
should expect his pen to move in a rude objection
is
rather one of the strongest
arguments for the authenticity of these writings.
"The
rude and barbarous Latinity" does not appear in the tracts concerning the "Three Habitations"
Abuses of the Age ^Ohurcli of
This
is
St.
;" one of
which has been attributed to
Patrick, by the Eev.
a valuable tract.
and the "Twelve
John Wilson,
Belfast, 1S60,
PREFACE,
16
Augustine of Hippo, and the writer's
own account
is
to
otlier
The
Cyprian.
that he could not write elegantly,
he had not been a student from infancy, and he had
for
been so long among a rude people that his speech had been
changed
In our times well-educated
to another tongue.
missionaries in foreign lands,
grown familiar with a foreign
He
tongue, can appreciate his difficulty.
monk, but 6.
The
fell is
did not write as a
as a missionary.
neglect into which the older form of these writings
some evidence of
their truth.
They did not
serve
the purposes of a Church which has coolly laid claim to all
the saintly characters from the time of Abel to the
beginning of the fifteenth century.
She has swelled the
catalogue of saints, but she has never been content with the original records of
She has added
good men.
them
to
whatever suited her purpose, and cast into the shade the original documents.
Thus has she done wdth the Holy
How much
Scriptures,
Mary and
accounts of
has she added to the
Peter, and even our
neglect of the original records authenticity.
were manufactured in her
been content
profitable to
interest.
Rome.
to publish these
honest Christian missionary. wonderful, the monkish, the
They were
cast into a
Her very
from the legends which It distinguishes the
true coin from the cheap counterfeit,
become very
!
simple
an argument for their
is
It sets theto apart
Lord
first
the latter having
Her authors have not
unvarnished writings of an
There was not enough of the
Romish element
in
them.
dark corner, according to her manner
of putting to silence the witnesses of truth.
The
Patrick has been slumbering his thousand years.
real It is
PREFACE,
17
time for him to rouse, and in rising up he
him
the vast heaps of superstitions piled upon
him
throw
will
to
off
keep
quiet.
Here, then,
Assuming
a footing upon these ancient documents.
is
their genuineness,
knowledge of the
What
life,
within reach
Among
what
;
is
Patrick.
sung
it
' '
as a converted bard
a few miracles added to
it.
;
is
Lives'
who seems
If he composed
from
shall accept
inconsistent
the oldest of the
Fiacc, or St. Fiech,
to
some
the labours and doctrines of Patrick.
them we
agrees with
we may be guided
'
all
sources
rejected. is
the brief
Hymn
of
have been a
disciple of
such a poem, he
may have
to
but a
later
hand
I have before
is
apparent in
me
a tri-form
copy, containing the original Irish, the Latin version of
Colgan, and an English translation by the anonymous author
of a Life of
Patrick. *
St.
Thaumaturga
Colgan' s Trias quality can be
The
collection of
is
valuable,
' '
Lives'
if defects
made good by superabundance
The reading of
almost disgusted
me
saint
acted,
common
all
my
is
much
was refreshing
writers saying,
*'
How
sense have the biographers of our
and particularly Joceline
author, however,
Almost
Komish
it
in
Patrick
Life of St.
with the subject, but
to find one of the latest
derogatory from
Joceline's
in
in quantity,
the THpartite Life being the only one worthy of regard.
'
not clear of the same
! '
'
Our modern
fault.
previous researches might have been
spared had I received at an earlier day the work entitled St.
Patrick^ Apostle of Ireland;
and
Mission^ with
an
a Memoir of
introdicctory dissertation
* Baltimore: John Murphy, 1861. 2
his Life
on some early
PREFACE.
18
usages of the Church in Ireland
To
Todd^ D. D. '
man, and
this learned
.
.
.
hy James
Henthom
work by an Episcopal
clergy-
an antiquarian declared to be thoroughly versed
'
'
in Irish history,
'
my indebtedness is gratefully acknowledged.
His brother, the Rev.
Wm.
Todd, in his Church of
Gr.
Patrick^ has proved that the ancient
St
Church of Ireland was
independent of Home.
Other works have been consulted, such as the Historia
Britonum of Nennius; glorum, of Bede
;
Gentes An-
Ecclesiasticae Historiae
Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates,
of Ussher; Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius; Ecclesiastique, par naire, par
M. de Tillemont; Le Grand
M. Louis Moreri
nales Hiberniae, ab
;
Thoma Carve ;
;
Collectanea de
Les Moines
Comte de Montalembert Alban
le
Diction-
Biographic Universelle
Hibernicis, by Charles Valiancy
par
Memoires
;
;
An-
Bebus
d' Occident,
Butler's Lives of the
Saints; Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland; Annals of Ireland,
by the Four Masters; Neander's Memorials of Chris-
tian Life
;
Ecclesiastical Histories of Ireland,
by Brenan,
Carew, Lanigan and Wordsworth; Sir James Ware's History and Antiquities of Ireland; McLauchlan's Early Scottish
Church
Times
;
Soames' Latin Church during iVnglo-Saxon
;
Lappenberg's History of England under the Anglo-
Saxon Kings
;
the several Histories of Ireland by Keating,
Macgeoghan, Moore, Haverty, O'Halloran and O'Connor;
and the General Histories of the Christian Church by rieury, Neander, Mosheim, Kurtz, Cave and Collier.
I have not discussed at tedious length the question of Saint Patrick's birth-place, but have frequently pointed out
evidences that
it
was on the Clyde.
The opinion
that
it
s
PREFACE. was Boulogne-sur-Mer,
in Gaul,
seems
ming
to
who
Its chief supporter is Dr. Lanigan,
forward no
19 be quite modern. ingeniously brings
learning on the subject, but
little
all
his trim-
of antiquated names can hardly satisfy us that his
Bononia Tarvannse was Patrick's Bonavem TaberniaB, where the great missionary
tells
We
us his father dwelt.
can find half a dozen places in Gaul once called Bononia, ^
and a score of Taberniae
mode
of reasoning
;
and possibly by Dr. Lanigan'
we might show
that Saint Patrick was
born at the Three Taverns [Tres Tabernas)^ where Paul met This would bring the "Apostle of
his Christian brethren.
Ireland'
near enough to Borne, in his childhood, to please
'
the most ardent papal admirers.
The opinion that he was
born on the banks of the Clyde, or somewhere in North Britain, is supported
by Fiacc and his
scholiast, the
author
of St. Declan's Life, Probus, Sigibert (quoted by Ussher),
Cave, Ware, Joceline, Fleury, Tillemont, Bailet, Albaa Butler, Macgeoghan, Baronlus
Camden,
Collier,
(?),
Moreri, Spottiswoode,
Lappenberg, Thorpe, Henry, Gibbon,
Neander, Milner, Wordsworth, J. C. Robertson, Hetherington,
D'Aubigne, McLauchlan, Giesseler, Kurtz, Mo-
sheim, Todd, Beeves and other writers, both Protestant and
Boman
Catholic.
Truth and attempt
is to
have given
fact
have been most earnestly sought, and the
present to
many
them
A plain mark has been seemed proper
and impartially.
I
statements the heavy shading of a
doubt, and I only ask for
it
intelligibly
them the
benefit of a probability.
put upon every
to notice in order to
silly
make
^j^Anthon's Class. Diet.
legend,
which
clear the points
PREFACE.
20
of the case, or to bring upon some popular superstition
its
deserved ridicule. If the
name of Saint Patrick were
fallen into obscurity
if
;
we had
less
known
to rescue it
;
from
if it
had
oblivion,
as that of Hyppolitus or that of Paleario has been rescued,
and
if
he were not so commonly portrayed
do not at task.
In
It
all suit his
would be
complexion,
histories
common
will take
and cyclopedias and read the usual
the subject no further
;
what we
relate,
conflict
down stoiy,
their
shake
and examine
I can only ask them to follow
up
references.
If any one attached to the
read this volume, the great
Far from
true character. religion of
modern
God
let
it
;
that
we dishonour
we would have him honored
in his
If such a reader will adopt the ancient
Protestant.
At
all
events,
he
will
go to the
as the only authority in matters of faith,
much
him
in the
our aim to set forth the
way of
man
Word
and the It is
life.
Patrick as
it
the principles by which he was controlled in
the labours that have toils
all
Saint Patrick, he will find himself almost a
is to illustrate
of his
Catholic Church shall
reveres as the patron saint of
only source of light to guide
not so
Roman
him not suppose
man whom he
Irishmen.
of
Men
opinions.
easier
meet the popular views.
about him we must come in
their heads, call in question
my
—ours would be an
less difficult to
telling the truth
with the
in colours that
made
his
name renowned. The record
and triumphs ought
writer says truly,
"From
all
to
be instructive,
if
a late
that can be learned of him,
there never was a nobler Christian missionary than Patrick.
Chicago, III.
W. M.
B.
* '
SAINT PATRICK. CHAPTER
I.
HOME AND PARENTAGE. 'p^(i^ cottages^ near little towns, great
men have
God makes his earnest workers that he may have all the glory.
been born. of dust,
When Patrick
looking for the birth-place of Saint
we turn
to Scotland.
The voyager on the
deck of the vessel that steams up the Clyde will
have his eye upon a lonely, rugged rock that almost three hundred
feet
now crowned with a Alcluyd,* the Eock
castle.
name
to a fort
on
own
There, on their resisted the strifes tell
made
its
above the water, and
of the Clyde.
It gave its
top and a town at
its
a place of death.
Picts.
The
Border
old songs
of the rivers running red with blood.
Balclutha.
See
my
foot.
frontier, the ancient Britons
* Alcluith, Alcluaid, Alcluada, Alclyde. it is
is
It was once called
Northern Scots and it
rises
It
In Ossian's poems
preface.
21
SAINT PATRICK.
22
seems to have been a stronghold of the Romans,
who
one
built
of
their
from
walls
the country to the Frith
across
these
for defence
supposed that
is
Romanized Britons united with the
Southern
capital
and
Scotland
formed
kingdom of
or the
league,
tribes of
Cumbrian
the
Strathclyde.
Their
was Alcluyd, which they named Dunbriton,
"the
hill
name
of Dumbarton.
of the
Glasgow, on the the
It
To
of Forth.
them the Britons yielded and looked during several generations.
Alcluyd
Britons/^
whence the present
Four miles from
it,
Roman
line of the old
toward wall,
modern town of Kilpatrick, which claims
The
is
the most probable date of his birth.
account given in his
Patrick, a sinner, the rudest
name
had
for
my father
this:
"I,
least of all
among most
Calpurnius, a deacon, son
of the late Potitus, a presbyter,
town of Bonavem Tabernise; (or farm) in the
is
and the
the faithful, and the most despicable people,
to
The Christian
be the birth-place of Saint Patrick. year 397
is
for
who was
of the
he had a cottage
neighbourhood where I was cap-
tured/^* ^ Confessio
Patricii.
We
have stated in the preface the
reasons for presuming the Confession, in
geuuine.
its
oldest form, to be
SAINT PATRICK, He
does not
simply
us where he was born;
why mention
Avas living
when taken
It
tliere.
Tabernise with
The
plain inference
difficult
is
that he Avas
is
identity
to
the Latin translation of some
mean a town
tents (tabernise)
The
Hymn
says
The
of Nempthur,
traditions,
best
river'' s
Avas
Perhaps
mouth, "^ near
Roman
army.
of Fiacc begins thus: "Patrick was
Britain, viz. Alcluada."
and
simply
is
name which
or shops of the
born at JSTempthur/^ it
at the
it
Romans.
foreign to the language of the
Bonavem
To no one
any ancient town.
probably was this Latin name given;
the
But
captive.
the place as his home, unless he was
a native of it?
the words
he
dwelt at Bonavem,
relates that his father
where he also
born
tell
23
upon
old commentator
"It
is
a city
in
North
According to the ancient
we may assume
that
Saint
Patrick was born in a cottage not far from Alcluyd,
and under
its
protection.
Butj feeling that he was unworthy of any birthplace, he did not clearly define
In
it.
his old age
He
he thought rather of his home in the heavens.
might have
* BoUj mouth
come from river.
one of the
said, as did Severinus,
;
aven,
Nenij a river,
river.
—
CeltiG
Diet
Nempthur may-
—the
and Twr, a tower
first
castle
on the
SAINT FA THICK.
24
missionaries along the banks of the Danube, in the
century
fifth
vant of
by
since
:
God
''
What
pleasure can
much
I would that the
boasting ?
be to a ser-
home, or his descent,
to specify his
silence he can so
it
better avoid all
hand knew noth-
left
ing of the good works which Christ grants the
may
right hand to accomplish, in order that I citizen of the
know my
Why
heavenly country.
earthly country, if
that
God
has commissioned
need you
you kgow that I
But know
truly longing after the heavenly ?
me
among
to live
be a
am this,
this
heavily oppressed people/^
The admiring monks sought Patrick by inventing for
They ran
it
him a
such vain imaginations. us of his grandfather.
that he
royal
lineage.
back to Britus, or Britanus, the sup-
But he had no
posed ancestor of the Britons.
tell
to glorify Saint
It
was enough
We
for
are glad to
him
to
know
was the grandson of Potitus,* the presbyter.
The blood was good.
If he had thought that his
grandfather had disgraced himself by marriage,t he * " Son of
Armagh,
Hymn
in
Odisse^' is
added on the margin of the Book of
the hand of the original scribe.
he is called " the
In
Fiacc's
Deacon Odisse."
t In the year 314, the council of Neocaesarea decreed that the
presbyter
who married should
forfeit
his
standing.
•
SAINT PATRICK,
25
would hardly have mentioned him
as a minister
He
of God's word. his
clerical
would have been
silent
about
It seems that he did not
ancester.
believe in the celibacy of the clergy, even in his
old age.
Here
antiquity of
is
some proof of the truth and the If
the Confession.'^
''
had been
it
in-
vented and written in more papal times, Saint Patrick would not have been made the grandson of a presbyter; not if that presbyter held the rank of a
Roman
The book must be
priest.*
older than
the notion that the early Churches of Scotland
and Ireland wxre controlled by the bishop of
Rome.
Of
we
Potitus
his office
learn nothing more, except that
was held in high esteem
Martin of Tours declared,
in his times.
at a public entertain-
ment, that the emperor was inferior in dignity to a presbyter.f
This
may have
been
a boast, yet
without vaunting the early Christians of Scotland Stronger ground was gradually taken, until, about the year 400, the bishop of
But
yet, in
Rome
forbade the marriage of the clergy.
remoter regions, his bull was not closely heeded.
Neander's Ch. Hist
^ Some writers
ii.
147.
call Potitus
Carew and other Romanists. presbyter
by such
—
prelatists as
t Mosheim, Cent. V. chap.
a pnesL
The
Thus
original
Innes, Brenan,
word
is
rendered
Todd, Soames and Ussher. ii.
'
SAINT PATRICK.
26
The same was
regarded the presbyter as a bishop. true in
Even
England and Ireland.
century^ Elfric, a
in the tenth
Saxon bishop, wrote thus of the
orders of church officers, putting the presbyter ''
There
no difference between him and the bishop,
is
except that the bishop
appointed to confer ordi-
is
nation, which, if every presbyter should do,
be committed to too many.
and
same
the
Britons
first:
:
"
would
Both, indeed, are one
Pryne says of the early
order.^^
They maintain
bishops and presbyters. ^^
of
the
In Eastern lands
men
the
parity
began to put a difference between these '^Yet a Chrysostom and a Jerome
still
officers.
asserted
the primitive equal dignity of the presbyters and the bishops, very justly believing that they found
authority for this in the
Potitus
may have
New
Testament.^^*
been a Culdee presbyter.
His
Latin name does not prove that he was a Roman, sent out with the
army from Rome
ary to the Britons.
Native
Latinized by the historians. f that he was a Briton by birth. * Neander's Ch. Hist.
vol.
ii.
p. 155,
f Succath was changed to Patriciiisi in the sixth century,
as a mission-
names were
often
more
likely
It
is
Perhaps he studied American
Two
ed.
native ministers
near Loch Ness, are called Emchadus
and Virolecus. \
^
—
SAINT PA TRICK.
27
the Scriptures and prayed in the Culdee cell at
Alcluyd, and at
To the
us there
Guil,
door preached to the people.
its
something quite romantic about
is
of the early Christians
or cell
hil,
There
Scotland and Ireland. that
it
is
scarcely a doubt
gave name to the Cuildich, or Culdees,
them there was a sacredness about treated to
it
;
it
was the
Its origin first,
It
valley,
was not the abode of a
It
resort of a missionary.
^^study/^ where
his
To
as they re-
it
some lonely wood, narrow
ravine.
or ruo:o:ed
monk
in
in
It
was
he prepared for preaching.
we cannot
discover
perhaps
;
it
was, at
a refuge from enemies or a resort for prayer.
became the sacred place of the presence of God;
almost the Holy of Holies, with
its
veil rent for
the entrance of the Culdee worshipper.
Its plan
was carried with every missionary, and he chose the spot for his tabernacle.
'^
There was
wrestled with
Hebrew
celF' as the
God
his
sanctuary; there he
in prayer;
might assemble with reverence It
was holy ground
in the desert.
The
;
did for the
there the
people
him
preach.
to hear
the burning bush was there
cell
develops into three forms
the oratory, the kirk and the college."^ ^ Princeton Keview, 1867. teries."
At some
Article on ''The Culdee Monas-
SAINT PATRICK.
28 period a
cell,
or
kll,
was located near the spot
where Saint Patrick was born.
by the same
close
may have
been
There Potitus may
cottage.
have studied and prayed.
It
There the people
have assembled for worship.
There,
may
seems, a
it
Culdee kirk, or church, grew up, which the people of later days called Kilpatrick, in honour of the great missionary, titus
who was born
Po-
at the place.
seems to have lived to a good old age, and
been worthy of the respect of his grandson.
some proof of
his excellent family
It
is
government that
he reared a deacon.
The deacon was Calpurnlus. deacon was he lowest ^^
order
deacon's
give to
Some
?
of
orders''
place
him
"What sort of a in " the third or
ordained
the
Such
clergy.'^
would savour of Rome, and
Calpurnius the
rank of a
clergyman.
If he was such a deacon, he was quite free from the
Roman
notions of celibacy, for he took a wife
and reared a family.
If a clergyman at
must have been a Culdee to be if
licentiate.
It
all,
he
was held
no sin for a Culdee minister to marry.
But
he was a Culdee deacon, he was hardly a minis-
ter,
or a candidate for the ministry.
The church
of the Culdees seems to have been regulated after
the Bible, and not after the
Roman
model.
It ap-
SAINT PATRICK.
29
pears to have had deacons, elders and presbyters,
and none of higher rank.
Doubtless the early
Culdees had no very perfect system of church
government, but in what they did sought to
follow
Church/^
Dwelling
and
order of
^^the
primitive tribes,
them-
in danger of persecutions, they gave
questions
to
the
among quarrelsome
selves to preaching Christ
and peace, rather than
and modes of government.*
may have
purnius
they
have,
Cal-
been a deacon of the church at
Alcluyd.
Another purnius.
office is said to
have been held by Cal-
If a certain ancient
hand of Saint Patrick, he
says, " I
respectable according to the flesh,
been a decurio.
good of
The
I gave up
others, that I
came from the
letter
my
was of a family
my father
having
nobility for the
might be a missionary.^^f
decurio was a magistrate and counsellor in the
Eoman
colonies.
on those who held
The it.
office
conferred a high rank
These
officers
" were
mem-
bers of the court, or counsellors of the city,
and
could not be ordained [to the Christian ministry].
By
virtue of their estates they were tied to the
offices
of their country.
They must have
* Hetherington's Hist. Church of Scotland. f
The
Epistle concerning Coroticus.
See
my
a certain
Chapter!, preface.
SAINT PATRICK.
30
Such was the law of Con-
amount of property/'* stantine for the fact that
may
"
more wealthy decuriones.
Calpurnius
is
The
said to have held that office
perhaps tend to show" us that he belonged to
one of the
Koman
provinces of Great Britain,
rather than to Bretagne Armorique.
It
a mis-
is
take to suppose that a decurio was necessarily a
Such a man must have had no
military officer/^f little
authority over the Britons of Strathclyde.
The Romans allowed
^^
governors of the native
races/^ especially at Alcluyd.
were called home
have
left
very
Romans
the
to resist the Goths, they
much
of the magistrate.
When
must
of their power in the hands
But Calpurnius ruled
in the
State like a good deacon of the Church. Traditioii informs us that the mother of Saint
Patrick was Conchessa.
Various writers
call
her
the sister of Martin, archbishop of Tours and the
founder of monasteries in Western Europe.
candid Romanist thinks that this opinion
by the
is
silence of the ancient annalists.
A
refuted
"For
it
cannot be supposed that a connection so honourable,
and which,
if
it
existed,
must have been
generally known, could have been passed over in "^
Bingham^s Ecclesiastical Antiquities, book
t Todd's Saint Patrick.
Dublin, 1864,
iv. 4.
p. 354.
SAINT PATRICK, silence
31
by persons who must have been eager
to
mention whatever could exalt the character of
In the
Saint Patrick with posterity/^*
tract
" the mothers of the saints in Ireland/ 'f she
We may
represented as a Briton.
was "a woman superior sex/^
on is
believe that she
to the majority of her
and that she endeavoured
to instil into the
heart of her son the doctrines of Christianity.;}:
Such a family,
in
which there was a presbyter
and a deacon, dwelling on the banks of the Clyde, could not well be the solitary Christians of that country.
Whence
many
There must have been their religion,
and how long had
it
others.
existed
in Scotland ?
may have
Missionaries
of the
Roman
army, the sword preparing the way
For four hundred years
for the cross.
the
Romans
followed in the footsteps
held sway over
many
after Christ
parts of
Eng-
land and Southern Scotland, and the door was open for teachers of the faith,
however severely some of
the emperors persecuted them. to
have been done. ^
An
The
Yet
little
seems
native people hated the
Ecclesiastical History of Ireland,
by the Eight Eev.
P. J. Carew, p. 52.
f Attributed to
^ngus
the Ciildee, of the ninth century.
X D'Aubigne's Hist, of Kef. Vol. v. chap.
i.
SA INT PA TRICK.
82 invaders
;
preachers
they were not likely to give ear to
who came from
Missionaries from
Koman
Roman Empire.
the
Rome would have taught
certain
such as the celibacy of the clergy,
errors,
prelacy and submission to the bishop of
Rome.
We must not forget that Rome, in the first Christian centuries,
was
seventh
the great errors had not
;
far
purer than she became after the
she had perverted before the
Roman army
these peculiar errors
and Scots
many
Christianity
;
;
we
:
still,
practices
If we found
left Britain.
the Christian Britons
we should conclude
at an early day,
do not find them
and
doctrines
among
they had been taught by
grown up
Roman
find a
missionaries.
that
Wc
much purer form of
and our conclusion
is,
that they
first
received the gospel from a different quarter.
Ships sailed to Britain from Eastern lands where the Greek language prevailed.
the harbours of preached.
On
tian merchants
Asia Minor.
cities
They came from
where the apostles had
their decks
may have
been Chris-
and missionaries from Greece and
The one
class
could supply funds,
the other could give the gospel to the Scots and Britons.
We
may suppose
that such teachers of
the faith gathered a few people about
them of Jesus who was
crucified
them and
for
them.
told
All
—
SAINT PATRICK, wondered
;
The Druids shook
Christ.
anger
was
;
the people were forsaking
in
teachers
heads in
their
them
their craft
;
new
they cried out against the
danger;
doctrines.
their
The number of hearers
believed.
Little bands celebrated the dying love
increased.
of
some
33
They claimed and the
to be the only religious
law-makers.
They muttered
dark suspicions to the chieftains and kings.
The
Persecution arose.
They sought
refuge
in
little flocks
The
narrower valleys.
teachers hid in closer retreats. cells for
were scattered.
They made them
prayer and study, and became Culdees.
In some such manner, we may suppose, Christianity was
first
planted in Scotland and the northern part
of Britain, and the Culdees arose. *
Before the
end of the second century there appear
to
have
many bands of Christians north of the Clyde and the Eoman Wall. In the year 234, Origen wrote in Greek, " The power of God, our Saviour, been
is
even with them ^ Another opinion
who in
is,
Britain are shut out from
that Southern Britain
first
received the
missionaries from Asia Minor and Greece, or from the churches of Lyons and Marseilles, which were of the Grecian type that under such persecutions as that of Diocletian
;
and
many
of
these early British Christians fled to Scotland and Ireland,
where they took refuge in Culdees.
Buchanan, Berum
cells
and became known
Scot. Hist,
as the
;
SAINT PATRICK.
34
About
our world.''
the same time Tertullian said
" that parts of the British the Romans, were
made
Rome
We
new
thing
'^
''
it
as
if it
were a
increase.
re-
In their churches was a purer
"These churches were formed ;
yoke they detested." find in
after
the
the Britons [and Scots] would have
Rome whose
refused to receive the type of that
Christian.
They
bishops" until forced to accept them in
Eastern type
We
that early in
bishops" to the " Scots
and
to believe
the twelfth century. faith.
This
without her aid the Scots had believed.
;
They continued jected her
sent
know
She did
believing in Christ/'
not reached by
subjects to Christ/'
Avas scarcely all rhetoric.
the fifth century
Isles,
*
Ninian a specimen of an early Briton
Perhaps he
w^as
known
to Potitus
they were of the same kingdom of Strathclyde.
He
His parents
was born about the year 360.
were Christians and early devoted him to the Christian
ministry.
He
loved
his
associates,
abstained from jests, gave his hours to study and closely
searched the
Holy
Scriptures.
He
was
sparing of words, courteous in manners, moderate at the table
and reserved
in public.
ruled by the spirit that dwelt in
it.
The body was
He
was marked
SAINT PATRICK. young man of warm
as a
own
his
deep humility and
Having passed through
dauntless courage. schools of
zeal,
35
country, and
the
eager for
still
knowledge, he went to Rome. Ailred
tells
wept over the
blessed youth
the
and gave himself
apostles did, he
when Ninian came
us that
had no suspicion
He
a son.
relics
of the
to their care.
If he
that a gross deception
The
upon him.
practiced
''
knew how
He
hearted stiident.
to
them
manage
a simple-
soon discovered that his ow^n
He was
Rome.
at
as
to certain
people did not understand the Scriptures as int
was
him
pope'^ received
was thereupon handed over
teachers, w^ho well
Rome,
to
men
led to think
that the Briton Christians were greatly in error,
but on what points
we
less
they had simpler forms of worship
less
regard for
relics,
clerical
rules
cross,
liturgies
outward
rites,
and tonsure,
Rome
;
they had
the sign of the
and higher orders of clergy
regard the bishop of
Doubt-
are not informed.
festival ;
days,
they did not
as the successor of
St. Peter,
nor as the bond of unity in the Christian
Church.
They held Christ
only
King
blinded. fully
in
Zion.
He thought
come up
as their master
The
and the
eyes of Ninian were
that his countrymen had not
to the faith
;
he did not see that
;
SAINT PATRICK,
36
Rome had begun
from
to depart
He
it.
to
impart his new ideas to his brethren.
is
that the
Roman
The
story
bishop ordained him as " the
his people,
first apostle'' to
resolved
and sent him forth with
his benediction.
When
Ninian returned
to his
own
country, he
was received with great demonstrations of joy.
The
people gathered about him.
as one of the prophets.
They
praised Christ for
They were not
what they saw and heard. and yet
^^the first apostle to his
come!
Rome
now
own
heathen,
people''
had
former teachers
ignored the
presbyters: she
They held him
sent a ^'bishop."
and
But they
looked upon him as a follower of Christ and of It
his fathers.
way he had architecture,
related that on his
visited
homeward
Martin of Tours, studied
and brought with him a company of
A
builders.
is
spot was chosen in the southern part
of Galloway, near a deserted
Roman camp, and
the ral lying-point of a Caledonian tribe.
It
was
not far from the seat of a Culdee establishment.
There a church was built of bright white stone hence *
its
Now
shore.
name, Candida Casa, or Whitherne.*
Whithorn.
Near
it is
The town
of this
an island, which
''
name
is
on the main
has some remains of a very
ancient small church, believed to have been one of the earliest
—
SAINT PATRICK. ^^
37
There/' says his biographer^ " the candle being
placed in light,
its
candlestick,
it
began to give forth
who were
with heavenly signs to those
house of God, and
in the
graces radiating, those
its
its
who
were dark in their mind were enlightened by the bright and burning
We
were w^armed/'
him by
Ailred,
by such
who
He
powers.
He
impossible to
is
seems to have laid aside his
make
converts to Christ than to
In the wilds of Galloway he taught sound "
doctrine and scriptural discipline. his
mouth with the word
of the
prelatic
was doubtless an earnest missionary,
labouring more to
Rome.
says they are "credible only
and assumed no high
notions,
frigid
reject the miracles ascribed to
as believe that nothing
the faithful/^
Roman
word of God, and the
Holy
Spirit,''
received, error
is
opened
of God, through the grace
"
says Ailred.
The
faith is
put away, the [heathen] temples
are destroyed, churches are erected
the fountain of saving cleansing—
:
^the
poor alike, young
He
men and
men rush rich
maidens, old
to
and the
men and
children, mothers with their infants; renouncing
Satan and
all
his
works and pomps, they are
joined to the family of believers by faith, and stone structures of to Scotland,
its class
in Scotland."
Nelson^s
Handbook
SAINT PA TRICK,
38
Such
word,
and
among
the Southern Picts.
s'acraments.'^
work
his
Perhaps he extended
Roman
north of the
labours
his
was
Who
Wall.
knows but
that he visited Alcluyd, lodged with
Calpurnius,
filled
the lad Patrick with wonder, and
talked late into the night with the venerable Potitus
Who
?
knows but
that this aged presbyter
convinced him of Rome's advance in error, and confirmed him in the ancient faith of the Culdees ?
He much
seems to have done
More than in
At
for Christ.
a ripe age he died in peace.
a score of Scottish churches were
honour
of
canonized him
;
it
had been
we do
not assert.
better if she
That he was
We
named
Rome
missionary.
zealous
this
turned to his doctrines. error
Rome and
for
little
had
free
re-
from
have endeavoured to
we might have
before us the
portrait of a Christian Briton,
who
lived in the
time of Saint Patrick's youth.
No
sketch the man,* that
great mission-
ary was more likely to influence the mind of the
grandson of Potitus. ^ Consult Bede's Eccl. Church, The History,
Hist., McLauclilan's
Spottiswoode
Miscellany,
Early Scottish
Meander's
Church
CHAPTER
II
THE YOUNG CAPTIVE.
E may
imagine the deacon Calpurnius walk-
ing solemnly by the side of the pale Con()^?y^ ^
c^
;
an infant son in his arms,
and turning to a fountain* near
e)
cell
chessa, bearing
to a
Culdee
then joining fervently in the simple services
of worship, and praying silently that the Lord will bless his neighbours
listening to
what
is
who
gaze upon the scene
;
then
said of God's holy covenant
with his people and their
little
ones,
forth his child to receive the token of to the Father, the seal of its
Son and the symbol of
its
and holding its
surrender
redemption by the
renewal by the Holy
We
almost see the reverent presbyter take
his grandson
and with the words of Christ apply
Ghost.
to
him the waters of baptism, give him the
kiss
of peace,t place him in the arms of the tearful * Fountains and wells seem to have been used at an early
period for baptism
;
they were afterward held sacred in Scotland
and Ireland. f
An
ancient custom.
Thackeray's Ancient Britain, vol.
198.
39
L
SAINT PA THICK,
40
Conchessa, and
We
benediction.
hands
his
lift
for the prayer
and
are told that to this child was
given the name of Succath in his baptism.
At a
day he was called Patrick.*
later
we have supposed nothing more than may have been true. But the story-tellers of the In
this
Middle Ages imagined things that are hugely and made sad work of the
Among
false,
of Saint Patrick.
life
their lying legends the facts
are almost
Not content with marvels, they invented
lost.
What wonders
miracles.
before he breathed
He
!
makes the sign of the
the child performed, even is
but an infant when he
cross
on the ground, and on
the spot a fountain flows whose waters cure the blind.
He
Is the water flooding his mother's floor ?
drops
fire
dried away. fagots ?
from his fingers and every drop
Does
The boy fall
aunt want a bundle of
his
Patrick brings ice in his arms
and makes a rousing Lupita
fire
* Keating^s Hist, of Ireland.
name
at
with
it.
Does
and bruise her forehead?
the wounds in an instant.
his
is
the beginning."
his sister
He
While herding the Fiacc's
Hymn
runs
:
heals flock
" Succat
Succat in old British means
An
odd name, says
Lanigan, for the child of a Christian deacon.
Not more odd
" the
god of war," or " strong in war."
than for Palladius to bear a
goddess Pallas.— Toc^f^'s
name
derived from the heathen
St. Patrick, 363.
SAINT PATRICK. he grows careless
all night,
and
a wolf comes and steals one of
;
The
the finest lambs. lo
lad
in the
!
reproved, but he prays
is
morning the roguish
brings back the lamb, lays
and then
the woods
flees to
41
unhurt
it
thief
at his feet,
Thus we might go
!
on heaping up the nonsense found in the
book written by
thirteen chapters of a
monk
Romish author ^'
foisted in
ages,
rejects
Joceline, a
No wonder
of the twelfth century.
such
legends
first
that one
as
stories
by the credulous writers of those dark
who were
heaping miracles upon the backs
for
of their saints which the present times are not expected to give credit to
they are
^^
enough
pious reader."
purge the
to
f^
and another declares that
to rouse the indignation of every
It
is
high time for the Romanists " Lives
old
of
thoroughly as the young Patrick
the is
Saints'^
said to
as
have
cleaned the fortress and stables of the cruel lord of
Dunbriton
;
for the story
is,
that the tyrant ordered
Patrick^s aunt to do the slavish job, but the lad
came forward a riddance of
like a
man, and by miracle made such
all trash that
none was ever found
afterward in the whole establishment.
We the
must
human
believe that the
nature of a boy.
His deeds were not
holy.
young Patrick had
He It
is
was not a far
more
all
saint.
likely
;
SAINT PATRICK,
42
he complained of his oatmeal porridge at
that
and ran away from
breakfast,
mother
his
to the
trout-streams to catch something better for dinner that ''
when
Rock on
sent into
town on an errand he took the
the Clyde'^ in his way, and loitered for
an hour on the top looking ers
;
Highland-
for savage
some wandering-
that he threw snowballs at
Roman
Druid, or talked long with the
soldiers
w^hen he ought to have been tending his father^s sheep.
He
was
tauo;ht the holy
commandments,'^ but
He
he did not keep them.
was " warned
for his
salvation/' but he heeded not the preachers.
knew
''
I
not the true God/' he said in his old age, as
he looked back upon the days of his youth.
He
must have meant that he knew not God
his
as
heavenly Father, nor Christ as his Saviour; he did not love
him nor obey
parents
taught him the
No
the truth.
way
to
doubt his
be saved^ for he
seems to have remembered the lessons of home in his captivity.
Bible,
His grandfather must have had a
and taught Patrick
taught.
to read
But he had no heart
it,
as
Ninian was
for the truth.
was fond of pleasure, and delighted leader of his youthful companions.
to
'^
He
be the
In the midst
* Confessio Patricii, near the beginning.
SAINT PATRICK, of his
What
he committed a serious fault." *
frivolities it
was we know not
not holy from his infancy tian/' as
He
Alban Butler
was then
43
it
;
—not
declares
fifteen years
^^
always a Chris-
him
to
have been, f
of age.
him
It was not always safe for
down
proves that he was
to lead a troop of
young
friends
on
banksj or to stroll up the glen and
make
merry with some jovial shepherd and his
flock.
its
For
pirates often
drew
wandered over the children, carried
sold
them
the Clyde to hold their sports
their boats into
hills,
seized
them away
into slavery.
some
cove,
upon the playful
to strange lands
and
~With bolder steps they some-
times marched into villages, slew the strong men,
abused the aged, plundered the houses or
on "fire,
set
them
laid waste the gardens, stole the cattle
As
took off the children. the Danish pirates
^^ :
Sir
and
Walter Scott says of
They were
heathens, and did
not believe in the Bible, but thought of nothing
but battle and slaughter and making plunder.'^
Most of the Roman
soldiers
had been called home;
so few were left that they were not able to protect
the people along the Clyde.
One day
a band
of these robbers
^ D'Aubign^. f Lives of the Saints,
March
17.
came
like
SAINT PATRICK.
44 vultures
upon the town, and,
after every sort
outrage, they carried off Patrick
hundred of the in the boats,*
The
villagers.
and the prows were turned down
mind of Patrick
What sad
all
;
thoughts
he gazed back at the
as
high rock so near his home the pirates
and about two
captives were placed
the Clyde and toward Ireland. in the
!
What
anger toward
But he afterward saw a reason
!
of
the hand of
God was
to correct his evil ways.
when I was nearly
upon him
laid severely ''
for it
I was taken captive, I
sixteen years old.
knew
not
the true God, and I was carried in captivity to
many thousandsf of men, according our deserts, because we had gone back from
Ireland, with to
God, and had not kept were not obedient to our us for our salvation.
his
commandments, and
priests,
And
the
who used
to
warn
Lord brought upon
us the wrath of his displeasure, and scattered us '
* Curachs, no doubt made of wicker and covered with ox-
hides.
They were used by
the people of the
long after the Norwegians showed them
how
British Isles
to
build small
ships.
" f Not
many
thousands" in his company, but
'*
many
thous-
ands" in a like condition of bondage, taken away at various times and to various countries.
Bome
in
the sixth
Angli, sed angeli."
century,
We of
read of British captives at
whom
Gregory
said,
"Non
;
;
SA INT PA TRICK. among many
45
nations, even unto the ends of the
earth/' *
Who led
were those pirates
by Niall of the
iSTine
AVere they Irishmen,
?
Hostages
Those who
born.
we
This daring
and excelled
corsair roved over the seas,
slave-trade before,
?
in the
suppose. Saint Patrick was
fix his birth before
the year 387
attribute the capture to Niall,t the ancestor of the
O'Neills,
him an By
and
^^
Of
martial hero of the Irish/'
ancient poet sings, that he, and martial
force of arms,
skill,
Subdued the rebels who opposed his right;
A ad,
as a pledge of their allegiance,
Detained
And,
He
five hostages of
to secure the
homage
of the Scots,
kept confined four hostages of note
From whence The Hero
On
noble blood
this prince the ancient records call
of the
Nine Hostages.
one of his excursions for plunder he was
shot with an arrow and died on the spot. certainly great
enough
to carry
away Saint
He
was
Patrick,
whose supposed miraculous power was strangely wanting
at the time.
But he appears not
lived long enough for such a deed. ^ Conf. Pat.
f Keating, Lanigan, D'Aubign^, Wilson.
It
to
have
is
more
SAINT PATRICK.
46 likely that
captors were led
tlie
When
chieftain.
the
by some other
Romans were
leaving the
Clyde, the poor Britons were at the mercy of their
The
foes.
side of the line did
The
On
old wall was no defence.
neither
the gospel of peace reign.
Picts shouted, the Britons groaned, and the
Irish ran in and took the spoils and the prey.
There
is
another version of the story which
merits a respectful notice.
was made
Some
It
is,
in Brittany, in the
writers,
who
that the capture
North of France.
think that Saint Patrick was
not born near Boulogne, suppose that his parents left
the Clyde
and
settled
The commentator on thus:
*'
Place's
Hymn gives the legend
This was the cause of the servitude of
His
Patrick. sisters all
father,
mother, brother
and
five
went from the Britons of Alcluaid, across
the Iccian
Britons
on the coast of Gaul.*
sea
southward, on a journey to the
... Then
of Letha.
of Sectmaide, king of Britain,
came seven sons in
ships.
.
.
.
and they made great plunder on the Britons of
Armoric Letha, where Patrick with was,
and they wounded Calpurnius
carried off Patrick
them
to Ireland,
and Lupait
and sold them." •5^
So D'Aubign^.
his
family
there,
and
[his sister] with
;
SAINT PATRICK. This story
is
47
usually supported by the fact that
a colony of Northern Britons had lately settled in
name
Gaul, giving to that region the if
of Brittany,
indeed the Brittani had not dwelt there centuries
was
It
before.
of
consisting
at first a
British
Roman
military colony, ^^
w^arriors.
Though
that
country had from the earliest times^ by descent,
language and Druidism^ been related to Britain, yet the
new
others, both
colonists,
who were
follow^ed
by many
male and female, served unquestion-
ably to bind more closely and to preserve the connection between Bretagne and the Britons of
and Cornwall.
.
.
.
But
Britain
Wales
was thereby de-
prived of her bravest warriors, and thence the more easily
became an early prey
Scots, Picts
to foreign invaders.
and Saxons continued
to trouble
it.^^*
This colony might have resisted the pirates more strongly
than the dwellers
on
the
If
Clyde.
Patrick had been there, he might have been safe if his parents w^ere fleeing thither for safety,
have been captured on the
w^ay.
he
may
But the whole
story seems to be founded in the wish to connect
Saint Patrick with the
Romans and
the
Roman
* Lappenberg's Hist, of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. p. 72.
i.
pp.
7,
59
;
Thackeray's Ancient Britain,
vol.
ii,
SAINT PATRICK
48
The
Church.
The
second, third and fourth
collection
do not support
better authorities
make Patrick by a
^^near
Alcluaid/'
About
six years later he
''
Lives'^
in Colgan's
have been captured
to
of
fleet is
it.
Irish
pirates.
found at home again
with his parents in Britain, a country named as one entirely distinct from Gaul.
In the Confession there
is
not a word to show
that Saint Patrick had brothers and sisters.
on
this subject the
monks seem
to
But
have been quite
inventive, placing on the family roll of Calpurnius
a
list
of descendants long enough to supply two or
three kingdoms with bishops, priests,
nuns.
One
sister
was carried
to Ireland
the mother of seventeen bishops
among her
!
monks and and became
Another counted
sons four bishops and three priests ; she
was Limania, whose
eldest son
was Sechnall, a
bishop, and the youngest, Lugna, a priest.
There
was perhaps a Sechnall or Secundinus, who wrote a poem upon the
most ancient in
was none can
life
existence.
'^
''
But who
his
mother
tell.
A few years since, the
of St. Patrick, one of the
Dr. George Petrie * found on
Island of the Religious Foreigner,^^ in the
Bound Towers and
by George
Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland,
Petrie, p. 102
;
Todd's
St. Patrick, p.
365.
SAINT PATRICK.
49
county of Galway, Ireland, a tomb- stone whose date can scarcely be later than the beginning of the
On
sixth century.
it
Lie Lugiiaedoii Max^lmene
son of Limania."
this Celtic inscription
is
—
Perhaps
^^
The
stone of Lugna,
was raised over the
it
grave of a nephew of Saint Patrick.
He may have
been a native of Britain^ gone as a Culdee missionary to Ireland, had his
and there died
;
cell
on the
whence the place was called
For this
Isle of the Religious Foreigner."
one
fossil fact,
happens
little island,
a mere
name on a
'^
the
there
is
gravestone^ which
But
to agree w^ith a line in a legend.
for
the rest w^e have only fables, and Tillemont was safe in rejecting
The small and
them
all.
boats which carried the
young Patrick
his companions, with a weight of spoils,
be likely to
make land
at
some near
point.
would Leav-
ing the Firth of the Clyde, a stmight course west
would
bring them upon
where tradition
show
Antrim
was not
It appear that Patrick
four brothers.
Fiacc's
hymn
runs
in
Gaul, but at
was
first
:
''He was called Cathraige,
For he served four * Latin version
coast, just
This tends to
fixes the landing.
that the capture
Alcluyd.
the
families."
by Colgan.
*
sold to
SA INT PA TRICK.
50
One
of these brothers
said
is
have been
to
Milchu, a savage master, a cruel king of Dalaradia,
Not
and a Druid.
liking the joint-stock arrange-
ment, and greatly pleased with the faithfuhiess of the slave, he bought the shares of his brothers and
became
Patrick might well prefer
sole possessor.
to serve one master rather than four, even if the
one was a tyrant.
At
we have
this point
It show^s that Patrick to herd cattle
;
light
from the Confession.
was sent daily
that he watched
into the fields
them by
night, in
the rain, in the snows, and all the year long, and that these severe trials were to
him
a
means of
He remembered happier days. He thought upon his sins. He felt that he was far from Christ, the true home of his soul. He recalled the teachgrace.
ings of God's servants, and the lessons learned in
The
his father's house.
seed of truth, long buried
in his heart, sprang
up and grew.
had he been devoted
to the
and taught how parents' prayers
pray ;
to
still
Great High Priest,
Lord
Not
in vain
in his infancy,
not in vain w^ere his
renew^ed and ascending to the
who
w^as
touched with the
feel-
ing of their infirmities and his bitter endurances. '^
After I had come to Ireland," he says in the
Confession,
^^
I was employed every day in tending
^.1
sheep
INT PA TE ICK,
and I used
;
woods and on the
I prayed frequently.
mountain. the fear of
to stay in the
God and
51
The
faith increased so
love and
much, and
the spirit of prayer so grew within me, that I often
prayed an hundred times in the day, and almost as I frequently rose to prayer in
often in the night.
the woods before daylight, in snow, and frost, and rain in
and I
;
me
;
felt
for, as
I
no
nor was there any sloth
evil,
now
see,
the Spirit was burning
within me.
my unbelieving mind, so that, even late, I thought of my sins, and my whole heart was turned to the Lord my God, who looked down upon my low condition, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and preserved me "
And
before I evil,
Lord opened
there the
knew him, and
before I
knew good from
and guarded, protected and cherished me,
as a father
would a
son.
This I certainly know,
God humbled me I was like a stone lying deep in the mire but when he came, who had all power to do it, he raised me in his mercy and put me on a very high place. Wherethat before
;
fore I
must
return to the
and in
testify aloud, in order to
Lord
eternity,
to estimate.^'
for
make some
such great blessings, in time
which no human reason
is
able
SAINT PATRICK,
52
Such was the experience of young Patrick
him
with
religion
was
deep
power came from the Lord
heart-work.
Holy Ghost im-
the
;
Its
parted the love and fear of God.
Such was
his
account of his conversion, w^ritten in his old age.
How and
he remembered those helplessness,
the earnestness
prayers, the ardour of that
blessedness
He
!
vert without reveal
convictions of sin
first
drew the
intending
of
first love,
state of art
among
and
portrait of a
tell
;
It
?
but heart- w^ork
;
man to
it,
it
own
ex-
was not
ritual,
not saint- worship,
soul.
;
not priest -work,
Surely he was
that thousands of his adorers be-
have been
!
That
portrait
have been drawn by a papist.
whom
us the
not a mere reform of the conduct,
but a regeneration of the
him
it
not a matter of forms, but of faith
but the grateful adoration of God
lieve
does
us what religion was held to be in his
not penance, but repentance;
never the
con-
the Italians in his time, does
days by the Irish Christians
but spiritual
new
tells
not Saint Patrick's description of his perience
first
all that
How much
it.
If a painting by Raphael
!
those
represented,
would never
The young man
and the old man who drew
were the same Patrick; and surely he never
believed that a church must confer the salvation
SAINT PATRICK. of Christ
—that God's
53
grace and Spirit must come
through the hands of a
To what
priest!
confes-
sional did he go in the wilderness but that only
one of God, the mercy-seat, the throne of grace?
That was ever near him amid the
To whom
and the darkness.
Him who
had the w^ords of
rain, the
snow,
could he go but unto
eternal life?
^'Such words as these/' says D'Aubigne, '^from the lips of a swineherd"^ in
tlie
before
us
Ireland,
set
clearly
and
green pastures of the
which
in the fourth
many
souls in the British Isles.
Rome
fifth centuries
Converted
In after years
dominion of
the
established
Christianity
priests
and
salvation by forms, independently of the dispositions of the heart
;
but the primitive religion of
these celebrated islands
whose substance whose power
is
is
was that living Christianity
the grace of Jesus Christ,
the grace of the
Holy Ghost.
and
The
herdsman from the banks of the Clyde was then undergoing
those
experiences
which
so
many
evangelical Christians in those countries have since
undergone.
Evangelical
faith^
even then, existed
in the British Islands in the person of this slave,
and of some few Christians born again, from on
like him,
high.''
* Quoting U^sher
:
porcorum pastor
erat.
CHAPTER
III.
THE ESCAPE.
IX
years wore away, but there seemed to be
no
promotion
Twenty-two
Patrick.
for
years of age, vigorous and enterprising, he
thought of being something
herdsman.
A
his sleep of death to a higher
the great Shepherd had a nobler
He
to do.
than a
heavenly Father^s correction had
wakened him from life;
else
work
for
him
began to have dreams, as so many of
God's servants have had in
ages,
all
wondering
what they meant, and whether a divine hand and voice were in them.
It will not appear strange to
most Christians that several of corded in the Confession. treat
them
legends,
as
his
dreams are
re-
Those who choose may
unworthy of
credit;
he
seems to have thought they came from God.
One
night, as he tells us, he seemed to hear a
voice saying,
'^
Thy
fasting
well
He
soon return to thy country."
but no way of return appeared.
and the same voice said/
is
^^
;
thou shalt
waited, watched,
Again he dreamed, Behold, the ship
is
— —
SAINT PATRICK. But he was
ready for you.'^
He
distant.*
master,
tell
did
him
and bid him
not
told that
bound
feel
up
all, settle
and
who
far
go to his
shake hands
some morning,
^'I
took to
re-
flight,^'
man with whom
the
left
had
I
I w^ent in the power of the
been for six years.
Lord,
was
The Lord was
it.
covering his stolen property. ^^
it
If the cruel chief found
farewell.
he must make the best of
us,
to
affairs,
that his favourite slave was missing
he informs
65
my way
directed
for good,
and I feared
nothing until I came to the place where the ship
The
lay.
ship was then clearing out, and I asked
for a passage
became angry and
On
with us."
The master
in her.
^'
said,
Do
of the vessel
not pretend to come
hearing this I retired, for the pur-
pose of going to the cabin where I had been received as a guest,t and while going thither I began
But
to pray.
before I had finished
heard one of the
back quickly, ^ of
''
scriber.
The
But
miles," it is
prayer, I
crying out to me,
men
for these
Two hundred
Armagh.
men
my
''
Come
are calling you."
the present reading in the
is
I
Book
supposed to be an error of the tran-
scholiast
on
Fiacc's
Hymn
has
it,
"Sixty-
miles, or, as others says, a hundred," a proof that there were
various readings or traditions.
f Or
" to the hut
ill-treated
where
by his master.
Todd^s
St. Patrick, p. 367.
I used to dwell," at the risk of being TillcmoiU,
—
SAINT PATRICK.
56
They
returned at once. receive
please
He for
you
in faith
said to me,
make
;
^^
Come,
we
for
friends with us, as
you
!^^
was surprised
them speak of
to hear
faith,
he saw that they w^ere heathens, but he hoped
they meant to say,
Come
'^
Christ," or he hoped that they might
the faith of Christ.
He
were three days* at
sea,
The
coast of Scotland.
of Jesus
in the faith
come over
went with them.
to
They
probably making for the
sea
must have been rough,
the course lost, the harbour missed and the vessel
driven upon some desolate shore. eight days they laid waste
'^
wandered in a
For twenty-
desert ;" a region
by the ravages of the warlike
tribes, or
from which pirates had caused the natives
They ran
Patrick seems to
short of provisions.
have spoken to the
power of God, of
sailors of the
prayer and of trust in his providence.
would impress the ^'
What
to flee.
Want
lesson.
sayest thou. Christian ?" asked the leader
of the party.
Thy God
^'
is
great and all-powerful.
* Dr. Lanigan brings Patrick from Dalaradia, dred miles, to Eantry coast of Gaul.
He
Bay, thence
full
two hun-
in three days to the
gives credit to a story that the fugitive
had
been seized by a wild Irishman and sold to certain sailors or
merchants of Gaul.
him
Ecd.
Hist.,
i.
150.
The
legends bandy
about as a slave and captive most wonderfully,
SAINT PA TRICK. Why,
57
him
then, canst thou not pray to
For
for us ?
perish with hunger, and can find here no
we
in-
habitants/' ^'
Turn ye
nothing
is
where/'
and remained
ate, rested
" After
God and
When some
this,''
an
and he
offering,
in that place
he says^
they gave
'•
I was honoured in their eyes."
wild honey was found, one of the
sailors offered Patrick a is
'^
whom
has abundance every-
food, for he
two nights.
thanks to
to
Soon they came upon a herd of swine
they slew, for
God,
Patrick replied^
impossible,^^
you
will send
my Lord
in faith to
part of
it,
saying,
''
This
God !" But he refused it, man had some superstitious
thanks to
suspecting that the
notions in his mind, or had offered
it
to a heathen
god.
The same night an event never forget.
he thought
it
He
occurred which he could
must have had a night-mare
a temptation of Satan.
a great stone had fallen upon me.
move
a limb.
How
it
came
" I
felt as if
I could not
into
my mind
not
but at that mo-
to call
out Helios [or Eli] I
know
ment I saw the sun
rising in the heavens,
whilst I cried out Helias
might,
lo,
!
;
Helias! with
the brightness of the sun
and straightway removed
all
fell
all
and
my
upon me,
the weight."
f
;
SAINT PA THICK,
58
This has been considered
^'
proof*
a sufficient
that in his earlier days Saint Patrick invoked the
But
saints.
upon
called
came it
it
happened
youth
knew not how
Moreover, Elias
as a saint in the
Roman Church
before the fourteenth centurv, nor in the
" Lives'' the word
is
not
''
Helias" but
Todd
the gospels, he
Saviour's loud cry, w^hat
when on
centuries, as in the
^^
knew
not
was not accustomed
it
Without used
it
in
God,'^
Christ in the
early
Eli, "
of Hilary of Poictiers. thus used before he was
it
came
to
invoke
may have
into his
God by
St. Patrick,
uttered
mind." that
'^Lanigan, Carew.
fTodcFs
If he
my
in trouble he
how
Eli ?"
may have
to
hymn
Patrick might have heard
When
''
the cross.
But the name
was sometimes, applied
he
It
must have remembered the
meant, he
it
his strange distress.
a captive.
Eli."
suggests.
But what did Patrick mean by
knowing
''
stood thus in the original copy of the
Confession, as Dr.
knew
Greek
In some of the more ancient
before the tenth.
may have
it
he could not explain
;
in his old age.
was never invoked
he
if
was something unusual
It
his habit in
Even
all.
Elias^ he says that he
into his mind.
was not
how
no proof at
is
it
pp, 370-373.
it;
He
name in
—
SAINT PATBICK. his prayers.
59
He
cried
The
spell
But he long afterward believed
that
No
miracle
described.
is
aloud, and just then the sun was rising.
was gone.
God showed him mercy
He
had helped him.
^^
says,
I was relieved by Christ
day of
the gospel,
*
It
my
is
I
my
Spirit then cried out for me,
so in the
No
at that time.
am
saint
persuaded that
Lord, and that his
and I trust
trouble, for the
it
Lord
may
be
saith in
not ye that speak, but the Spirit
of your Father, which speaketh in you
When
!^^*
he was so nearly asleep, and so benumbed that he did not think of calling upon his God, the Spirit
prompted him
We
This
to pray.
have dwelt upon
this,
may
be his meaning.
because
it
is
the only
instance in the Confession which can be wrested to
support the invocation of the saints.
For
sixty days Patrick
sailors.
This gave
captivity ;t
rise
perhaps he
wandered about with the to the story of a second
so
regarded
it.
It
is
evident that he grew weary of his company, for he says that on the sixtieth night (after leaving his •^
Matthew
x, 20.
f Probus, the Bollandists, sents
him
as carried
and
others.
away again from his home by
and " after sixty days" ref^tored to liberty. 426.
Keander repre-
Mem.
pirates,
Ch, Life, p.
SAINT PA TRICK,
60
master, probably) * the
Lord delivered
The accounts
their hands/^
rne
from
of his wanderings on
the French coasts, converting the mariners, going
home with them and converting travelling
about in
Europe
their countrymen,
and
ever
drifting
Romeward, have not a shadow of foundation It goes on to say
the Confession.
:
in
" After a few
years [of absence in captivity] I was again with
my
parents in Britain,*
who
and earnestly besought me never again, after having
me
received to
as a son,
leave
them
endured such great tribula-
tions.'^
The Clyde,
Roman soldiers
the great rock, the few lingering
—and the home of
longer any power to retain
him
his
in his native land.
To prove himself a real Succath, and make himself a captain fearful *'
was not
to his
Loving them mother
He
mind.
still,
strong in war,'^ in Pictish eyes,
had other thoughts.
he could leave
for the sake of Christ.
saw Ireland
youth had no
in visions,
father
When
and
he slept he
and heard the voices of
its
youth calling upon him to hasten and help them.
Of
his
dream he
saw a man coming t Brittaniis. tlie
says,
to
me
''
In the dead of night I
as if
from Ireland, whose
Villamieva reads, "Britannia."
Bede used
plural form, for Britain was divided into several parts.
t
:
SAINT PATRICK, name was
And
ginning of
me
it,
epistles.
one of tliem, and I read the be-
which contained the words, ^The
And
voice of the Irish/
while repeating them, I
imagined that I heard in those
innumerable
Victor,'^ bearing
he gave
61
who were near
the
my mind
wood of
the voice of
Foclut, which
Thus they
near the Western Sea.
is
^We
cried,
pray thee, holy youth, to come and henceforth walk
among
I was pierced in heart, and could
us.'
Thanks be
read no more; and so I awoke.
God, that
after
very
many
years the
Lord granted
unto them the blessing for which they cried ^^
Again on another night
knoweth, whether
it
—I
to
know
!
not,
God
was within me or near me, I
heard distinctly words which I could not understand, except these at the close life for
thee
I awoke
was
is
he
^
:
who speaketh
rejoicing."'
He who
in thee.'
In some of
his
gave his
And
so
dreams he
led to recall such texts of Scripture as these
"The Spirit helpeth our infirmities." "Christ, who maketh intercession for us." If such was the effect
of his dreaming,
* This man Victor "by
is
was not
in vain.
There
called an angel in the " Lives" written
Saint Patrick's adorers.
The name
is
given to his supposed
What he relates as a dream they represent What he " imagined" they make miraculous.
guardian angel. as a reality.
it
-
SAINT PATRICK,
62 is
All
nothing here absurd.
man who
with the feelings of a
and eager
to tell the
barbarous people.
quite consistent
is
enthusiastic
is
good news of salvation to a
We
should not forget his object
in telling these dreams.
It
was
to
show that he
did not assume the ministry of his
own
He
that he
He
was not sent by men.
called of
God.
felt
accord.
was
If he thought that his call was
supernatural, and that there was something
than imagination in his visions,
it
more
was only what
many
other excellent
men have thought
their
own dreams.
Rightly or wrongly, he took
them
as signs that he
Lord Is
concerning
was commissioned by the
to preach the gospel in Ireland. it
at all likely that
in studies
he spent thirty-five years
and travels before returning
to Ireland?
likely that he waited until he
was sixty years
of age before preaching anywhere?
Did he roam
Is
it
about from the year 395 to the year 432, studying with Martin of Tours,
nowned monastery
And
all this
ing that
at Lerins,
now
and again
now
at the reat
Rome?
time dreaming of Ireland, and think-
God was
him
calling
can hardly be credited.
to the
work?
It
But we may well sup-
pose that he studied for several years in the best school that he could aiford.
CHAPTER
IV.
THE FAILURES OF PALLADIUS.
HILE
Patrick
preparing for his work in
is
how
Ireland, let us see
c(^^ pared that
for
We
him.
some
shall thus understand
of his predecessors were
eiforts
afterward ascribed to
far the field is pre-
liini
in order to increase his
glory. It
man
is,
to this day, the boast of every true Irish-
that Erin was never invaded by the
—the
Caesars gained no footing there.
Romans
Its brave,
warlike, hospitable, high-minded people detested
the idea of being a mere province of the great empire.
They appear
to
have sent boat-loads of
heroes across the Channel to aid their brethren, the Scots,
against the foreign
Hating Roman missionaries
?
soldiers,
It
first
would they love Roman
might have been hard
Briton to gain a hearing
Who
army on the Clyde.
for
even a
among them.
taught the gospel in Ireland has never
been shown to the people of our days. putting the case too boldly to say that
^'
It
may
be
the Church 63
SAINT PATRICK.
64
of Lyons and that of Ireland were both founded
by Greeks, and the Scotch and Irish clergy long spoke no other tongue/^* says
:
'^
O'Halloran, a Romanist,
I strongly suspect
by Asiatic or
that
African missionaries, or through them by Spanish ones, were our ancestors instructed in Christianity,
because they rigidly adhered to their customs as to tonsure and the time of Easter.
Certain
it is
that
Patrick found a hierarchy established in Ireland."
As
to the
'^
hierarchy" there
very notion of one, before Patrick, posed by other certain,"
says
Roman
is
stoutly op-
Catholic historians.
nor a Christian
is
bishop in
Ireland antecedent to the period of which treating (431), although
by no means
" It
Father Brenan, ^'that there was
neither a hierarchy
the natives, in
The
no evidence.
is
many
it
is
are
highly probable that
parts of
unacquainted
we
the island, were
with the Christian
religion." f
No
doubt at an early day there were in the
southern part of
Ireland ^^some few Christian
families, separated
from each other, and probably
ignorant of each other's existence.
...
It cannot
be denied that the traditions of Irish Church ^ Michelet, Hist, of France, ch.
iii.
f Brenan's Eccl. Hist, of Ireland, ch.
i.
\
SAINT PATRICK.
65
history speak of isolated congregations of Christians in Ireland before the arrival of Patrick/^*
They
among
are to be counted
'^
the Scots believ-
ing on Christ'^ before Palladius was sent to them •'
as their
first
bishop/^ as a bishop was then held
The
Eome.
to be at
and
assume that their teachers Culdees
—that
in
be cleared
case will
many
ministers
The began
we
were
a quiet place was a
and the simple-hearted people gathered
Word and
if
cell,
to hear the
worship God.
affairs
of " the infant Church" of Ireland
to be talked of at
was chief bishop, and
Rome, where the
error
Celestine
was
gaining
strength that he was the high pontiff of all the
churches in the world.
ought
it!
Christians of Ireland
acknowledge him as ^^the holy father"
to
and pope
knew
The
!
What The
a blessing to them, if they only
gospel might be with them, but the
orders of clergy were wanting. Christ, but they
They might have
had not the Church in
its
latest
They had followed the
and most improved form.
simple apostles, but were far behind the wise fathers.
They might have
no high prelate
presbyters, but they
—not even " a bishop
Celestine was
moved " by
* Todd's
St. Patrick,
had
!"
the increasing pp. 189, 221.
number
—
SAINT PA TRICK,
66
of Christians there/'"^ to act as a father toward
He
" the infant Churoh^^ of the remote island.
would knit Those
ties
between
it
artless Christians
and the Church of Rome.
should have
the benefit
all
of the improvements invented by men,
Roman
in the great
empire their model for Chris-
tendom, and who constructed
with the
to correspond
who saw
offices in
offices in
the
Church
the State.
They
should have a bishop, a sort of church pro-consul, or resident legate
—one who would not merely look
after the sheep, but hold a general rule over the
He
shepherds.
cast his eye about
He
man.
find a proper
on his clergy to
wished to send him, not to
the heathen Irish, but to " the Scotsf believing on Christ,^^
and
yet,
^'
whose
faith
was not right
;^^
not
to be a
missionary, but a ruler; not merely to
preach,
but to use power; not to convert the
ignorant so
much
as to confirm the believers in the
gospel according to
unto Christ, so the
Roman
Among
Rome
much
The
not to bring the pagans
as to bring Christians
under
Church.
the
men
of promise and zeal was Pal-
* Moore's Hist. Ireland, f
;
p. 209.
Scots of Ireland as well as of Scotland.
Thackeray
supposes that Patrick requested Celestine to send a bishop to Ireland.
Anc. Brit,
ii.
166,
SAINT PATRICK. ladius.
There
is
67
small proof that he was a native
of Britain and a deacon of the Church of Rome. It seems clearer that he
was quite sound
in doctrine,
holding with Augustine the great truths of man's native depravity, inability to save himself and need
of Christ's atonement and power. to see
He was
grieved
the errors of Pelagius taking root in the
British Isles
— errors
man's sinfulness
growing out of the denial of
by nature, and leading
fallen
sinners to think that they could save themselves their
He
own moral works.
by
wished some strong
defender of the faith to be sent to Britain, in
answer to a loud
call
from that quarter
of some defender of the truth.
some part
in
Perhaps he had
sending Germanus in his
to displace the heretics
own
it
was he wdio told
Celestine also of the believers in Ireland faith
stead,
and direct the Britons to
Perhaps
the Catholic faith. ''"^
for the aid
^^
whose
Their error, however, was
was not right/'
not Pelagianism.
Here was the man of Ireland.
He
to place over the Christians
was
raised to a bishop,
and A.D.
431 sent forth by Celestine, f with a goodly array ^ Prosper's Chronicle. f
'^
France was probably
and his companions came
Ussher^s Brit. Eccl. Antiq. tlie ;
country from which Palladius
and the mission
to Ireland, of
SAINT PATBICK
68
He
of attendants. ^^
went
that
those
needed the unity which a bishop
believei's greatly
Of
alone could give them."
Romish
thinking
course some of the
historians relate that Patrick
Of
to attend Palladius,
was chosen
course they represent the
bishop as carrying with him, not only a copy of the Sacred Scriptures, but also " a portion of the of
Peter and
St.
St.
relics
!"
Paul
Palladius thus appears as " an emissary of the
Roman
See,
tianity
among
in
whose
was
object
to organize Chris-
the Scots of Ireland and Scotland,
accordance with what was then the
The
model.
wane, the ruins,
power of
civil
Rome
and there may have been no
between the two processes of power
may have
being on the
power began
ecclesiastical
;
Roman
to rise
little
on
its
connection
the loss of one species
helped an ambitious people,
accustomed to universal dominion, to seek after the establishment of another.'^*
On
the AVicklow coast he landed, but he was
not well received. chronicler savs of
AYliy not?
him
:
"
He
An
was sent
old
Irish
to convert
which he was the head, although sanctioned hy the See of
Eome, was
in reality projected
Church."— TodcTs St
and sent forth hy the Gallican
Patrick^ p. 2S0.
*McLanchlan, Early
Scot. Cli. p. 88.
SA IN T PA TBI CK. this
under wintry cold, but
lying
island,
man
hindered him, for no
from earth unless
8d
can receive anything
be given
it
for neither did those fierce
God
him from heaven
and savage men receive
doctrine readily, nor did he himself wish to
his
spend time in a land not his own/^ It appears that
country of the
he began to preach ^^in the
Hy
Garchon,^^ but their prince,
him
to leave.
zeal needed to
force his
Nathi, took offence, and Palladius
had not the
opinions and
make
ordered
converts, nor the courage of
which heroes and martyrs are made, or he had such tenderness toward the native Christians that he did
not wish to bring trouble upon them.
Some
tell
us that he was driven back by the violence of the barbarians
;
others, that
^^
he paraded his authority
before the Christians and pagans of the island, excited the opposition of both ; to
and
after
subdue them to the authority of
his
vain
and
efforts
master on
the Tiber, he was compelled to abandon his design
and
flee
the country."*
The enmity
of a heathen
may have been one cause of the failure. But the Roman missionary might also have to thank his own uncompromising opposition to the prejudices of those Christian communities, who are chieftain ^'
* Ireland and the Irish.
By Kirwan, N.
Y, Observer, 1855,
!
SAINT PATRICK,
70
mentioned as the
sole object of this visit,
co-operation, undoubtedly, cess of
any endeavours
neighbours.
was necessary for the suc-
to Christianize their
him
it,
pagan
These artless followers of Christ did
'^"^
They
not want such a bishop over them.
know
and whose
and regarded
let
him
as sheer impertinence for
it
or his master to interfere with their simple
rites
and
The
independence.
their
tradition
is,
that he founded three small churches in Ireland, in one of which apostles^^ that
It
is
to find
Patrick, given to
centuries.
He It
^^
of the
relics
he had carried with him
curious
writers.
he placed the
name
him by some of
was is
the
thus
the oldest Irish
called
an important
Patricius, or
Ireland for
in
fact.
It has caused
very much of the confusion in the accounts of
Events in the
Saint Patrick.
been carried over into the robbing Palladius
to
life
life
of the one have
of the other, thus
pay Patrick.
This will
furnish us with a key to certain legends soon to be noticed.
Palladius did not go back in despair the
way whence he
came.
There were other
believing in Christ^^ to be visited.
An
writer tells us that on leaving the people rejected him,
'^
'^
Scots
ancient
who had
he was forced to go round the coast
* Soames' Latin Church in Anglo-Saxon Times,
p. 53.
J
^.4
toward the north,
of Ireland great
IN T PA TE ICK,
71
until,
driven by a
reached the extreme part of
tempest, he
Modhaidh [Mearns ?], toward the
south, where he
founded the church of Fordoun, and Pledi
name
But Fordoun
there/^
Scotland
;
it is
Nor
deen.
is
Did
been established.
as their bishop ?
Picts
Roman camp had
the Scots refuse to accept
Did he then go among the
and found a church ?
at that place.
Did he
and work
his official dignities
His name seems
there lay aside
as a missionary ?
have become somew^hat popular
to
The church and
were dedicated
from Aber-
in the ancient land of the Scots,
but in that of the Picts, where a
him
his
not in the south of
in the north-east, not far
is it
is
He may
him.
to
a neighbouring well
have proved
himself an enterprising man, devoting his energies to the
good of the people,
as spiritual.
market
is
To
this
in temporal matters as well
day
in that
called Palladie's fair, or
town an annual '^
Pady
fair, after
Palladius himself.^'* This goes to show that he lived
To make
there for years, rather than a few months.
the end of his mission suit the beginning of Saint Patrick's,
March
it
has
been usual to
fix his
death at
16, 432, not perhaps a year after his first
landing in Ireland. ^ Anc.
Cli. Scot, in
This looks like shortening his Spottiswoode Miscellany,
p. 468.
SAINT PATRICK.
72
ministry for the express benefit of the
apostle of
story that " he was crowned with
The
Ireland.'^
^^
martyrdom" may be only a smoother way of saying that foul
More
work was made with
sacredly
traditions.
his life treated
is
Longer space
was no temptation his deeds.
He
given to
There
it.
and erase
seems to have had some disciples,
The
was Servanus. '^
is
life.
by the Scottish
to shorten his days
who became eminent Scot,
the facts of his
One
missionaries.
story*
is
that he
lived according to the forms
of
them
was a native
and
rites
of the
primitive Church" until the coming of Palladius.
^•The holy Servanus" was attracted to the new bishop
;t
he
received instruction;
he aided in
teaching the people ^^the orthodox faith," and the
Church ; he taught the Christian
right form of the
law
to the clergy;
and Palladius
dignity of a bishop.
raised
stitution
on the
to the
All this could not well have
been done in a few weeks or months.
supposed to be 440.
him
The
date
is
If Servanus founded the in-
little isle
of Loch Levin, as has
* In the Breviary of Aberdeen.
It is
Eomish
authority,
and favours the Culdee theory. f " Scotland had never before seen a bishop, and was in a state of
extreme barbarism." Milner, Ch. Hist. Cent. V. ch.
The want
xi.
of such bishops was hardly the cause or the proof
of the alleged barbarity.
SAINT PATRICK.
73
been claimed for ages^ he would seem not to have
He
departed very far from the Culdee system. still
had
his island cell.
There grew up a Culdee
establishment, which stoutly resisted the advances
of
Eome
until the twelfth century.
Another
by
disciple w^as Ternanus, a Scot
birth,
of noble blood, and baptized by Palladius.
''
If
be true that he baptized Ternanus when a child,
it
as
it
is
said he did,
and ordained him
at
last
bishop of the Picts, he must have lived a good while
;
and indeed Polydore Virgil, in
of England, brings him stantine.
...
down
to the reign of
in the year 457.^^*
was baptized in adult
age,
his history
Con-
If Ternanus
and made a bishop
within a few months after Palladius came, the one
must have been
a
good and wise Christian
for years,
or the other a very poor and imprudent overseer
This ordination must have taken
of the Church. place at a
who
much
later
day than 432, when those
glorify Saint Patrick hasten Saint Palladius
into his grave.
These accounts lead us
to believe
that Palladius lived and laboured several years in Scotland, and died at rordoun,where his rifled at a later day,
and his
relics
tomb was
preserved until
^ Spottiswoode Miscellany, 466. Biographie Universelle puts his death at A. D. 450.
SAINT PATRICK.
74
the time of the Reformation.* traditions
Ages
;
True, these are
they are found in records of the Middle
but they are quite as well founded as the
;
commission
story
about Saint's Patrick's
Rome
to succeed the deceased Palladius.
more reason
There
to believe that Palladius lived
the year 432 than that Patrick took
up
mission in the same year, and went as bishop'' to the Scots in Ireland.
^'
from
beyond
com-
his
the second
There
is
not the
slightest evidence that the death of the one
any connection with the mission of the
What
if
did?
The
latter
?
What
could not appoint
Saint Patrick as the successor of the former. is
worthy of notice that Celestine
Roman
bishop Avho
is
had
other.
Palladius did not die in 432
if Celestine
is
is
the
It
only
said to have given his sanc-
tion to the missionary. ^ Ussher, Brit. Eccl. Antiq. cap. xvi., Spott. Miss. 466.
CHAPTER
V.
SIFTING THE LEGENDS.
)^|
HE
of fable are not to be bound up
tares
To
with the wheat of history.
set forth
the true Saint Patrick from the fabulous,
we
notice
some of the mavellous
None
have been told of him. written
during
his
time
tales that
them were
of
they were
:
invented
he had been several hundred years in his
after
grave.
quite
them.
His Romish biographers of
ashamed
to
day are
this
repeat the most ridiculous of
But yet they give us the thread on which
they are strung, and
call it history.
few of the legends we
may the
better
man from the myth of the monks. The sum of these legends is as
By sifting a know the real
follows
:
After
Patrick had received the vision of an angel calling
him
to Ireland, he
went
Germanus had been
to
Germanus
for advice.
a lawyer, a soldier
military commander, fond of rough
life,
and a
a noted
hunter, and accustomed to slay wild beasts and
hang
their heads
on a
tree in the public square of 75
SA INT PA TEICK.
76 Auxerre.
It
was a heathen custom.
the bishop^ Amator,
and
for this
the tree cut down,
was driven from the town by the com-
But
mander.
who had
It displeased
was revealed
it
to
Amator
that his
enemy should oue day become bishop of Auxerre. This was coming to pass, and Germanus was a lay-
man
in the
Church and a general
in the
army when
Yonne
Patrick visited him on the banks of the
There he studied four years
the heart of France.
some say
thirty
*'
Fiacc says of Patrick,
!
He traversed the whole of He crossed the sea— it was He took up his abode with Far away
Then he went
to
AVestern Church,
who
him with
who
did so
much
Rome.
the
to
man
in the
advance the
There
him
was im-
his
head
as one of the
in " church dis-
to convert flesh into fish
His guardian-angel does not
He commands
represented It
this great
Then he grew wise
and learned
is
side.
the tonsure marked
lower clergy. cipline,''
Germanus,
Tours, where he passed four
claims and the glory of ;
a happy voyage
on the mother's
portant to connect
was shorn
Albion,
Amorica."
to the south of
years with Martin, the bishop, as his uncle
in
lose sight of him.
young Patrick
to pass
with ^Hhe peoj)le of God/^ that
is,
some time
the barefoot
SA IN T PA TRICK.
77
hermits in some retired corner of the world, which
they thought was quite out of
With them he
it.
lingers eight years^
and becomes a quite passable
monk.
is
Thence he
by the angel
sent
certain islanders in the "
Tyrrhene
to visit
He finds
Sea.^^
three other Patricks in a solitary cave, and asks
They answer
leave to dw^ell with them.
cannot unless he fountain which beast.
He
w^ater
from a certain
guarded by a very savage wild
is
He
agrees to this.
The ravenous joy,
draw
w^ill
that he
goes to the fountain.
beast sees him; gives signs of great
and becomes " quite tame and
Patrick
gentle.^^
blessing.
The
four Patricks dwell together for nine years.*
Per-
draws the water and returns with a
haps the Romanists
lost the true
one there, and
have followed the wrong one in the various rambles
which they record
The more
!
this part of the story
sober version of
that Patrick the Briton
is
studied for some time in the celebrated monastery at Lerins, to
which he
w^as
sent
by Lupus, the
bishop of Troyes.f
Again the angel appears, saying, ^^Go Senior, a bishop
who
in
is
to
St.
Mount Hermon, on
the
south side of the ocean, and his city
is
fortified
^ Vita Tertia, in Colgan. f Soames, Latin
Church
;
Carew, Eccl. Hist. Ireland.
— SAINT PATRICK,
78 with seven
walls.'^
He
understands better than
He
do the angel's geography. easier
he
goes^ for nothing
Here come
him the
to
voices of the children in Ireland^ entreating
hasten and teach them.
''
Go
is
Here
than for him to travel great distances. ordained a priest.
is
we
him
to
to Ireland'^ is the
command.
angel's
" I cannot/' he replied, " because bad
men dwell
there."
the word again.
''
Go/'
'^
I cannot unless I see the Lord."
is
forth with nine men,
him "
to his right
Go I
sees the
hand and
who
Lord,
takes
declares to him,
thou to Ireland, and there preach the word
of eternal '^
and
Patrick goes
life."
ask
of
thee
three
answered
petitions/'
after this
men of Ireland be rich in gold that I may be their patron and that, life, I may sit on thy right hand in
heaven."
(Surely this
Patrick
and
''
silver
'^
;
that the
;
is
not our Patrick
Patrick, thou shalt have
what thou hast asked
and, moreover, whosoever shall
by day or by night
He
!)
;
commemorate thee
shall not perish for ever."
then goes to Ireland as a priest.
But the
people refuse to listen to him, for he has no commission from
Rome.
It
is
not enougli that the
: !
SAINT PATRICK, He
79
must have a
Lord has
sent him.
thority.
Not Heaven, but Rome, must send him,
before he can have any success
cause of ^^
Who
his
and
defeat,
didst guide
!
different au-
He
suspects the
prays to
my path
Lord
the
through the Gauls and
Italy unto these islands, lead me, I beseech thee, to the holy see of the
Roman
may
Church, that I
thence receive authority to preach thy word vrith faithfulness,
and that the people of Hiberni may
by me be made
Christians.^'"^
hand of a monk
Is not the
(What impiety
in all this
On
Patrick then sets out for Rome. again
visits
is
go back to Ireland
;
he
his
way he
further schooled into
The
monkish devotion.
habits of to
Germanus, and
?)
angel urges
him
and Germanus
starts,
sends with him Segetius the presbyter.
Not
yet
is
he a bishop, for Palladius had been sent with that
rank to the
Irish.
At Emboria he
is
met by the
former companions of Palladius, and they Palladius
is
dead.
He
tor
(or
to ^^a
Amatorex), dwelling in a neighbouring
place," and
Upon
him
man named Ama-
then turns aside
of wondrous sanctity, a chief bishop,
tell
by him Patrick
is
consecrated a bishop.
this he quickly takes ship,
unfriendly
shores
of
Emerald
the
^ Probns, quoted by Todd,
and reaches the
St.
Isle.
Patrick, 324-326.
His
SAINT PATRICK,
80
But
labours are successful.
in this story there
is
nothing of his having been at Rome, nor of a commission from
was clouded
in regard to the
But we have not
yet
We
fable.
It
is
Germanus he
this
have
Of
mission.
:
On
namely
dain thee, for this
office
out
left
something,
into the foregoing ac-
many
one of his
thus advised
is
sor of St. Peter,
goes,
Roman
reached the climax of
which we could not weave count.
genius of Probus
he seems not to have been aware.
'that invention
monkish
The
the pope/^
''
:
"
Go
visits to
to the succes-
Celestine, that he
belongs to him.^^
may
or-
Patrick
but Celestine gives him no honour, because
One
he has already sent Palladius to Ireland. bishop to that country
is
all
that he can afford.
After this repulse Patrick goes with Segetius to an
[One version
island in '^the Tyrrhene Sea."
that he took this island on his
There he comes
to
^'She
is
my
much more
to
Rome.]
a house which seems to be new.
There the master, who appears
man, points him
way
to be a very
to a very old
daughter's
young
woman, and
granddaughter
quite as wonderful.
!''
in the habit of
to every traveller passing that
says,
And
Those who ap-
pear youngest are the oldest on that blessed
They had been
is
isle.
showing hospitality way.
One
night a
— SAINT PATRICK.
81
pilgrim had come with a staff in his hand, and
they had a precious
relic
who
preserving those
Lord ^^
said,
Jesus,
was lodged with
Keep
and leaving the
all
kind-
him.^^
staff
named Patrick
Then Patrick
with them,
After a long time a certain
safely.
it
pilgrim will come
less
in all the
it
In the morning he told them that he was
ness.
the
sacredly kept
He
freshness of youth.
which had the power of
give
;*
refused to take the
he should receive
it
it
staff,
to
un-
from the Lord himself.
Three days afterward he went with these remarkable people to
Mount Hermon
hood, and there
it
was given
to
[it
was the
first
to qualify
for
went again
Celestine
name of
and sent on the great mission, with a relics,
which, as some will have
from the pope. * The author of
name
this
supply
he filched
wretched story forgot to represent this
received his commission.
him by
The
lives of Saint Patrick.
"
Pope Celestine," when he
staff figures largely in the
The pretended
kept, but publicly burned at the Eeformation. 6
Patrick,
fair
it,
had
Three choirs then sang praises
as afterward given to
Romish
to
He was
of the death of Palladius.
then ordained a bishop, given the
of
him
time, according to some],
and was received with favour,
now heard
him
He
for the conversion of Ireland.
Rome
in the neighbour-
relic
was long
SAINT FA TRICK.
^2 one in heaven
;
another In Rome, and a third in
wood of Erin, where the children were still calling for " the saint" to come and bless them.*
the
What set
their ages were
down
at sixty
!
is
not told, but Patrick^s
He
had passed nearly forty
years in study and in the
Church
may
!
is
chase after the true
Verily some of our modern brethren
take courage
;
they are not likely to have a
rougher time than had this mythical Saint Patrick in getting to
Rome.
Such are the
down
Modern Romanists
stories.
the absurdities, and
tone
out of these trifling
legends weave the accounts of Patrick's studies on the Continent and his commission from the pope.
AVhat truth
is
there in
them
?
None whatever, we The
believe, so far as Saint Patrick is concerned.
greater part are incredible
;
the rest untrue.
We
have passed over some of the contradictions and absurdities.
parent
fact,
Palladius.
We
may
out a few items of ap-
sift
but they seem to belong to the
He
is
with Germanus.
the Patrick
He may
who was
life
connected
have been a disciple
of Martin of Tours^ and studied at Lerins.
may have
been ordained by Amatorex.
;
He
He may
have wandered about the Mediterranean ^ Vita Septima, in Colgan
of
islands.
JfXieline's St. Patrick.
SA INT FA TRICK.
He
88
seems to have been at Emboria, wherever that
was^ for
He
name.
manus
mentioned in connection with his
is
it
appears to have been urged by Ger-
go to Ireland, and
to
it
was he who went on his com-
as a bishop, with the seal of Celestine
One account
mission.
Germanus
sent with
was
into Britain, in 429, to sup-
press the Pelagian heresy to
that Saint Patrick
is
;
more
this is far
likely
have been true of Palladius, for he was zealous
on that
subject.
the Irish
The
clearly
is
story of Patrick^s repulse
by
We
borrowed from Palladius.
shall find the one represented as following closely
in the footsteps of the other, landing
coast
and driven away by the same
There
is
but one point where a
out through the mass of fables.
on the same
Hy
fact
It
Garchon.
seems to crop
is
where Saint
Patrick
is
sent to Ireland in his younger days,
and, as
a
priest
or
presbyter,
begins his
work
without having been at Rome, and without any sort of
commission from her bishop.
It
was not
necessary to have a permission from that quarter.
Good men and churches and synods had
the right
to send missionaries wherever they chose, without
a word from
claim that
^^
the holy father.^^
all success
Even he did not
depended upon him.
not yet a full-blown pope.
With
all
He
was
his faults^
SAINT PATRICK.
84
Celestine was too good a bishop to assume such
A
"
high powers.
ray of truth has here broken
out through clouds of fable, and no greater proof
can be desired that the
yet
forth from
it is
assumed that
Rome,
apostolic nuncio
mission was a
to the facts of history/^ *
modern addition
And
Roman
!
as her
St.
Patrick was sent
bishop, her legate, her
Hear Father Brenan
"
:
Upon
the death of Palladius, Patrick received the regular
missionary powers from the sole divinely established source of spiritual jurisdiction on earth, the
head of the Church, at that time also Pope Celestine ]^
and thus other Romish writers
shorter words, from Place's Scholiast
talembert.
It
is
made the
It lies at the basis of all the
apostle of Ireland.^' their eyes.
It has
assert
down
to
in
Mon-
great point with them.
wonders done by " the
Without
it
he
is
nothing in
become deeply rooted in the
hearts of thousands of Irishmen.
It has
him
by
their patron saint; they swear
his
made name,
pray to him, adore him, and regard him as the guardian of the whole Irish race wherever they
may roam
in other lands.
Moreover, this
Roman
mission
is
central point in all the chronology of his *Todd'sSt. Patrick,
p. 327.
made
the
life.
All
SAINT PATRICK. other dates are conformed to
missioned by ladius,
it
If he was com-
it.
Celestine as the successor of Pal-
must have been
in 432^ for this
sixty years of age^ he
of the other dates
?
was born
in 372.
But what
If he was thirty when he
Germanus, he must have found a poor
to
man was
teacher of theology, for this ofiicer at that time, if
was not a bishop
Did Patrick
than 418.
earlier
When,
?
study with Martin of Tours,
who
then, did he
died about 402
greenest grave of the most learned
not be a
fit
His death
is
a military
not a heathen sportsman; he
study with him thirty years
The
Roman
If he was then
bishop died early in that year.
went
85
place to study
^^
church
?
man would discipline.^'
fixed about the year 494, giving
him
the full age of one hundred and twenty-two years.
These are a few of the beauties of monkish arith-
To
metic.
fix his birth at
387 does not clear up
These dry dates show a plentiful
the difficulties.
watering of the facts in the
Was
Saint Patrick ever at
was, but there if
he were
?
is
life
Pome ?
no good evidence of
Protestants
now
;
so
might
he.
century was not what
And it
Perhaps he it.
Yet what and
visit that city,
most of them come away with paired
of the missionary.
the
became
their faith
Rome
unim-
of the
in the eighth
fifth ;
its
SAINT PATRICK.
S6
moon was only
in the first quarter of decline
Her power was
gently waning into the crescent.
not the growth of one age;
it
and
was the gradual
Even had Patrick
result of centuries of ambition.
studied there (as some legends run), and been there ordained, he might
Indeed,
peculiar views.
was sent
forth,
have held none of Rome's
still
we might grant
that he
from that great centre of the empire,
and yet not admit
to labour in Ireland,
be the mother of
all
Home
to
the ancient churches nor the
The
head of Christendom.
question would not be
so very important if the Papists had not laid sucli stress
upon
it.
The
''
fact that missionaries
sent out with the sanction of
Home
were
no more proves
the modern papal claim to universal supremacy,
than the
fact of a
bishop being
now
sent into the
interior of Africa, with the sanction of Canterbury,
would prove the universal supremacy of the Primate of England." *
Was
Saint Patrick sent to Ireland with a com-
mission from portant. culties.
Its
We
im-
answer will help to solve many
diffi-
state
the story of the 1.
It
is
The
is
Celestine?
question
some of our reasons
Roman
mission
for rejecting
:
based on the legends of which ^ Todd's
St.
ratrick, p. 333, note.
we have
SAINT PA THICK.
87
given a specimen; rather were these fables framed to
suj)port
They
it.
are of comparatively late
They were put
origin.
forth at a time
show of foundation was needed power 2.
by the older
not mentioned
is
admitted by the most
is
Catholic
historians,
who
base
ment have been unknown that age
candid
writers.
Romaa
only on tradi-
it
to the chroniclers of
If known, would they have passed
?
over in silence?
turies
pope^s
Could an appointment of so great mo-
tion."*"
it
the
in Ireland,
It
This
for
when some
seem
to
Yet, strange to relate, cen-
have rolled away before the im-
portant commission with which Saint Patrick said to have been honoured
by Saint Celestine was
mentioned
by any British
Not a word
is
said about
it
or
foreign
writer.f
by Sechnall,
his sup-
posed nephew, his disciple and eulogist. a
poem
him no
in praise of the great
as
^'
wrote
man, but thrust upon
from Rome.
He
describes
constant in the fear of God, immovable
in faith, one
Church
He
glory derived from an education on the Con-
tinent or a sanction
him
is
is
upon whom
built,
as a second Peter the
and one who obtained from God
* Lanigan, Colgan, Carew. t Carew, Eccl, Higt. Ireland, p. 74.
SAINT PATRICK,
88 his
apostleship.
The Lord
barbarous nations, and to Fiacc's
doctrine."
Hymn
chose
him
to teach
with the nets of
fish
represents
him
as edu-
cated on the Continent, but says nothing of the
Roman
mission.
If
were a
it
fact,
they certainly
would not have ignored such an honour, unless they were too proud of the independence of the Irish Church.*
Prosper of Aquitaine took into his special care the praises of Celestine, for he was the bishop's
He
and counsellor.
friend
advised the sending of
Palladius to ^Hhe Scots believing in Christ."
went, stayed
ladius
chapels,
noble
a few weeks, raised
and ran away
eflPort
Celestine
But Patrick went
;
is
to
named with high honour. Ireland,
Prosper
Was
spiritual father of the Irish
never mentions Patrick.
he was at
* Todd's
there
finished
his
not this to the honour of Celestine,
did not live to hear of
Rome.
laboured
and was blessed with the most signal
chronicle,
who
three
yet for this brief and ig-
twenty-three years before
success.
Pal-
Pome
Why St.
it
?
Was
Church ?
He
he not the
Yet Prosper
neither tells us that
nor that he was sent out from
not?
It
Patrick, p. 312.
must have been
for the
This silence occurs in
the seven lives in Colgan's Trias Thaumaturga,
five of
SA INT PA TRICK,
89"
reason that Celestine had no part in the glorious
work
of redeeming the sons of Erin to the Lord.
I^or had
Rome.
had gone forth from
Patrick
another quarter^ and Prosper did not care to relate the deeds of an independent missionary.
Bede maintains the
like
silence.
He
enters
Patrick in his martyrology as a presbyter, which
some proof of
his existence.
and Palladius, and Coluraba aries;
why
He
mentions Ninian,
as
eminent mission-
He
not Patrick?
is
either
knew noth-
ing of the mission to Ireland, or he cared not to
He
what he knew.
tell
ignorant.
Was
it
could hardly have been
because he could not honestly
say that Patrick was in
Pome, and could not
in
any way make him support the Roman pretensions of the eighth century the
Roman
?
Bede had a strong love
The deeds of
party.
popes he gloried in
telling.
But
for
its
bishops and
if
Patrick was
only a presbyter, an independent missionary, an associate of the Culdees, a
humble man who had
devoted himself to the Irish mission by the com-
mand
of Christ, he was not thought worthy of
mention.* 3.
dius.
Patrick
is
evidently confounded with Palla-
This we have shown as a conclusion drawn
* Soames, Lat. Ch.
p.
50
;
McLanchlan, Early Ch.
Scot. p. 97.
SAINT PATRICK.
90
from
sifting the
legends.
'^
We
infer," says
Dr.
Todd, " that the whole story of Patrick's connection with St.
Germain and mission from Celestine
should be regarded as a fragment of the lost history of Palladius, transferred to the second
and
more celebrated Patrick, by those who undertook to interpolate
The
the
authentic records of his
object of these interpolaters
exalt
their
was evidently
They could not
hero.
life.
rest
to
satisfied
with the simple and humble position in which his OAvn writings, his confession and his letter to Coro-
They could not concede
had placed him.
ticus
Palladius
the
honour of a direct mission from
Rome, without honour.
to
claiming for
They could not be
Patrick a similar
content that their
own
Patrick should be regarded as an unlearned, a rude
uneducated man, even though he has so described himself.
The biography of Palladius,
^
alio
nomine
Patricius/ supplied them with the means of effect-
ing their object, and gave to the interpolated story
Thus we may
the appearance of ancient support.''
account for what
is
related of Patrick's education
on the Continent, his monastic tonsure, his ordination
by Amator,
Roman Thev
his consecration
mission and
belon^j; to
the
by
Celestine, his
his first failure in Ireland.
first
Patrick.
'^
No
ancient or
;
SAINT PATRICK. has
authority
trustworthy
91
countenanced
these
statements in reference to the second Patrick/^*
This patchwork makes a chaos of chronology, as if the dates were
thrown
into a box,
shaken up,
and drawn out by one whose eyes are so bandaged that he cannot see the facts of history.
We
shall
present, in the next chapter, a chronology that will
better accord with the facts of Saint Patrick^s
but
it
naught
will set at
all theories
of the
life
Romish
mission.
The
4.
reception and success of Saint Patrick
argue against the
Eoman
If
mission.
we under-
stand that the Irish people hated civil Rome, and
were suspicious of clear.
place a
ecclesiastical
Rome,
be
all will
Palladius was rejected because he came to
new yoke upon
the Irish Christians, and
be their chief bishop, teaching them new usages
and ruling
Roman
in a
new way.f
Patrick went with no
views or commission, no aim to lord
over God^s heritage, no design Christ and save sinners
;
but to
him
as a
regard
Romish
him
as
prelate,
and there
is
He View
confusion;
an earnest Christian missionary,
* Soames, Lat. Ch. t Todd's
preach
and he succeeded.
bore the true cross, and not the crosier.
it
St.
p. 50.
Patrick, pp. 321, 332,
el
passim.
SAINT PATRICK.
92
going forth from North Britain, and
Cut him
all
clear.
is
from the meshes of Rome, and the
loose
burden of continental legends
He
away.
rolls
then stands forth a devoted minister of Christ,
with a tongue that can gain the Irish ear and a
win the Irish
soul that can 5.
Saint Patrick claimed to have gone to Ireland
of his w^ent "
own
bound
bis dreams.
own
of his
in
and with no
in the spirit/^
He
To show
this fact
had the sanction of
conscience
He
None compelled him.
accord.
that of the Lord.
6.
heart.
;
call
but
he refers to his
God and
he needed none from Rome,
There are intimations that he was ordained
Britain for
clergymen'^ at
the work. first
Certain
"respectable
opposed his consecration, on
acccount of an old fault, committed thirty years before
in
his youth.
of the legends represent
We
have seen that some
him
as ordained in Gaul,
without any connection with Rome.
Such accounts
would hardly be mere inventions of the monks. 7.
There
is
not one word in his
own
writings
Roman
about an education on the Continent, or a
mission, or a friendship with Martin of Tours,
Germanus
or
Celestine.
writing in his old age,
Why
not?
He
when Rome was
w^as
rising
toward the papacy, and receiving more and more
SAINT PATRICK, He
honour on the Continent.
93
had been charged
with presumption in having undertaken such a work as the conversion of the Irish, rude
and on
as he was,
chance
now
his
him
for
advantages, and
own
and unlearned
What
authoritv.
to boast a little of his
former
of his education abroad and
tell
of his commission from
Rome
This would have
!
settled the question of his right to preach
those
who
a
favoured the
Roman
he said nothing of the kind.
pretensions.
We
with
But
infer, then, that
he had never held any connection with Rome, or that the people had
prejudices in that direction
which he did not wish
They may have
to rouse.
stood firmly on the ground of their independence.
Roman Roman commissions. And
They may have and
less for
cared
education,
little for
Saint Patrick had been long with them
that after
On
!
such
matters, probably, he and they were agreed.
Even ment the
if the
Confession be a forgery, this argu-
will hold good.
name of Saint
For
its
author, assuming
Patrick, evidently wrote with no
design to prop up the theory of a or a Continental education. value, or he was not
He knew
making up a
that never occurred.
He
Roman
mission
not their
history of events
so fully
threw himself
back into Saint Patrick's times and circumstances
SAINT PATRICK.
94
that he told only the truth.
that the Confession
is
it
Its
not pen a "pious fraud.^^
good material as they pleased. their alloys.
was
We
Roman
to the
Roman
they used the
was gold
for
to multiply copies
it
could not serve
Church.*
shall find that the Irish
conformed
;
the original form.
in
cast into the shade^ for
the purposes of the 8.
not
is
It served as
It
But they cared not
and few now remain
It
It
very face proclaims
a basis for the later manufacturers
it^
a proof
was written by a man of truth, and such a
man would
of
is
not a forgery.
stuffed with lying legends.
that
Bat here
Church was not
during several centuries
after Saint Patrick's death.
" If Patrick came to
Ireland as a deputy from Rome^
it
might naturally
be expected that in the Irish Church a certain sense of dependence would always have been preserved
toward the mother Church of Rome.
But we
find,
on the contrary, in the Irish Church afterward, a spirit of
church freedom similar to that shown by
the ancient British Church, which struggled against
the yoke of to
Roman
ordinances.
.
.
.
This goes
prove that the origin of this Church was inde-
pendent of Rome.'^ f
To
this
we
shall again recur
- Todd's St. Patrick, p. 387.
fNeander, Ch.
Hist., p. 123.
>S'^
when we official
INT PA TRICK.
consider whether Saint Patrick held any
connection with
Rome,
in his oversight of
the Church to which he gave his latists
95
toils.
Some
pre-
think that he committed errors in not forming
dioceses,
and placing
'^
bishops^' over them.
His
bishops were pastors, each having charge of a particular church. fell" are cited as
''
The very
errors into
which he
evidence that he did not hold his
appointment from Rome."^ *
The Church
1844, p, 30.
of St. Patrick, by Rev.
W.
G. Todd, London,
—
CHAPTER AMONG THE
^\^FTER
K
clearing
VI
DATES.
away the rank growth of
legends from the path of Saint Patrick,
may now like
still
dark woods
have
fallen,
Bat here
is
;
follow the track of his
an old Indian
many
trail
of the trees
life.
him from
It
is
once
'^
blazed^^
and the footprints have become dim.
an ancient landmark, there an outlying
the
There we
we
through the
and with cautious step we undertake
fact,
;
left
home
to follow
of his parents on the Clyde.
him, lately returned from his cap-
tivity.
It
is
expressly stated in the Irish version of
Nennius* that Patrick was a slave with Milchu
when true,
the
Palladius was sent to Ireland.
he was a slave in the year 431.
first
If this be
If that was
year of his bondage, he was then sixteen
if the last,
he was about twenty-two, for these are
admitted to be the dates of his capture and his ^Nennius, abbot of Bangor, wrote about A.D. 688. Scrip, Hist, Lit, Ssec. vii. 620
96
;
Todd's
St. Patrick, p.
394.
Cave^
SAINT PATRICE-,
97
This would give the year 409-415 as the
release.
As
period of his birth.
him with
to link
both of them
left
the Romanists are eager
Palladius,
we
miglit assume that
Ireland the same year.
We
see
no way of bringing them together unless we suppose that the ship whieh bore the bishop northward
was the very same that took up the
man
Both are said
of twenty-two.
rough
sailing,
how
him
to
Ireland, unless the
shipboard.
Patrick gets all
have had
for ever.
Nor can we
Celestine heard of Patrick, or sent
post a report of the zeal
on
to
young
and a wreck on the Scottish coast
might have separated them imagine
fugitive
it
bishop forwarded by
shown by the young Briton
Then comes after
the
one of his dreams, and with
speed departs to the children
from the dark
commission.
forests
of Erin.
calling to
We
him
submit
this
theory as quite equal to any other which puts into the hands of Patrick a parchment sealed by the
dying Celestine.
We
take the date of Nennius as nothing more
than a close guess at the truth. of the
Roman
From some
mission.
He
had no idea
Let us take other data.
learn that Patrick had committed a fault, w^e
not what,
we know
of the additions to the Confession
when
fifteen
years of age.
Thirty years
SAINT PATRICK,
98
afterward he Avas about to be fully ordained to the
work of
the ministry.
One
going.
His friends opposed
whom
of them, to
the old forgiven fault, brought
He
jection.
it
his
he had confessed forward as an ob-
This would make
was overruled.
Patrick forty-five years of age at his ordination.
Now may
we can
if
find the date of this event,
up various
clear
we
Let us assume
difficulties.
sought ordination to qualify him more
that he
fully for the
thither?
work
in Ireland.
A curious
When
did he go
Irish tract says that the battle
of Ooha happened exactly forty-three years after the coming of Patrick to Ireland. Oilioll it
at
Molt
w^as slain.
482-483.
The
In
this fray
annals of Ulster fix
This would give 440 as about the
date of Patrick's mission.
By comparing these dates
:
Tirechan with Keating we have
King Laogaire
died in 474.
He
had
reigned after the coming of Patrick thirty-two
This gives the year 442 as the date of the
years.
mission.
An
Irish bard and historian of the eleventh cen-
tury* says that Pope Gregory died one hundred and sixty-two years after Patrick's coming. ^ Gilla Csenihain, quoted more 396.
Gregory
fully in Todd's St. Patrick, p.
a
SAINT PATRICK,
99
This gives 442 as the year of the
died in G04.
Dr. Todd furnishes other dates,
mission.
all
drawn
from sources independent of each other, and varying
from those which we have quoted from
little
Let the above
his pages.
We
ing an arithmetic.
suffice
;
we
are not writ-
have good grounds
suming that about 442 was the date of
and that 397 was the year of
Here then
his mission
he was then forty-five years of
to Ireland, that
age,
for as-
his birth.
are twenty-three years
which he had
from captivity
at his disposal after 4iis return
—
very considerable number for study and for the trial
But we may sup-
of his gifts as a preacher.
We
pose the time well employed. to hide
him
in a
monastery.
of active labours
;
are not driven
There are a few traces
they are mere traditions, but
they accord with the circumstances of his help to
fill
Where
up the picture of did this
young
surely at Tours with
Briton
some Culdee
was the chief
cell
Martin,
It
or college,
classic,
study? for,
if
Not our
was an infant when the
other was lying in his grave. at
and
his times.
Saint
dates be correct, the one
life,
may have been
where the Bible
and students were hardly
trained to write Latin letters with the elegance of Cicero.
He
never became a scholar.
His know-
SAINT PATRICK.
100 ledge
of Latin was
In
limited.
man who
spoke of himself as a
later years
lie
was afraid
to
^^
write in the language of the civilized world, be-
cause he had not read like others,
who had been
devoted to sacred learning from their Infancy, and his speech
He had
had been changed
to another tongue/'
preached and prayed In the language of
Very modestly he acknowledged
the Irish people.
himself to be
^^
rustic,
unlearned/' brought up in
But he seems
the country as an uneducated man.
have been an Apollos
to
and able
power of Ills
It
to
move
mlgl^jty In the Scriptures,
his Illiterate hearers
his eloquence.
We
by the
Infer therefore that
education w^as scriptural rather than classical.
was
like that
of
jSTInlan,
who had found
his
views of Bible truth quite different from those taught at Rome.
Were
there any ties between Patrick and Ger-
manus of Auxerre ? sever their names.
It
Is
not easy to completely
They seem
hands, and that on British
to
soil.
have clasped This view
Is
favoured by traditions not In the Interest of the
Romish monks.
It
is
worthy of notice that while
the one was thinking of going to Ireland as a missionary, the other was
champion of the true
coming faith.
to
Britain as the
The Pelagians were
SAI^'T FA TRICK,
101
busy in teaching the Britons that sin had not
man
rendered
a helpless sinner^ and that by his
good works he might save himself.
who would
There were
many
Christians
errors,
and yet could not ably defend the truth.
They asked
At
help.
a
not
accept
these
the churches of Gaul to send
them
synod held in 429 German us was
chosen to visit Britain.
The armour of
a spiritual
warrior was upon him, but perhaps he had learned
from the great Augustine that good word, the errors, but love the erring.'^
'^
With him
Slay Avent
Lupus, afterward the bishop of Troyes, who was called
''
the prince of Galilean prelates, the rule of
manners, the pillar of virtue, the friend of God, the intercessor for
men with Heaven.
^^
There
is
no good ancient evidence that they took a commission
from "Pope Celestine," yet he may have
volunteered to grant
them
his
blessing.
crossed the Channel, and probably went
Cornwall, visited Glastonbury, and
They
up through
entered
the
valleys of Wales, preaching along the roads
and
in the fields.
They seemed
to carry everything
before them.
The humble
Christians were
lighted
;
the haughty errorists, so fond of giving
strength to the pride of man, began to boasts.
de-
make
their
SAINT PATRICK,
102
A
come
great debate was to
Bede describes the scene
Verulam.
off at
in his
He
lively style.
says that the champions of heresy
came
in
gorgeous
robes, while those of the truth appeared plainly
dressed
and
"An
diffident.
was assembled, with
their wives
the one side was divine faith
On
presumption. pride.
On
sentatives]
who
;
and children.
On
human
on the other,
the one side, piety
on the other,
;
the one side, Pelagius [by his repre-
on the other, Christ.
;
and Lupus permitted first,
immense multitude
.
their adversaries to speak
occupied a long time and
with empty sounds.
Germanus
.
.
filled
the ear
Then the venerable
prelates
poured forth the torrent of their apostolic and evangelical eloquence.
Scripture sentences.
Their speeches were .
.
.
filled
The Pelagian
party, not
being able to answer, confessed their errors. people,
who were
judges, could
with
scarcely
The be re-
strained from acts of violence, but signified their
judgment by
their acclamations.^^ ^
Germanus remained
Among battle.
for
some time
the wonders related of
The
upon the
is
his part in a
Scots and Picts were coming
Britons.
Germanus
him
in Britaip.
is
The
down
fray bade fair to be fierce.
said to have baptized
^ Bede, EccL Hist,
lib
i.
many
cap. 17.
of the
SAINT PATRICK.
103
British soldierSj and then acted quite as a general, as he well
the
value
began
knew how
tremendous
of
He
to do.
probably
knew
The
fight
shouting.
he shouted hallelujah three times
;
Avord ran along the line
up, and the
enemy took
affair is
and retreated
supposed to have occurred
this
called the
name of Germanus.
Welsh churches bear
events were likely to
is
it
in the
Wales where
spot in
Field of Garmon, the Welsh Several
army took
the whole
fright,
The
greatest disorder.*
;
the
;
draw the
his
Such
name.
attention of
young
Patrick.
To
find Patrick in
Wales need not surprise
us.
Between the people of the two countries there were ties
of language, and, probably, of religion. Thither
the Highlanders were quite likely to drive
many
One
tradi-
families tion
is,
from the lands of the Clyde.
that Patrick had a retreat and a cell in the
Vallis Eosina, which some have claimed as his birth-place.
It
is
said, also, that
Wales and Cornwall, with whose might have been would scarcely
familiar.
fail to
he preached in
Celtic speech he
If this were true, he
spend some time at Glaston-
bury, which has been called the cradle of British Christianity, ^^the
first
ground of God, the
* Bede, EccL Hkt. lib
i.
cap. 20.
first
SAINT PATRICK.
104
ground of the saints in England fountain of
the holy
all religion in
isle
of
;
England/^
Avalon.
Its
the It
rise
was called
church claimed
descent from the churches of Asia Minor, tradition
and
One
that Patrick studied there for thirty
is,
years; another, that he died there and was buried.
His name was loved several churches. tians looked
In
later
to
days the Irish Chris-
with reverence toward Glastonbury,
and thither made their pilgrimages. that
and given
in these regions,
Germanus met Patrick
at
It
is
possible
some of these points
They may have
before returning to Gaul.
eaten
together some of the famous apples of Avalon."^
William of Malmsbury says
"When Germanus
:
w^as meditating a return into his native country,
formed
an intimate acquaintance wath Patrick,
w^hom he sent
after
some years
to the Irish
as a
The
latter
preacher, at the bidding of Celestine.^^
part of this sentence
we do not
years'^ reveal the mistake.
few months tance''
learned
he
was
to live.
;
the " some
Celestine had but a
But the " intimate acquain-
very possible.
much from
believe
the
man
Patrick
may have
of heroic zeal, w^ho
caused the churches to be thronged, and ])reached in the open fields, along the highways, * Camden, Britannia, Col. 63.
and wher-
SAIXT PATRICK. make war
ever he could
Ireland,
and
whose
priests of
There are Patrick
against the heresies of
They may have
Pelagius.
rulers
105
talked together
were deluded by the bards
Druidism. of other labours.
traces
did not neglect his
^^This St.
native country
North Britain, but was very useful and to
of
of
assistant
the other instruments of that good work, in
bringing the people into and confirming them more
and more
Such
in the Christian faith.""^
is
the
statement of a writer in the early part of the eighteenth century, tions of Scotland,
when
where
referring to certain tradithe
name of Patrick some-
times appears in towns and churches.
There
is
no good proof that Patrick ever
out of the British Isles, and yet he
set foot
may have
crossed the Channel and laboured in Armorica.
One
story
is,
that he there passed three or four
years as a pastor, under the direction of Germanus.f
A
Celtic Briton
would not have been an
stranger in that country of Celts, readiness
to
treasured his
may have
accept
the
who had such
a
also
has
his birth.
He
gospel.
name and claimed
entire
It
helped to start a movement which be-
* Anc. Ch. Scot, in Spottiswoode Miscellany, f Lanigan, Eecl. Hist. Ireland, vol.
i.
79.
SAINT PATRICK.
106
came wonderful
and continued
after his departure,
The Saxons were devouring
for almost a century.
away her Christian
Britain and driving
people.
^^To escape from their bloody yoke, an
army of
British monks, guiding an entire tribe of
men and
women, freemen and
embarked
slaves,
in vessels
not made of wood, but of skins sewn together, sing-
under their
ing, or rather howling,
full sails, the
lamentations of the Psalmist, and came to seek an
asylum
in Armorica.
.
.
.
This emigration lasted
more than a century, and threw a new but equally Celtic population into that part of
Roman jured
taxation and barbarian invasion had in-
least,
and where the ancient Celtic worship
had retained most
With
vitality.
of three or four episcopal
Armorican peninsula was century.
cities,
still
that
All the symbols and
and misty
wild
writers picture
it
the exception
almost
the
the myths
rites,
to
be concentrated
(Yet
country.^^
as the blessed
all
pagan in the sixth
and arcanas of paganism seemed in
Gaul w^hich
Eden
some
that, in 372,
The
gave Saint Patrick
to
missionaries "
to ask shelter of their breth-
ren, issued
came
British
from the same race and speaking the
same language. hospitality
the world.)
They undertook
they received
by the
to
pay
gift
for the
of a true
SAINT PATRICK. They gave
and they succeeded.
faith,
107
and worship to their new country.
their
name
.
Fifty
.
,
years after their appearance the Gospel reigned in
If Patrick did not aid in
the peninsula.^^"^
must have known of the movement when
among another
A
said
toiling
may have gleamed upon Probus Patrick began
that
Ireland as a young
man and
^'
a
his
work
say to certain
to
Irish
in
In one
priest.^^
of the supposed additions to the Confession he
made
he
Celtic people.
ray of truth
when he
it,
^^
Christians,
is
You
know, and God knoweth, how I walked among
you from my
This
yoidh,^^
may mean
that he
began his ministry among them before he was ordained to the was.
He may
office
'^
of
may have
whatever that
have laboured in the southern part
of the island, where the
were most
a bishop/^
little
bands of Christians
Wars among
numerous.
hindered him from great
the chroniclers would notice. ^ Montalembert, Monks of Gildas and Camden.
The
tlie
Some
West,
latter says
Armorici, being subdued by
little
ii,
efforts
p. 260, et seq.; also
^^From that time the
and
little,
new country
body of inhabitants began
under
called Britannica ArmoricaJ^ Literature,
ii.
2.
which
of them, how-
Britains grew so great in this to fall
the tribes
it,
the
name
of
that the whole
and the
tract to be
Also D' Israeli's Amenities of
SAINT PATRICK,
108
may have
he
and
crossed
He may
Channel.
power
may
ministers, he
Wishing
tives '^
and
the opposition of his rela-
man rush into danger amoug who know not the Lord ?'^ they said
does this
the heathen,
another.
" That
ing could
turn him aside
wealth, not their tears.
and follow Christ. tears, if I
was forced
''
my
youth
his
their
was ready gifts
relations
V^
Noth-
persevered.
—not
He Many
in
of
offers
to leave all
were offered
would remain,^^ he
to offend
tells
us.
and many of
me " I
my
But with God's guidance I did not
well-wishers.
them
yield to
fault
But he
whispered a confidant.
with
ordain
friends.
Why
one to
and
churches
have
to
have applied for ordination in
Then came
Britain.
Irish
have tasted the dangers of
organize
to
the
recrossed
labouring in such a country. full
Often
about the year 436.
ever, dated his arrival
at all, not
by
my own
power, for
it
God who triumphed in me. He did not hinder me from my labour, which I had dedicated w^as
my Lord Christ. him, and my faith to
men.
felt
no small power from
was proved before God and
Wherefore I boldly say that
reproves
And
I
me
my
conscience
not here nor hereafter.'^
yet so vigorous a
man may have
felt
young
SAINT PATRICK. at forty-five, or
lie
would
10
so appear to himself
when
over ninety, and then looking back to the time
when he fully entered upon of
he
life
set foot
his mission.
on the shores of Erin as a mis-
That he went
sionary.
In the prime
first
to
the tribes
Leinster, landed at Inbher Dea, on the coast,
Hy
made
of
Wicklow
a few converts, roused the wrath of the
Garchon, yielded the ground, took ship again,
and
sailed northward,
looks too
much
is
extremely doubtful.
like a story
borrowed from the ad-
" It
ventures of Palladius.
It
is
not reasonable to
suppose that both missionaries should have done exactly the same things
same
the
chieftain,
with
place,
;
that both should land at
both be driven off by the same
and both turn
to the north of the island
this difference only, that Palladius is
driven
(according to some accounts) by a storm round the
northern coast of Scotland to the region of the Picts,
and Patrick landed
where
his ministry is at once successful.
w^e
may
visit
readily believe,
acquainted, received.^^
of the
with
place
the
"^
went
safely
Wicklow
Patrick,
at once to Ulster, to
which
he
was formerly
and where he expected
The
Dalaradia,
in
oldest authorities
to
be well
have nothing
story.
* Todd's St. Patrick, p. 339, slightly condensed.
CHAPTER
VII.
FIRST LABOURS OF PATRICK.
N
|4
herdsman
is
said to have kept the
flocks of his master
Dichu near the lower
Irish
s'f
1^^
0*^ end
^
strolled
down toward
boat put into a
little
party of men,
the shore^ and saw a
Out
who had been
of
it
stepped a small
wearied in toib'ng
away
Carefully stowiug
the waves.
was some
cove, as if there
secret business on hand.
Avith
One day he
of the Strangford Lough.
luggage, they hid their boat
among
their
the rushes, and
A
then set forth to explore the country.
man
of
about forty-five years appeared to be the chief of the party. ^^
Robbers/^ thought the herdsman.
from the land of the Picts
!''
and about
or fall
to choose
have been hungry enough, days upon a barren
isle,
if
to be
spying out the
flock.
to
plunder
They must
they had been for three
since called Inis Patrick,
just off the Dublin coast. 110
if
some house
upon some unguarded
Pirates
They seemed
gazing over the neighborhood, as land,
^^
One
story
is,
that they
SAINT PATRICK, had sought
to
make them
111
home on
a
its
sands,
where no man dwelt^ and famine threatened their
Not even a
lives.
fisli
would enter
The
the water-fowl took wing. island
their nets^
and
choice of such an
would indicate that they were Culdees, seek-
ing the spot for a
^^The practice of taking
cell.
possession of secluded islands continued to characterize the
Culdee system, and was carried by the
missionaries, sent forth from time to time, whither-
But the herdsman knew not
soever they went.^' *
the habits of Culdees, and he ran as fast as his feet
could take him from the invaders.
" Pirates" was
the burden of every breath.
Now
had a choice home, and
his master, Dichu,
He
he happened to be in at the time.
man
in those parts,
was a great
having the blood of an ancient
king in his veins, and a goodly array of clansmen
on his
estates.
His
for a troop of marauders.
breathless
and
The
herdsman roused
his courage.
He
and they
their pikes.
the fray.
They drew
chieftain
fine spoils
report of his almost
his fears,
his
sounded the alarm.
clansmen gathered at his
The
would afford
riches
call.
He
wrath
The
took his sword
All marched forth eager for nearer to the invaders.
was struck
*McLauchlan, Early
first,
not with a ^^holy
Sc^t. Ch. p. 182.
SAINT PATRICK.
112 staff/^
but with the
nolile
bearing and
frank,
friendly countenance of the leader of the strange
He
party.
many
had not seen a more Avinning
The
day.
a
foot
face for
of heaven's messenger
'seems never before to have pressed his soil.
knew
not Scripture enough to ask, " Comest thou
peaceably
mystery
?^^
It
would not have cleared up the
for the leader to say, " I
missionary.
greeting
you the glad tidings of the angel's song,
is
men.'
good-will to
He
heathen.
am
Patrick, a
In the name of the living God I come
to declare to
My
He
For
^^
this
^
salvation.
Peace on earth, chieftain
was a
had heard of no Druid's prophecy,*
beginning thus "
He
comes, he comes with shaven crown,
From
off the storm-tossed sea."
The sword was dropped.
man
warrior's face
The descendant of kings
grew mild. the
The
A
of God.
talked with
finger pointed to the house,
and a welcome was given to Patrick and his companions.
It
was not
''
a multitude of holy bishops,
presbyters, deacons, exorcists, readers, door-keepers,
and students," for
as
some would have us
believe.
'^some Gauls" and certain priests,
^The
who had
legend of such a prophecy by a pagan Druid was
manufacture of a papal
monk
long after the event.
As
tlie
SA INT PA TRICK.
113
packed up their robes on the banks of the Tiber, our eyes do not perceive them.
Rather were they
such assistants as a missionary would be likely to
him
take with the
to a heathen land.
house; hospitality opened
and believed and
Scots^^
the
way
for
to
the
Patrick preached, the chieftain listened
gospel.
tized,
They went
in Christ.
all his family.
who
He He
was afterward bapwas " the
first
of the
confessed the faith under the preach-
ing of Patrick.
We
may
were urged
suppose that friends and neighbours to
come and
which the stranger had
listen to the
to tell
;
that the house be-
came crowded, and that the missionary the barn on the lands of the chieftain.
Word grew and the chieftain to
God.
felt his
barn
to
There the
One day
heart touched with gratitude
"I give you
let
them
led
believers multiplied.
the land on which
standing,^' said he to the preacher. this
good news
"In
we
are
place of
a church be built."
"It shall be done," we hear Patrick reply, "'and
may God's ^'I
house be your habitation."
only ask," said Dichu, "that the length of
the church
shall
not
be from
east
to west,
but
from north to south." " It shall thus stand," answered the missionary, 8
SAINT PATRICK,
114
for he did not see
any virtue in having a church
fronting toward the east, as was the general cus-
tom
in Oriental
care for that?
account
is
'^ :
What would
lands.
It
was a mere
Then Patrick
the
The
trifle.
Lord
farther
erected in that place
the transverse church, which
is
called even to the
present day, Sabhal Patraic, or Patrick's Barn."
The
place
is
now
and
called Sabhal, or Saul,
about two miles from Downpatrick.
is
It appears
that other churches were built after this model, ex-
Thus was
tending from north to south.*
estab-
lished a base of operations.
The
story
is,
that Patrick was concerned for
whom
Milchu, his former master, from
he had run
away without being redeemed by money. set forth
on foot to
visit
He
set
He went in the very
him.
face of danger, ^Ho offer to his former master a
ransom
double
—an
earthly
one in money and
worldly goods, and a spiritual one
known
to
way of
salvation."
him the Christian
snows of
hill,
into
Antrim,
where he stood gazing
his exposures to the rains
his vigils, his prayers
* Bingham's Eccl. Antiq. bk. Epist. 51.
making
and the gospel
Going northward
he reached the top of a
upon the scene of
faith
—by
viii. 3.
and
and
his dreams.
Usser ad Seldeniim,
!
SATXT PA TRICK, "What emotions must have
115 his
filled
By
that rock he once had his Bethel.
By
heart!
that brook
he had wrestled with God, and had his Peniel.
Under yonder oak he had songs and
Below him stood the house of
night.
master,
who had used him
doors and
the glad
tell
But, lo! that house
is
his former
so roughly twenty-three
What a joyful
years before.
may
visions of the
mission to enter those of a Saviour!
tidings
seen to be in flames, if
The
credit the legend.
we
tyrant has heard of
He is troubled. An evil spirit He determines not to meet the
Patrick's coming. possesses him.
He
missionary.
to the house,
sets fire
and
casts
himself into the flames, choosing to perish rather
than to become the disciple of his former Patrick sees
it,
and
for three hours
passion.
But he next
his curse
upon the family of the
slave,
weeps in com-
represented as uttering
is
suicide,
and de-
claring that none of Milchu's sons shall ever sit
upon
his pretty throne
they shall be slaves for
;
ever
Thus had Patrick cursed the yield
him no
monks.
^^Let
fish,
us
rivers that
would
according to the fables of the hope,''
says
Dr. Todd, "that
these examples of vengeance, so story, represent only the
common
mind of the
in his
ecclesiastics
SAINT PATRICK,
116
of a later age^ and that his biographers
knew not
the spirit he was oV^"^
If there be any truth at
the visit to his former master,
it
Patrick failed in his
He
vince
the
efforts.
that
sins
left
probable that
is
could not con-
was
Christ
and repelled, he
Baffled
Those
tyrant
Saviour.
a
him
in
his
sins.
were the flames into which he cast him-
But the monks could not bear
self.
account of
all in the
to
have their
hero defeated, and they portrayed the self-destruc-
One account
tion of his former master.
some of the
that
cruel princess family were afterward
converted to the
Again we
is
faith.
find the missionary at Sabhal, in
what
now the barony of Secale. There he preaches for many days, going about in the neigbourhood,
is
teaching all ^'
The
faith
who
will
began to
give heed to his words.
spread.^^
It
was not by out-
ward display that the hearts of the people were gained
up a
;
not by exhibiting
crucifix
mumbling
relics,
not by holding
with an image upon
of a Latin mass
;
it,
nor by the
but by the preaching
of God's holy word in the language of the natives.
He
had learned their speech while a
deed
it
had not been ^ Todd's
to
him
as a
slave, if in-
mother tongue.
St. Patrick, p. 406.
SAINT PATRICK, He may
have called
117
around him
tliern
at the beat
of a drum, and he pointed them to the true cross
Having formed
of Calvary. ciples
little
and placed teachers over
bands of dis-
thera^ he
planned
other missionary journeys. It seems to have been Patrick's policy to bring
the rulers of the land centuries after
upon
him
Saxon princes
;
:
Eleven
to the faith.
the Reformers acted
principle
this
first
Luther sought
somewhat
to
gain the
Calvin presented to Francis
one
I.
of the noblest letters ever written^ and before other
kings he laid his simple Confession of Faith, Irish chieftains their
tribes
in
and kings had great power over the
fifth
century.
The men of
infiuence were gathered at their courts.
them was a great nursing-fathers,
The
pointy for " kings
To win
might become
and queens nursing- mothers''
to
the infant Church.
Tarah
w^as before the
mind of Saint
Patrick.
Thither he must go and there preach Christ.
was
the
chief
centre
of power.
It
There were
gathered the kings, princes, nobles and warriors.
There were held the national conventions every three years.
Laogaire,
The supreme monarch
who had
of Ireland was
reigned but three or four years
before the coming of Patrick.
He
was about
to
:
118
SAI^'^T
summon Tarah.
PATRICK, meet him at
the great convention to
was the parliament of that ancient day,
It
according to an old Irish poet "
The learned 011am Fodla
ordained
The
great assembly, where the nobles met,
And
priests,
and
To make new
Patrick
Taking
and
and philosophers, to correct the old,
the honour of his country."
resolved
his
poets,
laws,
And to advance
down
first
attend
to
and
boat, he
his
the coast and entered the
Thence they took
Boyne.
the place where
now
Coming one evening
stands
The
companions sailed
mouth of the
way on
tlie
river
toward
foot
town of Slane.
to the house of a
named Sechnen, they were hospitality.
their
convention.
this
nobleman
received with generous
guests sang, prayed, read the
Scriptures and spake of the errand on which Jesus
The
Christ came into the world. truth sink
He
down
into his ears
in
those
let
and reach his
believed and v/as baptized.
mon
host
It
the
heart.
was very com-
days for missionaries to baptize
persons within a few hours of their conversion.
Thus did
the apostles, but in their case the believers
generally had
some knowledge of the Scriptures
beforehand, as in the case of the believers at Pentecost,
the
Ethiopian
officer,
and
probably the
—
SAINT PATRICK,
This custom, however, in
centurion at Caesarea. later
119
days led to baptism upon a very slight evi-
dence of true
It often secured only a nominal
faith.
Christianitv.
In gentle
this
man
family of rank was a young
nature,
The
and impressible.
attractive
of
won
looks and words of the chief stranger
his
He
heart; Patrick also was charmed with him.
determined to be a disciple and follow the mis-
His jmrents and
sionary wherever he went. tried to divert
him from such a and the
forth the dangers
must have before him.
But none of
moved him. He
home
the
first,
it
left his
He
life
set
as he
these things
be a missionary
who was
reared
could not be separated from
Patrick, keeping close to his
to
seems, of the natives
for the ministry.
They
purpose.
of such a
toils
friends
him
dangers and sufferings.
for years
We
know
amid
all
not his
native name, but for his gentleness he was called
God had
Benignus, or Binen.
of song, and he used praises of the
Lord
Patrick preached. the good cause.
it
given him the power
for good.
He
sang the
before large assemblies, to
Thus he rendered
He
whom
great aid to
was the Asaph of the move-
ment. Patrick hastened onward, and pitched his tent
SAINT PATRICK,
120 on a
hill quite
near to Tarah.
the time of Easter, and he
It
may
may have
ing to the general custom of the
have been
kept
fifth
it
accord-
century.
The
practice of setting apart certain days for worship,
memory
in
of great events in the
grew up quite early
life
of our Lord, It sprang
in the Churcli.
from a good intention.
But
and a device of men.
Instead of keeping every
soon became a form
it
Sabbath in memory of Christ's resurrection, they observed one day in the year, and called
No
such custom
is
taught in the
Easter.
Testament.
" holy day'^ has become a holiday with most
The
of those
who pay any regard
Patrick
it
was held more
to
should be kept.
it.
In the time of It
sacred.
stirring question in the Irish it
New
it
became a
Church on what day
The Latin
Christians held to
one day, and the Greek Christians another.
have
little
doubt that Patrick kept Easter in the
Greek manner
(if
he kept
it
at all), for thus did
the Irish Church in later centuries. far
from being sure that he went
Easter-tide,
drew the
We
and that his " paschal
attention of the king
But we to
fire''
Tarah on the
are at hill
and threw the whole
court into commotion.
Romish biographers make
this a strong point
for their dates in the life of St. Patrick.
They
as-
SAINT PATRICK. sume
that the Feast of
26th of March. that year.
Tarah was celebrated
In 433
the vernal equinox.
121
this occurred
They
also
assume that Patrick kept
during
foot-travelling
and
But
own argument^ drawn Also
the feast of Tarah came off in
May,
is still
fixed at that time
ities,
however,
first
fix
still
Moreover, there
that Saint Patrick was not at
years after his
it
seems that
for Beltine^s
the Irish and
ancient author-
the convention of Tarah about
of November, a time
Christian Easter.
among
Some
the Scottish Highlanders.
preaching
the year 441
from the movements of the sun.
the
According
open-air
months.
the winter
w^ould better agree with their
day
his
must have done a great deal of
to their story he sailing,
on the
This they take as the Easter of
Easter in Ireland that very year.
first
at
arrival in
further from the is
some evidence
Tarah
Ireland.'^
for several
Indeed we
should not be guilty of very great incredulity
we doubted whether he was such a convention was held. least of
it, is
by no means
ever there at all
The
if
when
proof, to say the
conclusive.
There was a vast work before the missionary.
A
heathen religion must be overthrown, one of
the most powerful and interesting of the ancient -^Todd's
St.
Patrick, pp. 412-420.
122
SAINT PATRICK.
systems of errors.
"We must therefore give a
little
attention to the Druids, their customs, their superstitionSj their poets, their priests
over both rulers and people.
and
their influence
:
:
CHAPTER
VIII.
THE DRUIDS. Througli untold ages past there stood
A
deep, wild, sacred, awful
Its
A
wood
interwoven boughs had made
cheerless, chilly, silent shade
There, underneath the gloomy
Were
oft
performed the mysteries
Of barbarous Loved
to
trees,
priests,
look
Where every
who
down upon
leaf
thought that the sod
was deeply stained
With blood from human
victims drained.
LucAN,
^H G)
PON
God
iii,
399.
'
'
£(
the larger branches of old oaks grew
the mistletoe.
It
was a shrub
into the
wood of the
peared
dark
tree,
and there
and green
winter, with white berries in forests along our
upon
Western
fixing its roots
through
it.
It
rivers.
is
it
ap-
all
the
often seen
I have seen
one specimen upon a white oak as far to the north as the southern shores of
mistletoe
was held sacred
Northern Europe.
Lake Michigan.
The
by the heathens of
The shade of
the oak on which 323
SAINT FA TRICK.
124 it
grew was
bably, the
We
Hence, pro-
their place of worship.
name Druids,
or the
men
imagine ourselves in Ireland,
We
teen centuries ago.
of the oaks. far back, four-
stand upon a hill with a
village in front of us, just on the border of a thick,
wild
Out
It
forest.
is
one of the
of some cabins and cells
men
first
we
evenings in May.
see strange-looking
They walk about very solemnly,
creeping.
something which
and whisper mysterious.
They
magicians.
Some of them wear
us
to
very
is
are venerable long-beards coats
of
and
many
colours, and a string of serpent's eggs about their
Others have a white scarf thrown over
necks.
their shoulders, bracelets on their
They gaze
white rods in their hands.
and decide that
it is
The moon
rites.
about their
chief,
is
arms and long at the stars,
the proper time for their sacred
just six days old.
They gather
but we prefer not to be in their
crowd.
In solemn procession they march
gloomy woods. and engage
Under an
priests climbs the oak,
cuts
adore
it
it.
down upon Every
leaf
One
of their
and with the golden knife
away the wondrous
throws
ancient oak they halt
mummery.
in a strange
into the dark,
mistletoe.
Carefully he
a white cloth, and they quite is
a treasure.
They think
it
SAINT PATRICK,
125
has power to charm away evil spirits and keep
them
in health.
But
this is not all.
two white bullocks
They have
them
led with
They now put a
for sacrifice.
wreath of oak leaves upon their horns, and prepare
for
solemn
The
rites.
golden
knife
is
plunged into the necks of these victims, w^hich fall
quivering in the pangs of death. Skilful hands
are kindled.
ments
for a feast."^
to be gazing
We will
make
all
The
fires
the arrange-
not suppose ourselves
upon a more horrid
sight,
for
the
Druids are represented as leading into the gloomy
woods some
slave, or prisoner of war, or the child
of some peasant, and there offering a fice.
At such times
human
sacri-
the singing priests are said to
have roared and howled and beat their drums to
drown the tells
of
cries of the suffering martyrs.
us that the Druids of Gaul
osier, in
human
made huge baskets
the shape of a man, filled
beings,
and
set
Caesar
the vast mass
them with on
fire.f
Let us hope that the ancient Irish were not so barbarous.
Such w^orship reminds us of the horrid sacrifice to
Baal and Moloch. * Plinj,
lib.
of
It has been sup-
xvi. cap. 44.
f Commentaries,
rites
lib. vi. 16.
SAINT PATRICK,
126
posed that Druidism came from the Phoenicians,
from
whom
Hebrews derived
the
The Druids had
of idolatry.
pears from their Beltine'*'
was
their Baal, as ap-
To
fires.
face the
meant
rights
and north meant wrong.
was beginning any work, he must
first
A
the sun if he would prosper.
As soon
must turn sunwise.
If one
look toward
boat going to as people
married they must make a turn sunwise.
dead were borne sunwise to the grave. this
were
The
Perhaps
was one reason w^hv Dichu wished the new
The
church to face the south. ings toward the east ing.
sun
The word
to be about right in the world.
south
sea
their worst forms
may have had
who think when saying
Certain men,
toward sunrise
fronting of build-
a similar mean-
that they
must turn
their prayers,
may
ask whether they do not take their custom from the Druids, whose priests were likely to do the
same
Thus
thing.
Church of
Christ.
follies
creep
into
They perhaps adored
but they do not seem to have made
the
very
the sun,
idols.
They
held that their gods v/ere omnipresent, and to be
worshipped
in
roofless
circles of stones.
Some
* Beal-tain, Beal's fire-day.
of the sun the
fire
was made.
temples
or within
large
writers have thought that Beal means the sun; in honour
SAINT PA TRICK.
127
ihey had their chief seats in Ireland and on the Isle of
Man
thence they spread over Britain and
;
into Gaul.
Saint Patrick might lay hold of some of their doctrines,
and thus gain a footing
They were ready
God
w^as
to listen
told
own.
them that
everywhere, always having his eye upon
They
their deeds.
believed in the immortality of
some crude
the soul, and had w^ards
when he
for his
and punishments.
ideas of future re-
They taught
was another world, where the good and
their identity
souls preserved
The
their habits.
that there
souls of
bad
men, they thought, passed into lower animals to
At
be chastised.
funerals letters were burnt, for
the dead to read or carry to those before
them
Money was
across the borders of the spirit-land. also loaned to the departed,
on condi-
it
should be repaid in the world to come."^
priests
were careful to be the bankers, quite as
tion that
The
who had gone
certain priests
now
are,
who
receive
chase souls out of purgatory.
But what
missionary must preach Christ, sacrifice,
who
and brought
mortality to light in the gospel. * Michelet, Hist. France,
to pur-
a w^ork
mass of errors
to clear a few truths from a
only redeeming
money
i.
chap.
He 2.
!
The
offered the life
and im-
must declare
:
SAINT PATRICK.
128
the facts of a judgment, a hell, a heaven, and an
Druidism was
eternity.
Brahminism now
is
to the ancient Irish
to the Asiatics
;
the
what
work of
Patrick was quite similar to that of the modern missionary
among
In going
to
the Hindoos.
Tarah, the citadel of Druidism,
Patrick must meet the priests and bards of a false
These men had great influence
religion.
royal court, and to this day as ^^Kirwan'' has
"The power They
it
remains in Ireland,
shown us
of these priests was very great.
directed in all sacred things
sacrifices
—they
and the judges
the
at
— they offered
all
were the teachers of the youth, in all disputes public
and
private.
Their supreme pontiff was elected by these priests in conclave assembled;
and he was
called the Arch--
druid,
and possessed power without check or con-
trol.
Whilst thus the ministers of the law, they
enforced their decisions by religious sanctions, and if
any refused obedience
bid their presence at persons thus
all
to their decrees they for-
religious sacrifices.
doomed were regarded
and were shunned
as
The
as accursed,
were those white with leprosy
by the Jews. " These priests were exempt from war and from taxation,
and were regarded with the deepest vene-
SAINT PATRICK. Their
ration.
writing, lest it
it
was
learning
should go
was committed
129 committed
not
down among
the people;
memory, and was thus
to
When
mitted from one to anotlier. ted anything to writing,
it
to
trans-
they commit-
said they used the
is
Greek language, of which the people were utterly ignorant.
"
now
Many
of the customs and superstitions which
exist in
Ireland, and which are wielded with
great power by the priests to gain their purposes, existed there long before the days of Saint Patrick.
The peasantry now bury rites
;
their dead with peculiar
they have their wakes,
when
watch with the dead and carouse are placed around the corpse to the grave followed
and are buried with it
;
''
lighted candles
;
the dead are taken
by the wailing multitudes,
their feet
toward
was two thousand years ago
last
the neighbours
;
the. east.
So
thus Dathy, the
pagan prince of the country, was buried.
They have now
They
exist in great
country
;
and
them with the
all
their
holy wells
numbers
have a history w^hich connects
saintess in remote antiquity.
It
of some saint or is
truly painful to
worn by pilgrims
round and round them on 9
Ireland.
in every part of the
fantastic doings
gee the deep paths
in
to
them, going
their knees, doing pen-
SAINT PATRICK,
130 ance for their
sins.
At
the canonical
visiting these wells the paths
around them are red
with the blood of the poor pilgrims. wells are rude stones, stuff
some of
among which
their rags,
time for
Around
these
the poor people
and even some of
hair, as a witness, If necessary, of their visit
their ;
and
around these wells are holy bushes, on which are always streaming some fragments of pilgrim gar-
ments to put the guardian saint of the well in mind of
'
the stations'
there
wells there can be no doubt recently,
;
to these
I have visited them
and have seen the things now described.
The name are
As
performed.
of Saint Patrick, and of a Saint Bridget,
widely associated with these fountains;
but
they were regarded as holy before the Christian era
and the penances now performed around them, and in the iil
same manner and form, were performed
obedience to Druid priests two thousand years
ago.
Indeed,
Thomas Moore, himself
admits that the holy
St.
Bridget, of
a papist,
whom Alban
Butler so piously writes, was the Vesta of the
worshippers
;
and that the nuns of St. Bridget were
only the Druidesses continued under a ^*
Who,
new name
!
born In Ireland, or descended from Irish
parents, has not heard of fairies,
and
fire-
antics, until
he has feared
and of their doings
If
not believed their
SA INT PA TRICK, existence tion
There
?
is
131
any form of supersti-
scarcely
which has more generally seized on the Irish
mind than
The shoe of an
this.
on the door-sill to keep oif the bless amuletSj
which are sold
ass
is
fairies.
for
^
often nailed
The
a compensation/
and are worn around the neck, to keep wutches and the fairies
!
When
to a Protestant school gets
our
own
priests
the
off*
a boy or girl sent
sick, the priest,
even in
day, tells the parents that their child
is
bewitched in punishment for going to those aw^ful schools,
and
drive
offers to
the witches for
off*
'
a
compensation,^ and on the condition that the child
be w^ithdrawn from the schools. well, the
priest
If the child gets
has the credit
;
if
it
dies,
the
parents and child have gone too far to have the
punishment remitted
!
But
these
and superstitions are of Druid
fairy legends
origin,
and have
been adopted and transmitted by the priests to w^ork upon the fears of the people.
"There ^
pleasant
are hills^
bushes sacred to the
where they love
and
fairies,
to congregate,
lonely towers amid whose ruins they love to
and
gam-
bol by moonlight, and groves sacred to their sports
and meetings.
now
a sacrilege
To cut down a fairy bush among the ignorant. And
is
even
the in-
stances are not, even in our day, unfrequent of a
!
SAINT PATRICK.
132
peasant removing his cabin
on the pathway of the
fairies,
way when opening up
their
when a
or
new
ignorantly built
when found
All, again
path.
of Druidic origin, whose priests had their
and
*^
The
ness
fairies,
groves and places
their bushes, their hills,
sacred to
in
them Irish peasantry have a remarkable fond-
for
bonfires.
On
Eve they
John's
Saint
kindle them on the hill-tops all over the country.
The
lovely Charlotte Elizabeth thus describes one
of these of which she was a witness
:
The
pile,
composed of turf, bog- wood and other combustibles,
was
built to a great height.
^
Early in the evening
the peasants began to assemble, all habited in their best array, glowing with health
anything resembling lighted with
The
faces.
shot up.
their fire
it
;
;
I had never seen
and was exceedingly de-
handsome,
intelligent,
merry
being kindled, a splendid blaze
After a pause the ground was cleared in
the front of an old piper, the very beau-ideal of drollery and chair,
shrewdness, who, seated in a low
with a well-replenished jug by his
screwed his pipes to the
liveliest tunes,
side,
and the
endless jig began.
^^^When the part
of
the
fire
burned low, an indispensable
ceremony commenced.
Every one
SAINT PATRICK,
133
present of the peasantry passed through several children were
And
embers/
after
if
and
thrown across the sparkling describing
other
ludicrous
^Here was the old pagan wor-
scenes, she remarks^
ship of Baal,
it,
not of Moloch too,
carried on
openly and universally in the heart of a nominally Christian country, and by millions professing the Christian name.
I was confounded, for I did not
know, then, that Popery tion of
"
pagan
is
only a crafty adapta-
own scheme/
idolatries to its
The Druids were
fire-worshippers, as were the
whom they were descended. The Rome adopted the days and the customs
Asiatics from priests of
consecrated to the worship of
days after a
saint,
and gave
fire;
they called the
to the ceremonies a
papal significance; and thus perpetuated the cere-
monies of the Druids to our time. " The kings had their bards, as had also great aristocratic families. in time, a privileged class, fluence.
They were
all
the
These bards became,
and exercised great
in-
the chief chroniclers; they
kept the family genealogies; they cast into rude verse the deeds of their heroes, and, like Greece,
recited
them on public
Homer
occasions.
in
On
great occasions, and at all great festivals, these
bards were present.
By
their
example they ex-
!
SAINT PA THICK,
134
youth
cited the
by
to the cultivation of oratory,
their fervid appeals they
and
swayed the multitude,
them with the
filled
They moved
They would
own
harps and play and sing their in which the people
would
provincial, or national spirit
when
move
seize their
national songs,
join, until the family,
was intensely
excited,
were ready to go forth to deeds of
all
And
heroism or of rapine. of
enthusiasm.
highest
the people as the high winds
the trees of the forest.
and
these
bards,
or
the names of some
honoured among the people of the country
Had
present day.
and
retained
are
Fileas,
to the
the productions of these bards
escaped the wrecks of time, Ireland, too, might
have
its
Homer,
its
Virgil,
Horace and
its
its
Ossian
"There are long and dreary annals running through ages, which record
and
fall
of kings
nobles
petty
at
—the
the
than the
insurrections
—and
of
the
the
way
head of their retainers
the island, and destroyed everything by
sword. rites
By
rise
—the wars between provinces and
against their oppressors
nobles
little else
causes like these, and
peasants in
which
ravaged fire
and
by the bloody
and superstitions of the Druids, the people
were wasted and brutalized.
The
arts introduced
SAINT PATRICK. by the
first
colonists
135
were neglected
was forsaken; and, save
—agriculture few and far
at intervals
between, the entire island w^as agitated jealousies
and
by the
contending princes and
conflicts of
nobles, until in the process of time the people were
buried in profound barbarism and ignorance.
'^Through those obscure ages rose various cus-
now
toms, traces of which are
were divided
in
visible.
ranks and grades.
»
The people
These grades
were designated by the number of colours they
were permitted one,
to wear; the lowest could
wear but
and none but the royal family could wear
seven.
The rank next
to royalty
was composed
of the learned order; these wore six colours, which
shows the high estimation of learning day.
This custom
is
the origin of the Scotch plaid
w^orn b}^ the Highlanders
The
in that early
down
to
our
own
times.
Irish are proverbial for their hospitality.
In those early times provisions were made by law for strangers
and
travellers,
by creating an order
of nobility called entertainers.
These dignitaries
w^ere required to be the proprietors of seven
town-
lands; to have seven ploughs at work; to have
seven herds of cows, each herd to contain one
hundred and
forty; their
mansion was required
to
be accessible by four different avenues ; and a hog,
SAINT PATRICK.
136
sheep and beef were required to be in constant preparation, that whoever
And
without delay.
all
hospitality of the
the
parallel in
should be fed
called
Milesians was without a
Europe; and such
is
the character of
the Irish people to the present time.
of the Irish gentry are
Thus
was gratuitous.
now
as
The houses
open as they were
under the law promulged from the old halls of
Tarah
;
of the
and
in the poorest
moor you
mud
cottage on the side
receive a
will
and, if you are in want, a
kind welcome,
warmth of sympathy
that will divide with
you the
or the last potato.
'An
last
cup of porridge
Irish welcome'
is
pro-
verbial in all the earth for cheerfulness, heartiness
and
truthfulness.
with them into
all
And
the Milesians have carried
the lands of their dispersion this
characteristic of their ancestry.
May
they never
lose it!
"These their
are national characteristics which have
foundation in
institutions
older
than our
Christianity; and which, because of the stationary principle
which has obtained in Ireland, have been
transmitted to our time.
be broken
in
Once break,
as
it
must
our country, the influence of that old
stationary principle
;
save the native impulses of
the Milesians, but elevate them above the influence
SAINT PATRICK.
137
of the social and Druidical laws of old
OUamh
Fodhla, and the conventions of Tarah,
— and
have material out of which
as noble a
form
to
you
people as walk the earth/^*
If Druidism thus stamped
customs were not
so that
its
tianity,
what must
it
have been when Saint Patrick
men
learned
upon a people,
removed bv Chris-
all
Its priests
and poets
of the country.
Twenty
began his labours in Ireland Avere the
itself
?
years of study were required to educate a Druid.
He knew something of
the sciences of mathematics,
astronomy,
law,
rhetoric,
He
philosophy.
His
knowledge
sentences
One
each
are
Woe
The
three first
into
strong
or
points.
three principles of
to the laws of
man and
triads,
God, care for
fortitude under the acci-
life.^^
to Saint Patrick if a
single w^ord
human
:
—obedience
the welfare of dents of
^^
moral
in the arts of magic.
condensed
containing
triad ran thus
wisdom
A
was skilled w^as
and
medicine
being
;
from a Druid
Druid grew jealous! for ever withered a
he was " cut down like
always had the king's
ear,
grass.'^
He
and at his whisper the
cruel order w^ent forth to slay the hated
man.
On
* Ireland and the Irish, by Kir wan (Eev. N. Murray, D. D.),
N, Y,
ObserveTy 1855.
SAINT PATRICK.
138 his
Up was war
knife
the
for
or peace; in his hand the golden throat of the condemned;
sound of his rude lyre the people rose of vengeance; on his word the
The
hung.
doom
at the
to the
work
kingdom
of a
was a religion of
loyalty of the land
w^onder and fear, and to dispute with a Druid was a crime against the state.*
Woe
also to the disciples of Saint Patrick if
they kept back the tax claimed by the Druids!
The
chief
Druid of every
On
out every
required all
pay him certain annual
families, rich or poor, to
dues.
district
an evening in autumn they must put
fire
It seems to have
in their houses.
been at the time of the convention of Tarah.
Then every man must appear and pay If he
failed,
To
geance.
money
out
be with a
morning the Druid take some of his
man did
fire
own
own
in the house,
was a crime.
and with-
The next
priest allowed every
sacred
hearth.
fire,
man
to
and rekindle the
It was a crime for one
to lend a living coal to his
it,
tax.
he was the object of terrible ven-
in the hand,
flame on his
his
neighbour
;
if
he
he was reduced to poverty and declared an
outlaw.f
To
be a Christian one must renounce
^ Disraeli, Amenities,
i.
1.
t Toland's His. Druids, pp. 71. 72.
SAINT PATRICK,
139
such customs of superstitlou at the peril of his Also, if he saw ^^the fiery cross^^ borne on
life.
the
hills,
The
clans. its
he must rush to the rallying-place of the chieftain
had
slain a goat^
blood the ends of a wooden cross^ set
given
it to
wave
it
the clansman, and told
on the
hill-tops.
gone, another would signal. w^as
take
When it
him
dipped it
to
on
in
fire,
run and
his breath w^as
up and repeat the
The man who did not obey
doomed.
wy^^A^
the
summons
CHAPTER
IX.
SAINT PATRICK'S ARMOUR.
THE
story
is tliat
King Laogaire and
were preparing for the great
his court
feast held
One
the time of the convention at Tarah.
^^3
at
of the oldest writers upon Saint Patrick, in
his fondness for the Scripture style, says
:
"
Now
there happened in that year the idolatrous festival
which the Gentiles were wont
to observe
incantations and magical inventions, and superstitions of idolatry;
summoning the
many
some other
gathering together the
kirgs, satraps, dukes, chieftains
people;
with
and nobles of the
magicians,
enchanters,
augurs, with the inventors or teachers of every art
and
gift,
unto Laogaire
(as
unto
King Nebuchad-
nezzar of old) to Tarah, which was their Babylon. .
.
.
They were worshipping and
exercising them-
selves in that Gentile festivity.^^ *
Every
fire
was
to be put out in the land,
was " made known by proclamation
and
to all that
^ Muirchu Maccu-Machtene, an Irish writer supposed of the seventh century.
140
— Vide
it
TodiTs Saint Patrick^ chap.
to
be
iii.
SAINT PATRICK,
141
whosoever should, on that night, kindle a the king's
fire
fire
had been kindled on the
before
of
hill
Tarah, that soul should be cut off from his people.'^
We may
imagine that
"
The king was
And
A
seated on a royal throne,
in his face majestic greatness shone
monarch
For noble
acts
become a noble mind
About him, summoned by
The
peers, the priests
In princely
The night
state
struck their sacred
man who
to the
window" eye.
"
;
is
is
amazed.
"
Who
just in sight of
who
Death are in
^'
to
own
Death
in the very
looks out of his
still
is
at
naught the law f^ he
so defiant as to light his fire
is
my
him
There
What
of Tarah.
Is his sovereignty despised ?
palace
V^
?^^
mutter the Druid counsellors,
greater alarm.
a
All eyes stand out
The word runs though
with astonishment. halls, "
hill
The king
!
this that sets
inquires.
''
on the
the glare of a distant flame catches his
He
Who
yet have the Druids
dares to kindle his
law
teeth of the
command,
and commons of the land,
Not
fire
his strict
and solemn order stand."
falling.
is
:
for heroic deeds designed,
fire
on yonder
hill.^^
shall be done?^^ asks the king,
scarcely permitted to
the
who
have a mind of his own.
is
It
SAINT PATRICK.
142 IS
a religious offence
the priests must give their
;
advice.
O
^^
king, live for ever
!'^
reply of the
the
is
who labours and make the
Druids, as framed by our old author, the style of Scripture
to imitate
scene parallel to events in DaniePs time. fire
which
it
we put
it
;
and he who has kindled
all
Moreover,
out to-night.
shall prevail over all the fires of our
servance
This
never be extinguished to
w^e see shall
eternity unless
''
wonted ob-
shall prevail
it
over us and over thyself, and shall win away from thee
men
the
all
Well had
of thy kingdom.^^
been for the Druids
they had
if
so familiarly as to play thus
known
it
Scripture
upon the words of
Daniel to the king in Babylon
They would not
!
have been in such alarm. "
Now/^ continues our
Laogaire heard troubled, as
all
^
This shall not be
And so,
men
story
crowned
was greatly
he answered and said,
but we will
we
now go and
will take
and
see kill
w^ho are doing such wickedness against
our kingdom.^
The
when King
of old, and all the city of
the end of the matter, and
the
^'
these things he
Herod was
Tarah with him.
author,
hill;
^^
is,
that the king set out for the fire-
with numerous courtiers in his train.
SAINT PATRICK. The Druids would not permit
143
the king nor any of
the valiant knights to venture too close, lest some
Coming
strange power should injure them.
they advised that the daring intruder should
halt,
" Let none
be brought into the royal presence.
his coming/^ said they, " nor
rise
up
any
respect, lest
at
The man
He
obeyed.
he win them by his
Avas ordered to
Some
we
will
pay him
arts.^^
He
appear.
at once
entered amono; the horses and chariots
and the array of ^^
to a
courtiers,
trust in chariots
chanting the words,
and some
in horses, but
remember the name of the Lord our
God.^^
All eyes were upon the dignified and courageous
One
stranger.
of the royal attendants rose up from
This was Ere
respect to him.
young man, you alone "I
^'
rise
know
as if fire
to
whom up
to
Mac
Dego, a noble
the stranger said,
me
in
honour of
my
not why,^^ was the answer
comes from your
;
^'
Why
do
God.^'
"
it
seems
lips to mine.'^
Wilt thou receive the baptism of the Lord T^
" I wiir receive
"I
am
it
when
I
know who thou
art.^^
Patrick, a messenger of Christ to all
will hear the truth of heaven."
who
We are not bound
to believe all this, even after having culled a few
reasonable statements from a mass of absurdities.
But
there
is
added
in the legends
an account of
SAINT PATRICK.
144
wonders performed by Patrick^ modelled
by the hand of Moses before
miracles wrought
Pharaoh, except that Moses
Very
which on
utterly outdone.
is
Brenan say
coolly does Father
ference
after the
:
"
The con-
this occasion took place
Saint Patrick and Laogaire
so interwoven with
is
unattested and incredible anecdote that
perhaps be as well passed over.*
The king
is
But the
seize Patrick.
the words, " Let
We
scattered.'^
matter of his
He
furious.
between
it
might
"VVe pass it over.
orders his people to
fearless missionary chants
God arise, and let his enemies be may suppose that he explained the
fire
on the
It
hill.
do with Easter, and, even
would have cared nothing
if it
had nothing
to
had, the royal pagan It
for that.
was kindled
before his tent, simply to expel the chill of an
October night. quickly gives
As
The king
way
the missionary
is
a stranger, he shall receive
some of the
nobles.
day, Patrick, with five of his compan-
ions, enters the hall
The
Irish wrath
appeased.
to a generous Irish forgiveness.
Irish hospitality from
The next
is
where the court
is
king's chief bard rises to greet him.
feasting.
This
is
Dubtach, a Druid of great learning and fame.
With him
also rises the
young poet
^ Eccl. Hist. Ireland,
p. 14.
Fiacc, a stu-
SA INT PA TRICK,
whom
dent
he taught in the Druid
They
lore.
while the missionary preaches what they
listen
He
never heard before.
represented as saying to
is
king and the magnates of the convention
the ^^
145
You
worship the sun
;
you adore the
That sun which you
but a mere creature.
daily for our good at the
mighty, but
The day
its
will
command
come when
and
all
young
his
it is
see rises
of the Al-
light shall be extin-
its
But we adore the
Lord and Ruler of reate
;
splendour shall not always endure.
guished, and all those that worship
bly perish.
light
true Sun, Christ the
The
the world.'^
disciple
shall misera-
it
saw the
poet-lau-
folly of the
fire-worship, the leading doctrine of Irish Druid-
They renounced
ism.
the
the system.
word and were the
The younger
first
They
believed
converts at Tarah.
of these two poets might have found
a genial friend in Benignus, the sweet singer of the
The king was touched by
Irish Israel.
of Patrick.
ing
relief,
for
me
the prayer
Troubled, fearing, trembling and seek-
he said to his counsellors
to believe
self a believer
large mantle
than to dieJ'
in
Christ.
But
:
" It
is
better
He
professed him-
it
would take a
of charity to cover his
sins.
He
seems to have acted from policy, rather than principle. 10
The account
is,
that
many at Tarah
believed,
SAINT PATRICK.
146
and that
Patrick baptized
^^
No
that day/^
We
doubt
scenes if
cient Irish
hymn
is
an exaggeration.
this is
may know much
amid these
many thousand men on
of Saint Patrick^s
we may give
Some
by
himself.
Armour.
It
parts of
it
are
still
It
is
or prayer against all
the style of a lorica
powers.
credit to an an-
as one written
often called Saint Patrick's
spirit
in
evil
remembered by
the Irish peasantry^ and repeated at bed-time as a
from
protection
Thus
evil.
w^ords of devotion
have been turned to a sort of superstitious dream. " That this
hymn
is
a composition of great anti-
quity cannot be questioned.
It
written in a
is
...
very ancient dialect of the Irish Celtic. notices no doctrine or practice of the is
known
not
tury.
.
.
.
We may
taking this Patrick's
hymn
sentiments. superstition,
.
we
.
cen-
much
in
not,
it
it
was
w-as certainly
very far distant from his
to represent
and put forth
his
Notwithstanding some tincture of
find the pure
Christianity,
very
Whether
teacliing.
by him or
view .
fifth
as a fair representation of Saint
at a period not
times, with a
of
not^ therefore, err
and
faith
actually written
composed
Church that
have existed before the
to
It
a
firm
providence and power of
and undoubted truths
faith
God
;
in
the
protecting
and Christ
is
made
>S'^
all
and
the
Rome
"Were
In all.*
^^
it
of the peculiar errors of
of the eighth century are found in a pious fraud^^ of the monks,
peals to angels
power of
I.
None
117
it.
would
it
have had praises to the Virgin Mary, ap-
certainly
literally
INT PA TRICK.
and
relics,
and hints concerning the
saints,
charms and
rosaries.
Todd
rendered by Dr.
It
is
thus
:
I bind to myself t to-day
The
strong power of the invocation of the Trinity,
The
faith of the Trinity in Unity,
The
Creator of the elements.
II. I
bind to myself to-day
The power
With
that of his baptism
The power
With
of the incarnation of Christ,
of the crucifixion,
that of his burial
The. power of the resurrection, W^ith [that of] the ascension
The power
To
of the coming
the sentence of judgment.
III. I bind to myself to-day
The power
of the love of seraphim.
In the obedience of angels, In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
^ Todd's
St. Patrick,
pp. 425-432.
f Dr. Todd shows that this Atomriug, usually translated evidence that the
hymn
was
is '^
the true rendering of the word
At Tarah."
first
This lessens the
used at this royal
seat.
SAINT PATRICK,
148
In the prayers of the noble
fathers,
In the predictions of the prophets, In the preaching of In the
apostles,
faith of confessors,
In the purity of holy
In the IV. I bind
acts of righteous
men.
myself to-day
to
The power The
virgins.
of heaven,
light of the sun.
The whiteness
of snow,
The
force of
The
flashing of lightning.
The
velocity of wind,
The depth The
fire,
of the sea.
stability of the earth.
The hardness V. I bind
of rocks.
myself to-day
to
The power
of
God
to
guide me.
God to uphold me. The wisdom of God to teach me. The might
of
The eye
of
God
to
watch over me,
ear of
God
to
hear me,
The
me
The word
of
God
to give
The hand
of
God
to protect
The way
of
speech,
me.
God to prevent me, God to shelter me.
The
shield of
The
host of
God
to
defend me,
Against the snares of demons.
Against the temptations of
vices,
SAINT PA TRICK. Against the
lasts of nature,
Against every
Whether
I
have
set
or with
me
around
Against every
man who
meditates injury to me,
far or near,
With few YI.
149
hostile,
Directed against
my
many.
these powers,
all
savage power
my
body and
soul
Against the incantations of false i)rophets, Against the black laws of heathenism, Against the
false
laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry.
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and Druids,
Against
all
knowledge which blinds the soul of man.
VIT. Christ, protect
me
to-day
Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wound,
That I may receive abundant reward. yill. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at
my
my
right, Christ at
Christ in the fort
[when I am
left,
at
home],
Christ in the chariot-seat [when I travel], Christ in the ship [when I sail].
IX. Christ
in the heart of every
W^ho thinks of me Christ in the
mouth
W^ho speaks
to
man
,*
of every
me
man
SAINT PA THICK,
150
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
X. Of the Lord Christ
With
Thy
is
is
salvation,
salvation,
us ever be salvation,
O
Lord.
CHAPTER
X.
CAUSES OF SUCCESS. j/ij
T
not our intention to relate
the travels
all
and heroic adventures attributed
1 i
is
ill
Patrick by those
who have
biographers
and mirac-
dealt largely in the wonderful
They
ulous.
rarely ascribed
almost every prince
whom
to
to Saint
him a
he visits
is
failure;
suddenly
converted; wherever he goes w^hole districts are
won
to the faith,
and a bishop
group of churches. very
face.
The
is
placed over the
This looks suspicious on
greatest
missionaries,
its
from the
Uni-
Apostle Paul downward, have had defeats.
form success has rarely been the rule in human
The wise advantage taken
toils.
much
quite as
broken
No
to the
of a defeat
honour of a hero
as
is
an un-
series of victories.
doubt there was some romance in his preach-
ing,
and on
But
the tendency has been to exaggerate his la-
bours.
^'
his journeys various strange exploits.
Many
invented to pay
of those adventures were evidently a*
compliment
to certain tribes, or 151
SAINT PATRICK,
152 clans^
tors
by ascribing the conversion of
their ances-
to the preaching of Saint Patrick.
were intended to claim
Others
certain churches, or
for
monasteries, the honour of having been by
him
founded: and others, again, were framed with the object of supporting the pretensions of the see of
Armagh
to the possession of lands or jurisdiction
in various parts of Ireland.'^*
many
he made so
if
it,
Very
singular
dioceses, that one
is
modern
author names twentyf of them as founded before the close of the
we
fifth
century.
Of
They were
shall find hereafter an explanation.
central, missionary churches, each
having a bishop
own
in the sense of a pastor over his
the general oversight of the
statement
this
flock,
and
bands of Chris-
little
tians in his district.
What were this question lated.
We
most likely
the causes of
PatricFs success f
we may hang what
is
farther to be re-
shall take those statements to be true, illustrating
On
which seem
them with such
anecdotes as exhibit the character of the
man and
of his religious teachings.
A aid.
commanding presence seems Tradition portrays * Todd's
St.
him
to
have lent
its
as attractive, venera-
Patrick, 400.
f Brenan, Eccl. Hist. Ireland^ chap.
ii.
SAINT PATRICK. ble
and dignified
in his appearance.
153 In his looks
there was a majesty of love and truth.
A portly
frame^ open countenance and imposing
manner are
not essential elements of usefulness.
Paul was
''
The Apostle but
in bodily presence contemptible/^
The
be was a preacher of tremendous power.
ar-
dent piety shining forth through uncomely features is
often a
means of
grace.
Yet among an igno-
rant, superstitious^ barbarous people there
is
a force
Chieftains appear to have
in a noble presence.
seen something in Patrick
more
stately than w^as in
themselves.
He
went from Tarah
to the Tailten races.
The
court resorted thither to engage in the royal diversions.
A
modern
Irish fair
promising scene for preaching. tilts,
would be a more
But
in spite of the
tournaments and rough sports of the Irish
Olympia, he gained the heart of large numbers of people.
He
bade
solemn exercises.
fair to
turn the amusements into
The Druid
of longest^ grayest
beard could not thus sway the multitude. bers listened tions.
and
believed, according to the tradi-
But the king's
brother, Carbri, son of the
great Niall of the Nine^ostages,
grew angry when
he feared that the games would be spoiled. likely that a
Num-
Druid whispered revenge
It is
in his ear.
SAINT PATRICK.
154
He
first
sought to
the missionary, but his
kill
brother Conall warded
He
blow.
off the
then
caused Patrick's helpers to be beaten and thrown into the
Blackwater.
Persecution
They were not drowned.
won them sympathy.
home
Conall opened the doors of his heart and to the preacher, inquired the
way
of
life,
believed
on the Lord, and with great joy was baptized accepting brotherhood with the lowliest
who had bound
my
thus
peasant
Months of
himself to Christ.
preaching were passed in this region. kindness to
;
'^Show
believing children,'^ said the mis-
sionary, ^^and be just all the days of your
life.''
" I devote to the Lord," said the prince, " the
his
He
a church.'^
site for
own
feet,
measured the ground with
and ordered that
There stood the building which
foot-lengths long.
took the name of
should be sixty
it
^^
the Great
Church of Patrick."
This Conall was the great-grandfather of Coluniba, the
renowned missionary
at
lona and in West-
ern Scotland.
His mode of teaching direct,
full
is
w^orthy of note.
of truth and forcible.
It
was
It related to
A
very curious
and ancient anecdote, whether true or
false, affords
Christ rather than to the Church.
a specimen of
what was believed
to
be his manner
SAINT PATRICK. He
of instructing the ignorant.
non and went the
Mount
into Connaught^
155
crossed the Shan-
and lingered near
of the Druids in Roscommon.
he mused upon the
Perhaps
from the
fact that races perish
earth as well as men, as he passed by the cemetery
Perhaps he found hospitality
of the ancient kings.
Near
in the royal fort.
it
was a well-known foun-
Thither he and his companions- went one
tain.
morning,
came
it
would seem,
The
for water.
magnified into
''
to talk
little
with those
company was afterward
a synod of holy bishops
said that there they lifted their early
to
who
V^
It
is
song of praise
God. It appears that
King Laogaire had
sent two of
his daughters into this neighbourhood,
them under the
care of tw^o Druids.
and placed
For a morn-
ing walk they came to the fountain, and were
much
surprised to meet the strangers, not being quite sure but they were gods,
'^
men
who were supposed
^^
mountain
are ye
?'^
they asked, " and whence
ye?''
It
were better
God than ^^
or half
.«
Whence
come
hills,^^
to dwell in the
caves. '^
of the
Who
for
you
to confess to our true
to inquire concerning our race.'' is
God, and where does he dwell?" the
SAINT PATRICK,
156
'^
elder asked.
and gold
Are they
is
Our God ''
Patrick.
the
He
God
the
is
is
Is
of
God
the
all
moon and
He gives
men/^ answered earth,
mountains and the
and above heaven.
the earth.
youth or in old
of heaven and
rivers, the
valleys, the sun, the
in heaven,
Tell us of him.
in
it
his
found f^
to be
and the
sea
Does he love
beautiful ?
shall he be seen ?
age that he "
sons and daughters, silver
Is he ever-living ?
?
children ?
How
Has he
life to all
the stars.
He
He
is
dwells also on
things
—
light to the
sun, stars to the sky, w^ater to the fountains, and
he upholds
How Druids
all beings.^^
different
was he from the gods of the
If we had never heard of the true God,
!
we might understand how wondered. truth
who
But they were
to hear a still greater
—one w^hich had power
will give
due heed
mystery and treat
it
to
king^s daughters
the
to
win the heart of all
who call it a know not how
Those,
it.
with neglect,
])recious it is^to the sinner seeking the
way
be
to
saved.
"He
hath a Son co-eternal and co-equal with
himself/^ continued Patrick.
younger than the Father; than the Son.
And
the
^'
The Son
is
not
nor the Father older
Holy Ghost brcathcth
in
SAINT PATRICK. The Father,
them.*
the Son and the
But I wish
are not divided.
157
Holy Ghost
unite you to the
to
heavenly King, as ye are the daughters of an earthly king
;
that
to believe/^
is,
" Teach us most diligently
how we may
Show
believe
how we may
in the heavenly
King.
him
and whatsoever thou wilt say unto
face to face,
we
will do V'
No
doubt here
us
us
see
/
a blank in the lesson.
is
If the
scene were real, the plain requirements must have
been taught.
And
by baptism ye put your mother
Patrick said
'^ :
off the sin of
Believe ye that
your father and
V^ f
''
We
^^
Believe ye in repentance after sin
''
We
^^
Believe ye in the unity of the Church ?"
"
We
believe.'' ?''
believe.''
believe."
Nothing more
is
added that
In
method of teaching. ^"Inflat in
eis/^
illustrates Patrick's
this there is not all that
proceedeth from tliem, would have been
the truth.
f
The
error here
may have
rather than of Patrick.
tism
;
its
been that of the biographer,
Original sin
is
not put
removal by Christ may be indicated.
not be taken for the cause.
away by bap-
The
sign
must
This error grew up quite early in
some parts of the Christian Church.
SA INT PA TRICK.
158
we could is
There are some
errors.
But
there
nothing here of modern Romanism.
On
their
wish.
confession of faith the king's daughters were baptized at the
wish
'^
to
death
is
The verted
same fountain.
AVhat
see the face of Christ^'
evidently the boldest
story also ^'
is^
Patrick's
There
influence.
It
is
Near
believed
this spot a
had
to
said that
we should expect
less success.
must
adaptation
of
which gives nobility plants.
They
If only a few of them
more persecution and
His power
sudden
that their teachers were con-
accepted the Christian doctrines, to find
their
That many Druids were converted
very credible.
is
and
to the repentance of God.''
arose.
said of their
fiction.
and renounced their Druidism, church
is
is
have
aided
a beautiful story
one of the plainest of Patrick once came to a
barbarous tribe and began to preach to them in the
open
air.
He
shook their heads. for
an ignorant and
accept as true
These
They
spoke of the Holy Trinity. It
was too sublime a mystery
faithless people,
who would
not
what they couhl not comprehend.
rationalists
They were about
grew indignant and
intolerant.
to enter into the controversy
clubs and drive the missionary from their
understood the wise management of
soil.
human
with
He
nature.
SA INT PA TEICK.
159
Stoo2)iDg down, he took from the green sod a sprig
wliich had three leaves united in one, and holding it
It
up he gave a simple
illustration of the Trinity.
was the common shamrock, trodden under
in the pastures
The
ears of
much by
the tact
and the wild woods.
the people were gained, quite as
foot
of the strange preacher as by the force of the argu-
ment drawn from
a
symbol so imperfect and un-
They
worthy of the theme.
listened to the proofs
of the doctrine given in the Scriptures, and were
The legend
convinced.
way
in this
times
a national
many an
is
that the
shamrock became
emblem of Ireland.
Irish hat
In our
decked with the sham-
is
rock on Saint Patrick^s day.
His treatment of fluence.
superstition aided Patrick's in-
It appears that he overthrew
pillar-stones,
which seem
to
objects of worship with the
some of the
have been the chief
pagan
Irish.
One
of
these was the Orom-cruaeh^ or "the black stooping-
Keating says
stone.'^
it
was
^'the
same god that
Zoroaster adored in Greece,'' and that this was the first
form
of
Milesians.^'*
of brass. ing.'^
It
idolatry
Around
The
it
introduced
among
" the
stood twelve lesser idols
spot was called "the plain of kneel-
had been a favourite resort of King * Hist, Ireland,
p. 156,
SA INT PA TR ICK.
160
To
Laogalre.
^^
this
Moloch
doubt human victims were
To
of
no
Ireland"
sacrificed.
this
plain the ardent missionary bent his
He
resolved
way.
Romanists
the
that
differ as to
should
idol
whether
fell at
it
fall.
the touch
of his ^'holy staff" or at the voice of his prayer.
We
believed in neither of these means, for
involv^e a miracle.
caused
it
It
far
is
to be smitten to the dust
hand was
sufficient.
by blows which
that such
There
too,
church was built, transmitting
^^to
ceeding ages the that
likely that he
The people saw
were worse than vanity.
said, a
would
A hammer in a strong
w^ere not at all mysterious.
idols
more
it
memory
it
is
suc-
of the wonderful things
God had accomplished
there
by the ministry
of his servant."
Another name of the
idol
is
thought to have
been Crom-dubh^ whence a certain day in
Ireland,
Cromduff Sunday.
It
is
now
may
called
be that
the old heathen festival was turned into a Christian observance.
The people were not
willing to
give up, altogether, their pagan revelries, and in their
stead
adopted.
It
certain
may
rites,
more
Christian,
were
be that Patrick showed some
tolerance toward the old superstitions.
He
dealt
tenderly with the popular usages and prejudices.
SAINT PATRICK. He
did not break in pieces
would not permit
chieftains
would
the idols of stone,
all
young Hebrew king,
in the spirit of the
The
rise in rebellion.
content to inscribe the
it
On some name
Josiah.
the clansmen
;
them he was
of
Also the
of Jesus.
which had long been used
wells,
161
for heathen pur-
poses, he allowed to be used for baptism.
them churches were walk
Druid day
fire
Columba ''
My
gave
rise to
purpose.
Druid
In a
The later
heathen customs to Chris-
many
evils.
Even
the good
without meaning any irreverence,
said,
" Nothing ^^
new
became an Easter flame.
this adaptation of
tian rites
people might
built, so that the
in the old paths for a
Near
is Christ.''
is
clearer,''
says
O'Donovan,
Dr.
than that Patrick engrafted Christianity on the
pagan
won
superstitions,
with so
much
skill that
he
the people over to the Christian religion be-
fore they understood the exact diiference
the two systems of belief; and
much
between
of this half-
Pagan, half-Christian religion will be found not only in the Irish stories of the Middle Ages, but in the superstitions of the peasantry to the present
day."
This
is
rather a sweeping charge.
Without
denying that Patrick erred in this direction,
it
is
certainly unfair to lay all these results to his ac11
SAINT PATRICK.
162
Those who came
count.
after
him were more
dis-
posed to compromise with the old Druidic customs.
They were ready
borrow from the heathen, as
to
was then done
in almost all Christendom.
this, in a great
measure, that
gave
popularity
it
doors
the
was
made Romanism, and
among every people
Churches
It
at
whose
messengers were knocking.
Gregory the Great was not a
He
fierce iconoclast.
saw with regret the destruction of heathen temples. "
He
rites
enjoined
their
by Christian
sanctification
the idols only were to be destroyed without
;
Even
remorse.
the sacrifices of oxen were to con-
on the
tinue, but to be celebrated
saints' days, in
order gently to transfer the adoration of the people
from their old to their new objects of
Not It
is
yet
the
is
Church
worship.'^"^
rid of this faulty policy.
rightly felt to be a duty both to Christianize
society
and to
socialize the
Church.
How shall we
adapt our religion to the demands of worldly Shall
we come down
to their tastes, their customs,
we take up what
their habits?
Shall
to their society
and give
Shall
we adopt
them? tianity,
*
their
men ?
it
is
peculiar
a place in the
Church?
amusements and try to hallow
This will be, not to socialize our Chrisbut to secularize
MUman,
Lat. Chris, bk.
it.
iii.
It will be to chap,
vii.,
make
A. D. 590.
the
SAINT PATRICK. "broad road" the easy avenue
163
to the "strait gate;^'
The
the rounds of mirth, the ladder of piety!
apology that such devices will draw some sinners
who
can be reached by nothing else
own means.
It reflects on God^s
is
suspicious.
His gospel
is
To carry into the make a street auction
adapted to reach every soul. pulpit the buffooneries that
interesting to the crowd, all agape for
low wit,
finds a poor excuse in tlie assertion that
some are
thus
won who can
deny the science
be gained in no other way.
I
So long as men have a con-
assertion.
and common
sense, they can be touched
by
the solemn realities of eternity and the wondrous love of Christ.
way
of
life
The
efforts to
tempt them into the
by worldly lures may afford them
amusement, but the result will be only Christ designed that his
world (not of world.
He
it),
did not
in
failure.
kingdom should be order to
mean
in the
Christianize
the
that the world should
be brought into his kingdom to secularize that
kingdom. Centres of influence were sought.
he must win
its
the peasantry. follow.
"
petty king
;
To gain a country
the prince
first,
then
Secure the chief, the clan would
To attempt
the conversion of the clan
in opposition to the will of the chieftain
would
;
SAINT PATRICK,
164
probably have been to rush uj)on inevitable death, or at least to risk a violent expulsion from the district/^
were the
We first
have seen that such leading men
They permitted Patrick to
converts.
" The clansmen pressed eagerly
extend his labours.
round the missionary who had baptized the
chief,
anxious to receive that mysterious initiation into the
new
faith
to
had submitted.
father
which
their
and
chieftain
The requirements prepara-
tory to baptism do not seem to have been very rigor-
ous;
and
it
therefore
is
by no means improbable
that in Tirawley and other remote districts, where
the spirit of clanship was strong, Patrick, as he tells
us himself he did,
may have
baptized some
thousands of men.'^ *
Thus every
castle,
every court, every city that
gave him a footing became a centre of influence, a spring upon the mountain, sending
upon the lowlands.
its
stream
down
There grew up the central
churches, which at length swelled into cathedrals there were founded the schools,
perverted into monasteries sionaries
whose
feet
;
which a
later
thence went forth mis-
were " beautiful upon the
mountains," for they were the messengers of tidings
f
thither resorted ^Todd's
St.
age
''
good
young men afterward,
Patrick, pp. 498,499.
SAINT PATRICK.
165
and changed the old training-schools
into rookeries
of idle monks.
The
love of pioneering
To go
missionary.
way was
was strong
forth whither
He
his delight.
in this earnest
none had led the
planted where others
Like Paul^ he chose not
should reap.
another man's foundation.
No
had
failed
may have made
whom
Pal-
to
forests
visit
and strengthen.
He
their cells the nurseries of schools
In
and churches. found a few
to
on
doubt he sought
out the scattered bands of believers ladius
to build
solitary places
disciples,
who had
he
may have
retreated into the
be safe from Druid foes and to hold
fellowship with God.
These he was able
to lead
out of their obscure retreats, place them as teachers
over bands of youth, or as pastors over
who needed
On may
a shepherd.
his first
and perilous journey to the w^estern
came upon such a Christian
coast he
little flocks
credit the better lines
retreat, if
we
of an ancient story.
There he met the " excellent presbyter Ailbe/^ who has often been represented as
''
a bishop'' in Ireland
before the days of Saint Patrick. is
more
When went
likely to
The young man
have been a Culdee missionary.
he was about to be ordained by Patrick, he
to
^^
a cave" and
dug from the earth
certain glass
SAINT PA TRICK.
168
cups used in the communion service.
hidden there from intruding robbers,
They were
who were very-
plentiful in those parts.
The cave seems
been a rude chapel,
up
fitted
to
have
in a concealed place, a
long time before, by some of the early Christians of Ireland.
It
pleasant to imagine that Ailbe
is
chose the old retreat as the point for
and won converts from the wild
new
labours,
tribes of Sligo,
thus building the old waste places and repairing the broken altars of Jehovah.
His enthusiasm for
He
within him.
energy of
souls
was a motive-power
laboured with the ardour and
and produced
faith,
effects
upon rude
minds which proved that God was with him. Plunging into deep opened the road
to
forests
as a bold pioneer, he
Christian civilization.
His
journeys, if described, would serve as a guide-book to a large part of ancient Ireland.
He
the interior.
of Connaught.
He
penetrated
went down among the Firbolgs
He
went from one province
to
another, from one prince to another, undismayed by
dangers or
difficulties.
Like another Paul, he
preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent
down from heaven
;
with great success.
and
his labours
were crowned
Kings, princes and hostile
clans beat their swords into ploughshares and their
SA INT PA TRICK. spears into pruning-hooks
and
;
so
167
abundant was
he in labour that in a few years he carried the gospel from
Antrim
Wicklow mountains
to
Kerry, and from
to the
the
mo«t secluded glens
of Mayo.*
His daring spirit urged him
What
were dangers to such a
obey the
call
when he was
into perilous scenes.
he overheard two chieftains
at Tarah,
conversing together about their
One
of them said,
I
am Enna
home and
people.
the son of
from the western regions^ where
gaid,
dared to
on a day
It appears that
of duty.
^^
He
man ?
is
Amal-
the
Wood
of Foclut." ^'
That seems
dream
me
to
my
in
to be the country of w^hich I
youth, where the children called for
come and help them," answered Patrick you
will return with shall so direct." ''
Thou
both
had a
It
your home,
if
the
I
Lord
.
shalt not
slain.
to
^^ ;
is
go forth with me,
lest
we be
a long road and beset with
enemies." ''
Thou mayst never
reach thine
own country
alive unless I go with thee, and, if thou dost not
hear ^^
my
gospel, thou shalt not have eternal life."
I wish
my
son to be taught, for he
^Murray, Irelaud and
tfce
Irish.
is
of tender
SAINT PATRICK,
168
the chief, bringing foward the lad,
years/^ said
whom fell
Patrick took by the hand, Avhile a blessing
from the good man's
we come
brothers cannot believe until people, lest they should
mock
was agreed that
It
men with him, but
missionary paid
fifteen
own
should be well
Patrick
to the far west,
The king
straight across all Ireland."
a body of
to our
my
us.''
guarded upon the rough journey *^
Bat I and
*^
lips.
sent out
appears that the
it
of them for their services.
Among some
of the wild tribes
company
into savage hands, if Patrick wrote
fell
the following words
:
"
On
seems that the
it
that day they most
eagerly desired to kill me, but the time was not yet
come
;
yet they plundered everything they found
Avith us,
and bound me
teenth day the
in irons
;
but on the four-
Lord delivered me from
and whatever was ours was restored
God and by
their power,
to us,
the help of the close friends
through
whom we
had before provided."
He
his liberty quite often
on such occasions, for he
adds those
'' :
seems to have bought
You know how much
I expended upon
who were judges throughout
which I used
to visit.
And
all
the districts
I think I paid tli^m
the price of not less than fifteen men, that so you
might enjoy me, and that I may always enjoy you
SAINT PATRICK. I do not repent of
in the Lord.
enough
for me.
The Lord that I
I
still
mighty
is
169
it^
yea
is
it
not
spend and will spend more. give
to
may employ myself
for
me more your
hereafter, (2 Cor.
souls,
xii. 15).''
Crossing the river Moy, he came into a wooded country, like that of which he had dreamed
many
years before, and which had clung ever since to his
But
imagination.
it
quite staggers our faith to
read the story of the legend -makers, that he met
two young women who
w^ere
the
very children
once calling to
him from the Focladian
We
him
may
follow
forests.
to the ral lying-place
of the
clan Amalgaid, not far from the present town of
The clansmen had met
Killala.
to elect a leader
from among the seven sons of their
late chieftain.
These sons were brave warriors, ^Svhose match in the field of battle
it
of them was Enna,
were
who had
missionary at Tarah. candidates for
office
selves unpopular.
preacher with
He
Politics ran high,
and the
were not likely to make themIf the people should hear the
believers.
fore the large assembly ^^
One
talked with the great
favour, the leaders
avow themselves
ings.
diflScult to find."
w^ould gladly
Patrick stood up be-
and declared the glad
tid-
penetrated the hearts of all," says
SAINT PATRICK,
170 Tirechan,
^^
and led them
to
embrace cordially
At an
Christian faith and doctrine/^ said that large
it is
among them
numbers were
ancient well
baptized^
was placed a
of great sanctity, well versed in
^'
pastor,
Holy
and
Over the
the sons of the late chief.
flock thus gathered
tlie
man
a
Scripture."*
The endurances of such a missionary added
Heroism captivates
his success. ries
with
it
to
self-denial car-
;
The man
a high degree of reverence.
who makes sacrifices for a people usually wins their Monks and Jesuits have ever understood hearts. this fact,
and when
their self-denial
they assumed the guise of
and bleeding
their bare
Inhere
is
it.
feet,
was not
Their haggard
won them
faces,
respect.
no good proof that Patrick went about in
He
the disguises of poverty and humility.
dured real fused
the
trials
offers
he made real
;
sacrifices
glory and
profit.
had accepted
It
all that
is
he re-
an Irish saying, that
was
offered to
would not have
left
as
him
much
have fed two horses to those who came
From
a few lines of the
disciple Fiacc,
hymn
whom we saw
* Todd's
St,
en-
He was
and wealth.
of gifts
;
careful to avoid the semblance of seeking his
tude, he
real,
own if
he
in grati-
as
after
would him.
attributed to his
rising
up
Patri€k, pp, 442-449,
to
honour
SAINT PA TRICK, him
at
truth
Tarah, the reader
may
cull
171
some
lines of
:
Prudent was Patrick Bold was
lie
in
until death
banishing error
Therefore his fame was extended
Up
to
each tribe of the people.
He hymns And
and revelations
the three
fifties'^
sang daily.
He preached, he prayed, he baptized, And from rendering praise never ceased.
He
not the cold of the season
felt
Tlie rains of the night
fell
upon him
To
further the
He
preached through the day on the
kingdom
of heaven hills.
Oft on the bare rock he rested
A
dampened cloak was
his shelter:
Then, leaving behind his stone pillow,
He
hastened to unceasing labours.f
* Tres quinquagenas psahnorum singing of
time as
'^
if it
the three
jfifties"
is
This
Colgan's version.
sounds to us quite as
were said that he took his salary
much
out of
in five- twenties
f Here we refer to a legend about which some of our reader^
know.
will be curious to
when Patrick was
It
gave
rise to a proverb.
in the west of Ireland,
It
is,
that
he passed his Lent on
a high mountain, " fasting forty days without taking any kind of sustenance
!"
our amazement
Very wonderful indeed! but Joceline burdens still
more.
This
monk
gravely
tells
us that
" in this place he gathered together the several tribes of serpents and venomous creatures, and drove them headlong into
SAIXT FA TRICK.
172
When some
of his
^^
children in the Lord/' wish-
ing to show their gratitude,
^^
voluntarily brought
and pious women gladly
him
presents,
him
their ornaments, Patrick refused
offered to
them
all/' in
order to avoid the charge that he sought to enrich
At
himself.
first
But they learned
they were offended by his refusal. to
honour him
accepting presents for himself.
He
of donations to the Lord.
He
built
redeemed many Christians from
faithful
turned the tide
up
these gifts
of schools and churches, or with
in walls ^^
for his rule of not
captivity.''
them
As
a
shepherd he was ready to give up every-
thing, even
life itself,
for the sheep.
In his old age he could appeal to the people, referring to these refusals of gifts: '^If I took any-
thing from you,
tell
me, and I will restore
Nay, I rather expended money
was able for
;
for you, so far as I
and I went among you, and everywhere,
your sakes, amid many dangers, even
extreme regions whither no tlie
man had
Western ocean, and hence hath proceeded
which Ireland enjoys from
by beating a drum, and story.
it.
all
to those
ever gone to tliat
poisonous reptiles."
exemption
He
did
this is the only point reasonable in the
If anything could frighten the " creeping things,"
drum would be
likely to do
it.
It
a
must have been some other
event that gave to a mountain in that region the Croagh-Patrick.
it
name
of
SAINT PATRICK.
173
baptize and confirm the people or ordain clergy;
and by the help of the Lord I did
things dili-
all
At
gently and most gladly for your salvation.
same time I gave presents cost of keeping their sons^
kings, besides the
to
who walked with me
order that robbers might not seize panions.
...
God
I call
me, which
is
to witness that I
not seen, but
is
But I
lies.
who
faithful,
see
well that poverty and discomfort better than riches
and a
life
who never
in this world, ex-
by the Lord.
alted above measure
for
conscience.']
has promised, and
myself already,
enough
is
[Compare PauFs ^testimony of a good
God
sought
in the heart.
felt
is
in
me and my com-
That honour
not honour from you.
the
know very suit me mucli I
Yes, in-
of pleasure.
deed; even the Lord Jesus became poor for our sakes.
Daily I expected
slavery or slain.
But I
to be seized,
feared none of all these
things, for I cast myself in the rules over
all,
as
it
arms of
written, 'Cast thy
the Lord, and he will sustain thee.'
These are stirring words. through the
No
idle soul,
leisurely bishop
dragged into
Him who burden on
''
They go ploughing
and soften
it
was Patrick.
for fruitfulness.
Not even could
he take time to revisit his native land.
knows how
greatly I have wished
it/'
he
^'God is
made
SAINT PA TRICK.
174 to say.
would gladly have gone
^^I
into Britain,
my country and parents, and even into Gaul to visit my brethren, and to see the face of the But I am bound by the saints of my Lord. as to
Spirit,
who
will pronounce
and I dread fall to
ever
lest the
work
guilty if I do this,
begun should
I have
There
the ground.^^
left
me is
no evidence that he
Ireland after he had fully entered upon
his mission.
The
an archbishop
is
and
we may that
believe
Armagh by
to
Rome and came
as well take the
he got some
rather sharp practice.
^^
back
If we be-
a groundless fiction.
lieve that he went, story,
went
story that he
whole
relics
for
While the
keepers of the sacred place were asleep and unconscious,^^
tity
he crept in and carried off a goodly quan-
of old clothes, blood-stained towels, saints'
tresses,
and the
proceeding.
like.
"Oh
"The
pope'^
wondrous deed
legend is t in rapture.
"
Oh
winked
I'^
at the
exclaims the
rare theft of a vast
treasure of holy things, committed without sacrilege
—the
world.'^
plunder of the most holy place in the
And
yet this writer fails to
tell
pope embraced Patrick, declared him
that the
to
be the
Apostle of Ireland, and made him an archbishop.
This invention was
left for Joeeline.
SAINT PATRICK, Attention to young
men was a marked
ministry of Patrick.
the
175 feature of
He drew them
after
him, teaching them as they travelled, and calling out their gifts by employing them in the good
work.
Certain chieftains allowed their sons to at-
The
tend him, often at his expense.
gentle lad
Benignus, the charming singer, was long at his
When
side.
he found men of the lower rank
suited to a higher calling, he took care to have
them the
instructed and fitted to
people.
Thus he was
become teachers of
raising
up a native
ministry.
The
redefinjMon of captives
of his wise policy.
He
was another feature
had "a
zeal to preserve
the country where he himself had borne the yoke
from the abuses of slavery, and especially from the incursions
of
the
—Britons and men — who made
pirates
robbers and traffickers in
Scots,
it
of store from which they took their
human
a sort
cattle.^'*
This gave him favour with the peasantry, who loved their children equally with the nobles in their forts tives
and
castles.
of the rescued cap-
seem to have been placed in schools and
trained for the It
Many
was common
work of teaching and preaching. at that time in
* Montalembert, Monks of the West,
Europe vol.
ii,
for the
p, 392.
SA INT PA TRICK.
176
missionaries to purchase heathen slaves,
educate
them, and send them back to their native land to bear the tidings of salvation.
ample
Patrick was an ex-
himself of what a redeemed captive
to
might accomplish.
To do and
suffer all in the
name of
the
Lord ap-
pears to have been Patrick's earnest desire.
him he could
labour, suffer, die.
to be counted as one of the says, "
was willing
least of all saints."
He
Let none think that I place myself on a level
with the apostles.
man.
''
He
For
.
.
.
Ye
the Lord, learn
am
I
a poor, sinful, despicable
line talkers,
who
it
is
who know nothing
of
that has called a simple
person like myself from the ranks of the lowly to serve this people, to led me. to me.
...
me
me
it
that I greatly desire that he
the cup of suffering which he has
given others to drink. give
the love of Christ has
I have no power unless he gives
He knows
w^ould give
whom
perseverance,
God that he would and think me worthy to bear I pray
a faithful testimony until the time of
my departure.
If I have striven to do anything for the sake of
my God whom I to shed my blood new
to allow
me
name, with those of
my
love, I beseech
for his
him
converts w^ho have been cast into prison, even
should I obtain no burial, or should
my
body be
SAINT PATRICK. torn in pieces by wild beasts.
my
soul along with
body
the sun .
that
;
is,
;
for
beyond a doubt we
with the glory of our Redeemer.
The sun which we
see daily rises
but the sun Christ will never
who do
my
day with the splendour of
shall rise again in tliat
.
I firmly believe that
should happen to me, I have gained
if this
.
177
his will.
They
set,
and
sets
nor will those
shall live, as Christ lives,
for ever.^^
The poiver of prayer was held
means of
God with
success.
Not only did Patrick
In the old Culdee
and secluded places
he wished the people to
renew
their strength.
the great
be an essential entreat
fervour, but he laboured to secure a pray-
ing Church. cells
to
field,
them and the was hardly
he chose
for supplication.
Thither
resort.
There they might
Thence they might go into
with the blessing of the Lord upon Spirit burning in their hearts.
his design to
Patrick had a
spirit
much
It
found monasteries. "Saint
higher object in view.
He
seems to have been deeply imbued with faith in the intercessory powers of the Church.
He
established
throughout the land temples and oratories [prayingplaces] for the perpetual worship
founded duty
it
12
societies of priests
of
God.
and bishops, whose
He first
was Ho make constant supplications, prayers,
178
SAINT PATRICK,
intercessions,
and giving thanks
He
felt
From
this source slowly arose
became convents in a
societies
would be too much, probably,
It
would
that without prayer his preaching
be in vain.
These
men/'^
for all
an
evil.
later century.
to claim that
Patrick was entirely free from the monastic tend-
was not a monk.
encies of that age, yet he effort
was not
to
His
found monasteries.
The power of God was the great cause of success.
To
secure
it,
all else
was done.
came by prayer,
It
by. faithful preaching of the divine word, and
Men
the agencies of active laymen and teachers. planted,
God gave
by
the harvest.
Early in Ireland, Christianity took a somewhat national form.
It
was not looked upon
from foreigners, nor did It had peculiarities of
it
its
as
coming
adopt a foreign character.
own.
"
The
successors
of Saint Patrick in his missionary labours were
many
of them descendants of the ancient kings and
chieftains so venerated
surrounding chieftains and still
The
by a clannish people.
men
in authority,
who
kept aloof in paganism, were softened by
degrees
when they
perceived that in
blies of the Christian
offered to
God
all
the assem-
Church fervent prayers were
for them.
In
point of view
this
the public incense of prayer and
^
lifting
up of
SAINT PATRICK.
179
hands' of the Church in a heathen land
perhaps
is
the most important engine of missionary success. ^Is'othing/ says St. Chrysostom^
men under
Ms
so apt to
draw
teaching as to love and to be loved
be prayed for in the spirit of love/^ *
need for thislpttrpo&a any other churches of the land
We
societies
;'
to
do not
than the
no convents, no monasteries,
;
but bands of Christians earnest in prayer, in their
homes and
in the house of
God.
PerseGutlon was the usual attendant of missionary effort in a
heathen country.
Christian civilization
has generally followed in the footsteps of a bleed-
ing Church.
But the
early Christians of Ireland
were not exposed so much to the
and the
flames. ^^
gerated.
Moore,
^^
the slow
Still their
While, in
svv^ord,
the rack
peace has been exag-
otlier
countries/^ says
Mr.
the introduction of Christianity has been
work of
time, has been resisted by either
government or people, and seldom
effected
without
a lavish effusion of blood, in Ireland, on the contrary,
by the influence of one humble but zealous
missionary, and with
little
previous preparation of
the soil by other hands, Christianity burst forth at
the
first
ray of apostolic light and with the sudden
ripeness of a northern * Todd's
summer, and
at once covered
St. Patrick, p. 514.
SAINT PATRICK.
180
when not
the whole
land.
Kings and
themselves
among
the ranks of the converted,
their
sons
princes,
and daughters joining
without a murmur.
the
in
saw
train
Chiefs, at variance in all else,
agreed in meeting beneath the Christian banner
and the proud Druid and bard tions
meekly
singular
laid their supersti-
at the foot of the
disposition
Cross
of Providence,
by a
nor,
;
unexampled
indeed in the whole history of the Church, was there a single drop of blood shed, on account of relioi:ion,7 CD
throuo:h the entire course of this mild O
Christian revolution, by which, in the space of a
few years,
all
Ireland was brought tranquilly under
the influence of the gospel.^^ ^
This pleasing picture all
is
not true to
Not
fact.
Very
Ireland was converted, even nominally.
much was
done, but not without the shedding of a
drop of Christian blood.
who
ren
own
We
life
suffered
Patrick refers to his breth-
and were
was always
in
slain for their faith.
His
danger and often assailed.
have seen him going westward with an
and even then he did not escape
injury.
some of his schools and churches
encircled
escort,
He
had
by walls
and
fortifications for the protection of the inmates.
The
great churches stood as the castles of Christ. ^Ilist. Ireland,
i.
p. 203.
SAINT PATRICK,
A touching story
is
181
told of Oran, his charioteer.
Patrick had overturned the great black stone^ the
and he was travelling
idol of the Irish,
For
ster.
this
deed a certain
He
sought revenge.
chief,
resolved to
named
fall
came
to the ear of
Berraid,
upon him
Patrick ever passed by his fortress. tion
into Lein-
if
This resolu-
Oran, who seems to have
been in the habit of walking beside the gig, that
may have had but the castle,
one
Oran pretended
his master
Soon the plotting
at the
man who was
to be very weary,
and
had the
chieftain hurled a javelin
riding past, taking
Oran
image-breaker.
fell
whom
him
for the
mortally wounded, but
satisfaction of
of the master
life
they came near
gave up the seat and took the road on
foot.
in dying
When
seat.
having saved the
he loved by the
sacrifice
of his own.
The
Leinster
men seem
to
have shown especial
aversion to Patrick and his doctrines.
driven
was
away
They had
Palladius, and their sleeping wrath
easily aroused.
It
is
told
by the
later writers
that Patrick went into this province, hoping to
He
first
win Dunlaing the king, and then the people. visited the royal castle of Naas.
king^s sons accepted the gospel.
Two
of the
This provoked
the sullen and crafty Foillen, one of the royal
offi-
SAINT PATRICK,
182
He laid
cers.
his plans to rid the court of the hated
teacher of religion. rick
coming
asleep.
The
to talk
On
a day
when he saw Pat-
with him he pretended to be
visitor entered the room^^ but detected
the plot to take his
life.
The wicked man was
dis-
armed^ and probably was secretly thrown into a prison,
where he soon
died.
This
more
is
likely
than that his feigned repose proved the sleep of death, as the legend-makers afRrm.
But the idea
went out among the people that on the approach of Patrick his eves were sealed for ever in death, and
hence the proverb, used when a Leinster wishes his worst to an enemy
:
"
May
his sleep be
like that of Foillen in the castle of Naas.^'
;^^^^^^^
man
CHAPTER
XI.
PATRICK'S CREED.
HE
articles of a great
terest us quite as
will have
an
age
much
may
in-
as the acts of his
If his belief was sound, his example
life.
in
man's faith
more
force.
Saint Patrick lived
when eminent men were expected
announce their creed.
He
wrote none.
This
to
may
go to show that then Ireland was not troubled with the great questions w^hich agitated the Continent.
On
that
isle,
in the north-west of
Christendom, no
footing w'as given to the heresies of Pelagius,
who
denied man's native helplessness; and Arius,
who
denied the divinity of Christ.
may show that Roman world.
It
Patrick had no contact with the
But Patrick strongly expressed
We
may
gather them from the writings which pass
under his name. in a
They crop out
mountain land.
like the granite
AVhen he pleads or rebukes,
or tells the simple story of his forth as
his doctrines.
life,
they gleam
gems washed up by the waves.
warmest sentences he drives a
In
nail that shines 183
his
with
SAINT PATRICK.
184
And
Scripture.
It Is
worthy of notice that he does
not quote the version of Jerome, which was largely-
Roman
used in the
He
churches.
quotes the old
Latin Vulgate,'^ such a translation as he would likely
have found in a Culdee
as a student in his earlier days.
man^s youth
is
he was there
cell if
The Bible
of a
preferred in his old age.
All that has come down to us from his pen, ex-
hymn, was written
cept the
He
life.
evening of his
could look back upon the great work
done in a vast to his
in the
heart;
Tillemont
The
field.
live
to
says
of
glory of
that was his
for
the
written to give glory to
God was
Confession
God
self
who had
sent
him
to
to strengthen their faith,
it
''
motive.
was
It
for the great grace
which the author had received, and people of his mission that
:
dear
to assure the
was indeed God him-
preach to them the gospel,
and
to
make known
to all
the world that the desire of preaching the gospel,
and of having a part
was the
in its promises,
sole
motive which had induced him to go to Ireland.
He
had long intended to write, but had deferred
doing
so,
received
fearing lest
what he wrote should be
among men because he had
to write well,
ill-
not learned
and what he had learned of Latia
^ Todd's
St. Patrick,
pp. 347-349.
SAINT PATRICK. was
still
sense^
and even of
better,
it
by intermixture with
further corrupted
the Irish language.
.
.
The work and
intellect
of
full
is
,
185
fire^
The
piety.
full
is
of good
and, what
saint
is
exhibits
throughout the greatest humility, without lowering the dignity of his ministry.
much
see in the tract
The author
of the character of St. Paul.
was undoubtedly well read
He
We
expected that
it
in the Scriptures.^^ *
would be read
by better
scholars than himself; perhaps there were such in
among
Ireland, even
the students
whom
he had
trained.
"I am greatly a debtor to God, who hath vouched me such great grace that many people by my means should be born again to God Patrick
tells
us
:
;
and that clergy should be ordained everywhere for the people
for the
who have
lately
come
to the faith
Lord hath taken them from the ends of the
earth, as he has
^The Gentiles
promised of old by his prophets
come
shall
to thee
:
from the ends of
the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies and vanity, and there
them.'
And
again
:
to the Gentiles, that
^
Mem.
no
profit in
I have given thee as a light
thou mayest be for salvation,
even unto the end of the * Tillemontj
is
earth.'
And
there I
Eccl. S. Patrick, xvi; p. 461.
SAINT PATRICK.
186
desire to wait for the promise of faileth
;
as
he promiseth in his gospel
come from the
east,
we
as
and
shall shall
tlacob
;'
come from the
work appeared astonishing
results of his
he reviewed
up
They
world.''
The those
Isaac,
believe that believers shall
whole
^
:
and from the west, and
down with Abraham, and
sit
him who never
it
:
"
Whence comes
it
that in Hlberio"^
who never had any knowledge
to the present time
as
of God, and
worshipped only idols and
abominations, are lately become the people of the
Lord, and are called the sons of God
The
?
of Scotsf and daughters of Christians appear
monks and
as
virgins of Christ
Scottish lady, of noble birth
who was
adult,
lady was
we know
own
and
whom
not,
— even
now
one blessed
and of great beauty,
I baptized.'^
Who this
but we are told that, of her
accord, she devoted herself to a
life in
sons
more secluded
order to "live nearer to God/'
Others did
the same, even at the cost of enduring persecution
from their nearest
relatives.
His thoughts took somev/hat the form of a creed ^"
when writing of
His name
the great benefits that
God
for Ireland.
f The jSTorthern Irish were called Scots.
monks will be explained hereafter.
The
references to
SAINT PATRICK. gave him ^'
After
187
in the land of his captivity.
He
we have been converted and brought
we should
exalt
and confess
his
says:
to
God
wondrous works
before every nation under the whole heaven, that there is
none other God, nor ever was, nor shall be
hereafter, than
God
beginning, from
the
whom
Father unbegotten, without is all
beginning, upholding
all things. ^^
And
his
Son Jesus
Christ,
whom we acknow-
ledge to have been always with the Father before the beginning of the world, spiritually w^ith the
Father, in an ineffable manner begotten, before all
beginning; and by visible ^^
and
And
Father
;
all
things
made,
invisible.
being
he was
death,
him were
made man, and having overcome received
into
heaven
unto the
and [the Father] hath given unto him
all
power, above every name, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is
Lord and God
^^Whom we believe and looh for his coming who is soon about to be the Judge of quick and dead; who will render unto every man according to his
"
work
And who
hath poured into us abundantly the
SAINT PATRICK,
188 gift of the
Holy
Ghost,
and the pledge of immor-
who maketh the faithful and obedient to become the sons of God the Father^ and joint heirs tality;
with Christ "
Whom
we
Trinity, of the
Such
is
Confession.
We
confess
and worship, one God in
the
Sacred NameJ^
the brief It
summary
of doctrines in the
was not intended
to be a full creed.
shall find in the Epistle to Coroticus a hearty
expression of other doctrines, so uttered that they
might burn upon the consciences of bad men or be a comfort to certain disciples in captivity. It appears that one evening there
tude witnessing a baptism.
A
was a multi-
goodly number of
converts, clad in white robes, Avere at the fountain.
The
minister,
who seems
not to have been Patrick,
Very soon
w^as baptizing
them.
pirates rushed
upon them.
after a
Some were
band of
slain while
the drops of water were scarcely dried from their
Others were carried away in their white
foreheads. robes.
The people were
their lives.
affrighted
and ran
for
Houses were plundered and almost
every sort of outrage committed.
The
captives
were taken to the sea-shore, put into boats, borne
away
and sold into slavery.
The
did this act of villainy, or in whose
name
to a foreign land
man who
SA IN T PA TR ICK. it
He
was done, was Corotlcus.
189
seems to have
been a petty prince of Wales, perhaps Caradoc,
whom
from
derive
seem
to
The
its
Some
name.
said to
is
of the Scots and Picts
have aided in the nefarious business. heart of Patrick was
for the captives,
the marauders. merciless deed.
and sent them he
county of Cardigan
the
and
filled
He He
touched with pity
with indignation against
wrote a protest against the
He
of
whom
calls'^ a venerable presbyter,
from infancy
One
to the cruel prince.
.^^
men
chose w^ise and earnest
them
I taught
must have been worthy of the
delicate mission.
Perhaps he was Benignus. Taking
their boat, these
men went
fessed to be a Christian
!
They presented
the letter
^^
the prince say haughtily. ^'
pro-
man who styled himself Bishop in Ireland.'' What right has he to reprove me ?'' we hear
of the ^'
who
to Coroticus,
"
He
is
But have mercy on the poor
my
people,"
treaty of the venerable presbyter. to restore
not
^^
some of the plunder and
Be
bishop.''
is
good as
so
set
the en-
free
the
baptized captives."
"
Away
chieftain
with you
we seem
^^They were
reply.
rights of war.
!"
It
is
to hear the lawless all
taken by the
too late to plead for
them
they have been sold, and I have the money for
SAINT PATRICK.
190 them.
Get you gone
be slaves.
In
your necks,
offer
five
You
!
minutes
Irish are
1^11
God
you in the market and
will bring
" Away, away
Irishmen out of
you
judgment
Officers,
!
my
into
only to
put chains about
you are worth." ^^
fit
find
what
—
take these insolent
presence."
In some such manner the embassy was dismissed and
w^ith scoffs
upon the
Contempt was thrown
ridicule.
which has not been pre-
letter of Patrick,
men had to return, carrying only disappointment to many parents and relatives, who The
served.
had hoped
wise
their goods, their children
Again Patrick took
He
protest. it
sent
w^ould drop
it
and
his pen.
their friends.
He
wrote another
out into the world, hoping that
down
like a shaft of lightning
Coroticus, and drift as an olive branch
He
captives.
Roman and of
money
with
to see ih^ boats returning loaded
says
:
" It
is
upon
to
the
the custom of the
Gallican Christians to raise large sums
for the
redemption of baptized captives
from the Franks and other pagans.
But you, a
professing Christian, slay the disciples of Christ or
you
sell
over the
them
to heathen nations.
members of Christ
the heathen."
You hand
to the abominations of
SA INT PA TRICK. Then addressing the he says
'' :
to
hirelings of the chieftain,
and dwelling
Hibernia,
in
the barbarous tribes because of
God, I write these
letters
with
fellow-citizens,
Roman
my
my own
be borne to the soldiers of the tyrant
my
and yet
Patrick, an ignorant sinner,
appointed a bishop
among
191
:
love
hand
to
I say not to
nor to the fellow- citizens of the
but to the co-workers of the devil,
saints,
For they
as their evil deeds prove.
live in death
they are the associates of the apostate Scots and Picts
;
tians,
they fatten on the blood of innocent Chrismultitudes of
confirmed in
whom
Christ.
.
.
.
I have begotten and
Does
not the divine
mercy which I cherish oblige me those
who
once
made me a
massacre the servants of
to defend even
captive,
and put
my father? For
to the
this peo-
ple are confessing their sins and turning to the
Let your sonls melt when I praise the
Lord.
courage of the girls
Those
away.
insulted and stole
delicate children of
]how they defended AVhat
whom you
heroic
themselves
courage
against
mine
in the faith,
from their
outrage!
unworthy
masters "
The Church weeps and
wails over her sons and
whom
the sword has not yet
over her daughters, slain,
but
who
are exiled in far-off lands where sin
SA INT PA TRICK,
192
openly and shamelessly abounds.
There Christian
freemen are reduced to slavery, and that by the
most unworthy, most infamous and apostate
O
most beauteous and beloved children
cry out to you; I cannot
you
I
;
am
tell
what
!
to
Picts.
I can but
do with
The wicked-
not worthy to give help.
We
ness of the wicked hath prevailed over ns.
Do
are become as aliens.
they believe that you
and us have received one baptism, that we have one God, our Father is
a crime that
"
Have ye
another?
we
Perhaps not
?
my
with them
[ye] are born in Hibernia.
not one
Why
God ?
pilgrimage here
;
.
it
.*
then wrong one
But yet I
I grieve for myself.
that I have not laboured in vain
been
;
rejoice
not in vain hath
only there hath come to
;
pass this outrage so horrible and unspeakable. ^'
[ye
Thanks be
God,
who have been
world
gun
to
O ye
slain]
!
believers
ye have gone from this
I behold you.
to Paradise.
and baptized
You have
to journey whither there shall be
no night, nor
sorrow nor death: ye shall exult as lambs ^ "If Coroticus had Gwyddil, or Irish victory
at that
settlers in
had pursued them
be-
let loose:
time succeeded in banishing the
South Wales, and in the frenzy of
to Ireland, it is not unnatural that
his followers should regard every native of Ireland as an enemy,
and
treat
him
as such."
himself with the captives.
In his sympathy Patrick identifies Todd^St. Patrick, 360.
19 o
SAINT PA TRICK,
ye shall trample upon the ungodly; they shall be
Ye
as ashes
under your
apostles
and prophets and martyrs.
feet.
ceive everlasting kingdoms.
.
.
is
the lake of eternal
fire.
.
Ye
with
shall re-
Without are dogs
.
and sorcerers and murderers and tion
reign
shall
liars,
whose por-
.
.
^^Thus shall sinners and the ungodly perish from the face of the Lord
but the righteous^ in great
;
joy, shall feast with Christy shall judge the heatlien,
and '^
it
and
ever,
shall rule over
God and
my
shall be so as
my
words
his apostles
translated
his holy angels, that
ignorance* has said.
and prophets, who never
them
God
These
they are the words of God, of
;
whoso believeth not
hath spoken.
I have
lie.
They who
into Latin. f
shall be saved, but
damned.
for ever
...
I testify before
are not
ungodly kings
believe shall be
I therefore earnestly
request of every one
who may become
of this
be withheld from none, but
let it
letter,
that
be read before
* 3Iea imperita, that
mode
it
all
is,
the people, and in the pres-
"I
of speaking with this
the bearer
m3^self."
It
humble man.
was the frequent
He
is
concluding
the epistle. f
Had he
consulted the original tongues, so as to be sure of
the meaning, and then 13
made
a
new
translation ?
SAINT PATRICK.
194
May God
ence of Coroticus himself.
inspire
them
to return to a better
mind toward him^
though
late,
may
deeds.
They have been the murderers of
they
free the baptized captive
count them worthy of
whole here and
Thus
closes
Its
love.
chieftain
No aire
was
is
to
Tims
shall
set
God
and they shall be made the Father, to
Peace"^^ to
Holy Ghost.
Amen.^^
now
revealing
and again the gentle sunbeams
eifect
we know
was worthy of only the
return
the
them repent and
the stirring letter;
flashes of lightning,
of
let
women.
life,
for ever.
the Son and to the
repent of their impious
But
brethren of the Lord.
so that even,
The proud
not.
silence of history.
mentioned of a single captive.
them a severe
school, but
it
Bondwas the
may have been blessed to them as it had once been to the great and good man who had brought the gospel to their native land. It may
school of God.
It
have waked them to a higher baptism had been
nominal ^'
little
life.
more than outward and
—a thing too common throughout Christen-
Perhaps he meant "glory/^ or he may have meant
a prayer that Coroticus might repent and
No
Perhaps their
find peace with
revenge burns in the noble epistle: with
all his
it
as
God.
tremendous
voice of justice Patrick breathed the invitations of mercy.
Here was
love to an enemy.
SAINT PATRICK, dom
in that age.
Church
;
but
It
now
195
had ushered them into the
they
may
feel
the need of
^'
the
washing of regeneration;'^ now they may seek union with Christ.
Perhaps many of them were a
blessing to others.
Some
little
maiden may have
proved as an angel unawares in the house of a Pictish
how
Some youth may have thought
Naaman.
Ireland once had a slave
spiritual deliverer
among
;
who had become
and why might not the captive
a barbarous people serve the
that his master should ask the
and
life ?
Redeemer
her
Lord
so well
way of happiness
Bondsmen have been employed by the to set nations free.
CHAPTER
XII.
THE CHURCH OF SAINT PATRICK.
HAT
was the Church
Patrick?
form,
its
To
existence?
its
built offices,
inquiry
this
up by Saint term of
its
we
set
our-
selves in the interest of historic truth,
and
Christ was more to
him
not in that of any party.
than the Church believed
;
of the one
— of the other He
thought.
we know what he
hard to learn what he
it is
was not the high churchman of any
denomination.
The
late
Dr. Murray well said: "There has
been much learned and rather sharp controversy as to the polity or external form of the
the days of Patrick.
The
Church
in
him
as
Prelatists claim
archbishop, as having received orders in a direct line
from the
apostles,
orders to them.
To
to the belief of the
him.
This claim
whether
it
and as thus transmitting
believe this leads necessarily
monkish it
is
fables in reference to
impossible to establish,
be true or false in
itself.
Some Inde-
pendents would claim him as a noble Congrega196
SA IN T PA TR ICK. tionalist;
among whom, we
197 stands
believe,
the
eloquent and warm-hearted Mr. King, of Dublin; whilst others, of the Belfast school, would claim
him is
what he was
certain; but It
certain.
esteeming
it
subject than do
his great
But \vhen we read bishops'
in polity
very un-
is
most likely he troubled himself
is
upon that
less
That he was not a Papist
as a Presbyterian.
— that
in
work
that
'
to
many
far
in our day,
preach the gospel
Ireland was full of village
one county, Meath, there were
nearly thirty bishops
—that
at
one period there
were about three hundred bishops in the kingdom, Ave
may
reasonably conclude that parochial bishops
were the only ones known tianity of Ireland,
bishopric.
But
to the primitive Chris-
and that every parish was a
there
is
darkness sufficient resting
upon the annals of those early times
to forbid
dogmatism on the one hand, and there are now and then the gleaming out of great principles cient to
We
form the basis of theories on the
other.''*
have seen young men following Patrick as
students and helpers.
Thus they
missionary work.
was not necessary
them
suffi-
far
away
It
w^ere trained for
to
send
to the Continent to be educated,
where the system of schools was becoming mo^ Ireland and the Irish.
SAINT PATRICK,
198 nastic.
There were places
home.
The
grew
for
retired
old Culdee system had
There
into colleges.
is
study at
its cells,
which
reason to think that
Patrick found this system in Ireland and adopted its
main
been at
The
features.
first
cell,
or
hil,
seems to have
a refuge from danger and a resort for
prayer; then a fixed abode for studious men.
grew
into a church or a college
religious
centre,
;
often
of years a town grew up around
We
find very
the ancient cell
became a
whither the people flocked for
worship, teaching and consolation.
cell.
it
It
many names
In the course
many
a prominent
as memorials of
such as Kildare, the church or
kil ;
of the oak; Kill-fine, the church of the tribe;
Cill-Chiarain, the cell of Ciaran, or Kieran.
The
wood
story of Ciaran
of Munster,
that he went into a dense
is
made him
a
cell,
played with
the wild animals around him, studied and lived
He drew
near to God. serious
is
him young men of
minds and taught them; the school en-
larged into a monastery It
to
not certain
;
when he
a city arose on the spot. lived.
Some make him a
bishop in Ireland thirty years before Saint Patrick others, a child to
his blessing
place
him
whom
the great missionary gave
on one of his journeys; and others
in the sixth century.
SAINT PATRICK. Here
is
probably a specimen of the schools
monks because thev
called
But a young monk of the
man from an
different
He
century. to
The
days of Samt Patrick.
the
199
secluded
life.
century was a very
fifth
monk
old
were
students
led a
in
of the twelfth
was usually a young man preparing
become a missionary.
His head was shorn,
and he wore a dress peculiar
to his class.
grew too fond of a secluded
life,
If he
he remained at
the cell for long years^ or he went forth into the forests to
But we do not think Saint
curred in later times.
They must prepare
when prepared go and reap
schools,
The
to
work
take
their
rest.
in the world,
and
forth into the great field to
sow
for
for the Master.
appears
It
men
allowed such
Patrick
This often oc-
found one for himself.
that
Patrick often visited
which ought not be
these
called monasteries.
regulations were very different from monas-
tic rules.
They were
little else
than would
now
be demanded in a college where the inmates were required to support themselves.
^'
Although they
observed a certain institute/' says Jamieson, ^'yet, in the accounts given of them, this
remarkable distinction
we cannot overlook between them
and
those societies which are properly monastic, that
SAINT PATRICK,
200
they were not associated for the purpose of observ-
They might deem
ing this rule.
certain regula-
tions necessary for the preservation of order, but their great design was, tion, to train
Hence
try.
may
up others it
by communicating instruc-
work of
for the
tlie
minis-
has been justly observed that they
be more properly viewed as colleges, in which
various branches of useful learning were taught,
These
than as monasteries.
were in
When
Patrick
found
Lord hath need of
was ready
^^
to say,
Thus he
laid his
He
The
hands on the gentle
him over the church of
There the good pastor fed the
years.
^^
He had the care of pastors. He ordained them
Benignus and placed
Armagh.
men
schools
these
in
thee."
churches that needed as bishops.
in
in Ireland.''*
qualified for the Avork, he
many
Church both
fact the seminaries of the
North Britain and
therefore,
societies,
travelled
widely,
flock for
and
gave
splendid proofs of his zeal for religion and his
anxious desire for the conversion of his countrymen.''
But he went
the great father's
to his rest a
man who had
led
house when a youth.
few years before
him
forth from his
There
is
nothing
but manufactured evidence to show that he ever * Jamieson, Hist. Culdees, p. 33.
SAINT PATRICK,
201
had charge of more than one church, or that he had a diocese and an array of clergy under him. Thus,
too,
banks of the
Patrick, Liffey,
when
travelling along the
came upon Fiacc,
whom
he
had once met as a young bard at the court of Tarah.
The poet had been studying
for the ministry.
He
was ordained a bishop and placed over the church
At
of Sletty.
all Leinster.
a later day imagination set
him over
He, no doubt, had a general
interest
in the little bands of Christians in that region,
made many
now
many
a missionary tour, as
new
and
a zealous
country.
But
this does
not prove that he had a diocese.
He
seems to
pastor
does in a
have been a good husband, a kind
man and
the teacher of
many
father, a learned
It does
disciples.
not appear that he persuaded his former tutor,
Dubtach, the converted bard, to preach the gospel.
But
this
the
name
eminent
man
of Christ.
Christian hymns.
breathed into Celtic poetry
Druid songs were changed
The pagan
lyre bec^ame a
psaltery, giving its notes to holy psalms.
to
solemn
An
old
author says that when once blessed and transformed, the songs of the bards became so sweet that the
God leaned down from heaven is why the harp of the bards has
angels of
to listen
and
continued
this
to be the
symbol and emblazonry of Ireland.
SAINT PATRICK.
202
When we
go back as nearly as history will carry
we
us to the days of Saint Patrick,
weight of evidence clusions 1. is,
justifies
find that the
the following
:
Men
were ordained bishops per saltum^ that
without passing through other
They had not
clerical orders.
be deacons and priests.*
first to
young man might be ordained a bishop,
now
a student
is
Men
A
just as
ordained a presbyter, thus given
the highest office 2.
con-
known
to Presbyterianism.
were thus ordained by a single bishop.
It seems that Patrick often used this
It began as a necessity, perhaps,
power
alone.
when he was
the
only bishop in Ireland, and was continued after his
example.
But
may not have been the only Even if it were, it would not
this
rule of ordination.
be against one form of church government more .
than another, for
in
no Church
is
allowable for
it
one bishop to ordain another, whatever understood by that 3.
Men
title
of
may be
office.
were ordained bishops without being
placed over any particular church.
They had not
the oversight of churches or clergy.
They were
evangelists, missionaries, travelling preachers * Todd's St. Patrick,
cli.
of the folloving points.
i.
;
and
which may be consulted on most
SAINT PA TR I CK. superintendents
of schools.
Prelatists that they
dioceses
—wandering
were
^'
It
203 admitted by
is
bishops without sees or
This
bishops/^
class
became
very numerous in Ireland.
Early
in the twelfth century,
Anselm of England
complained thus of the state of " It at
is
affairs in
Ireland
said that bishops in your country are elected
random, and appointed without any fixed place
of episcopal jurisdiction priest, is
and that a bishop,
;
like a
Such had
ordained by a single bishop.^^
been the state of things since the time of Patrick,
who was
eager to have a strong force of mission-
aries in the field
them
to
hold the highest
of himself.
It cannot be
anything but a himself in his 4.
A
and he thought
;
^'
it
important for
and be the equal
office
showm
that he
was ever
bishop in Ireland,^^ as he styled
last days.
single church
had
every church had one of
its
its
bishop
own.
St.
;
probably
Bernard in
the twelfth century thought this one sign of ^^a
making void of
religion,^^
church should have
its
that
^^
every particular
particular bishop.'^
Patrick held a different view.
But
His rule seems
to
have been to place over every church a pastor, who w^as in office equal to
himself.
Hence Nennius
says that he founded three hundred and sixty-five
P A TR ICK.
S A IN T
204
churches^ and placed over
them
three hundred
and
the churches.
'^It
sixty-five bishops.
The bishops outnumbered
5. isj ''
therefore,
that the
an undoubted
number
fact/^
says Dr. Todd,
of bishops in Ireland Avas very
great in early times, in proportion to the population, as well
bound ^
own
with his
many
although we are not
hand^ three
founded
are
we bound
hundred and
hundred
seven
ordained three thousand
Nor
;
believe that Saint Patrick consecrated
to
bishops,
absolutely
as
fifty
churches and
priests.^^
to believe that there were so
places as are reported
where seven bishops
dwelt together as a brotherhood.
Probably there
were a few such in a later century, but hardly one
hundred and forty-one of them!
Nine hundred
and eighty-seven bishops thus taking
The monkish
annalists were death
their ease
upon
prelatic
theories. ''
^'
to
There
is
abundant evidence," says Dr. Todd,
show that two
or
more contemporary bishops
frequently lived together during the early period [of the Irish Church], in the same town, church or
monastery."
But
after Patrick's
was
this
was doubtless some centuries
death,
when the monastic system
in full vigour.
In
his
day the
settled
and
SAINT PATRICK-.
205
travelling bishops seemed to have been greater in
number than possible to 6.
the churches.
make any
diocese.
for
Columba
him
him
Nor was any
in Scotland.
conferred upon him.
and
He was a pastor or
to be ordained a bishop
in order to qualify
is
not
it is
In the afternoon of the sixth century
was enough
Europe^
the latter
estimate.
The bishop had no
missionary. it
Of
called
for the great w^ork before
higher
office
ever
So Columban^ who went into
by the same author a presbyter,
in another sentence a bishop, as if they were
the very same
office.
The
bishops
who
are repre-
sented to have been placed over dioceses by Patrick belong to a later day.
Even
the four
whom
some have thought preceded him, and others have laboured with him, seem sixth or seventh century.
Ibar and Declan. W'Orkers ^^
to
belong to the
They were
Perhaps the
to
first
Ciaran, Ailbe,
two were co-
Montalembert admits that
of Patrick.
the constitution of dioceses and parishes, in Ire-
land as in Scotland, does not go farther back than to the twelfth century.'' 7.
Patrick was a " bishop in Ireland,^' and not the
primate over portant sense, as Calvin
it. ^^
He
had upon him,
in a very
im-
the care of all the churches,'^ quite
had a general superintendence of
all
the
^
SA INT FA TRICK.
206
Protestant churches of France.
He
an archbishop? only in It
office
But was Calvin
was a presbyter, the equal
of his brethren.
was very easy
for writers, centuries after
Pat-
rick's time, to represent the great central churches
as
the
diocesan,
prominent
pastors
as
prelatic
bishops, the schools as monasteries, female teachers as the founders of nunneries,
and over them
great chief, one archbishop. Saint Patrick. all this Ave
do not believe a word.
The
one
all
But of old Irish
term ard-epscop only meant an eminent or
cele-
brated bishop, as ard-file meant a chief poet, or ard-righy an eminent king.
archbishop In the modern
It did not signify an sense.'''
It
might have
been applied to any well-known and Influential pastor.
We
may
well believe that several synods were
held by Patrick and his co-presbyters.
But
It Is
very doubtful whether he published any " canons'^ over his
now
name
appear.
;
certainly not the collections as they
If he wrote any laws for the Church,
the Romanists of a later age foisted In certain rules to serve their purpose.
canons of the
first
Thackeray says of the
synod, held about the year 460,
"Although some marks of ^ Todd's
St.
superstition
Patrick, p. 10.
may
be
SAINT PA TRICK. and some leaning
traced in them,
Rome, we cannot
207
to the
Church of
being struck by the sim-
helj)
and sense which pervade them."*
plicity,
force
The
may have come from from those who meddled with all
striking parts
the rest left
that he
behind him.
It
is
story
we
hear of Auxilius and Iserninus.
came
that they
is,
Patrick.
Who
Annals.
The
Rome
some of these supposed
in connection with
synods that
The
Patrick,
sent
them
not told in the Ulster
is
later account is that they
with him to Ireland.
sion has
bishops to assist
as
If their
no better foundation than their existence,
little credit to
his,
went from
Roman miswe may give
and yet not be guilty
of taking their lives.
Patrick must have had a very great influence over
He
the Irish Church.
He
agement.
work.
had a splendid
was able
AVhatever his
keep
to
official
all
man-
gift of
the forces at
power, there
proof that he gave any account of his use of the court of
Rome.
''
He
no
is
it
to
did not apply to the
papal see to have the election of the bishops appointed by
him confirmed
rescript from the tle to
Rome.
.
.
'
.
;
nor
is
there extant
apostolic' see to him, or
We
^ Anc.
any
any epis-
have no record or hint of Brit,
ii,
p. 1G7,
SAINT PATRICK.
208
We are
Rome."
up
kept
having
his
any communication with
who
quoting a writer,
many
the existence of so
thinks that
missionary and pastor-
bishops in the early Irish Church was an error, yet
he says,
"It was an
error
who thought he
zealous man,
into
which a very
could not have enough
of chief pastors and shepherds of Christ's flock
was
likely to fall
for a
but
[or
it
was one that could not
it
moment have been
known
she
;
by Rome.
Had
to rule], she
would
tolerated
had any right
doubtless have immediately put a stop to such an
The obvious
irregularity.
inference
was not made acquainted with the fant
Church
that she
is,
state of the in-
and therefore that
in Ireland,
St.
Pat-
rick acted independently of the papal authority.''*
In order
to explain this
it
has been assumed that
he had no need to give an account of himself, for
"he St.
w^as
made
apostolic legate over Ireland.''
But
Bernard informs us that " Gillebert, bishop of
Limerick, in the
tAvelfth century,
was the
first
wdio
discharged the duties of apostolic legate in Ire^ Eev.
Todd has
W.
G. Todd, Church of
fully
examined the
not been able to
St. Patrick, pp.
subject,
discover any
fair
and he
29-36.
also says; " I
sion."
St.
See also Lanigan,
have
instance of a bishop be-
ing elected to an Irish see by the interference of
from the mission of
Mr.
tlie
pope,
Patrick until after the English invaii.
170,
SA INT PA TRICK. Thus
land."
falls
Patrick acted in the
There
is
ground
to the
name
some reason
209 claim that
tlie
Rome.
or interest of
to
think that the Church
of Saint Patrick was more nearly presbyterial than congregational or prelatic.
It
It gradually adopted
papal.
was certainly not
many
did not submit to the Pope of
errors,
Home
but
it
the
until
twelfth century. It grew,, extended
the world.
They
and became a vast power
became justly renowned.
schools
Its
attracted students
The
all
course
Thus
the
Holy
numbered by
of instruction embraced
the sciences then taught, but
the study of the
The
from distant realms.
pupils of a single school were often
thousands.
in
more
especially
Scriptures.
work of church
extension,
commenced
on a large scale by Patrick, was carried on by faithful
followers, until,
before the beginning of the
ninth century, the whole land had been studded
with churches, colleges and scriptural schools, and Irish
Christians
learning, piety
who
still
were famous over
and missionary
zeal.
Europe
The
for
Irish,
wxre known by the name of Scots, were
the only divines w^ho refused to dishonour their
reason by submitting
of authority. 14
it
implicitly to the dictates
Naturally subtle and sagacious, they
SAINT PATRICK.
210
applied their philosophy, such as
was, to the
and doctrines of
illustration of the truths
—a
it
religion
method which was almost generally abhorred
and exploded
They were
in all the nations.
lovers
of learning, and distinguished themselves, in these times of ignorance, by the culture of the sciences,
beyond
all
other European nations.
eminence of the Irish in science and to the steadfastness with
Owing
to the
and
literature,
which they held
fast the
profession of their faith without wavering, Ireland
was regarded
as the school of the
Camden
says
:
"
West and an
The Saxons
thither, as to the great is
the reason
throughout Europe,
at this period,
why we
isle
of saints.*
of that age flocked
mart of learning, and
this
find this saying so often in
our [English] writers, ^Such an one was sent over
No wonder
into Ireland to be educated.^f
that
Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, exclaimed, in a letter to Ealfrid,
in Ireland,
^
Why
who had
spent six years studying
should Ireland, whither students
are transported in troops by
fleets,
such unspeakable advantages
The
f
be exalted with
^^
rapid extension and singular prosperity of
the early Irish Church
is
^ Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Cent. f Britannia, Art. Ireland.
to be attributed, in ix.
;
Usslier, chap. vi.
no
SAINT PATRICK. small degree, to
and
They
Rome.
consulting
we
system of church
five
in
many
in-
For
death of St.
centuries after the
have any vestiges of a connec-
scarcely
tion between
consecrated bishops for
mandates of Rome.
opposed the
more than
its
and these missions,
foreign missions; stances,
of
^'Bishops were appointed without
government.
Patrick
freedom from foreign control,
its
excellence
the
to
211
Rome
and Ireland.
Councils and
synods were held from time to time, in order to bring the Church of Ireland to the same subordi-
Rome
nation to
Europe."*
It
those of every other part of
as is
thus
evident
that
spiritual
and
alike to
pope and king, holding that
obedience the
Church of Saint Patrick.
should have to follow Columba, as he revived
the system of the Culdees in Scotland, and
lona a great northern light casting ^ O'Halloran. Rev. of St.
of
Lord
is sole
foreign missions of the
We
things
King and head of His Church. would require a volume to do justice to the
Jesus Christ It
ecclesiastical they refused
in
W.
its
made
rays over all
G. Todd, a prelatist, in his Church
Patrick^ furnishes satisfactory evidence that the bishop
Rome
did not appoint,
elect,
bishops of Ireland, from the
consecrate, nor confirm the
fifth to
the twelfth century
;
nor
did he sanction the nii>^sions of the Irish Church, of which that of
Columba was the
first,
to
another country.
SA INT PA TB ICK.
212
We
Europe.
should have to trace Columban and
Gallus marching, with weary
up the Ehine, over the Alps
feet,
through Gaul,
or into Italy, found-
ing monasteries, rearing churches, enduring storm
and
cold, persecuted
by kings and
tribes
out of barbarism.
gilius
at
Tyrol,
Salzburg,
in.
We
lifting neglected
should find Vir-
the far-off wilds
not only teaching
the
of
the
but also
gospel,
watching the motions of the planets and concluding that the earth was round, and that on the other side, beneath his
into trouble with the pope.
begun the ary
there might be nations
His doctrine of the antipodes brought
of men.
him
feet,
left
list.
We
In the year 565 the
the shores of Ireland.
have scarcely first
mission-
For nearly
three
centuries
companies of learned and pious men,
from the
colleges of Ireland, continued to go forth
Christ in the neighbouring countries.
to preach
In North and South Britain, and over
all
the
Continent, they went everywhere preaching the gospel.
Rejecting
images, the stantiation
Church of
Roman
the
intercession of saints,
—doctrines
St. Patrick,
the
purgatory,
unknown
worship
and transub-
in the
Church of
and only recently introduced
Rome— they
of
into the
were always opposed by
Catholic clergy, and often suffered per-
SAINT PA TRICK. seciition
tinued,
they held fast the truth, and con-
still
;
213
840, to preach to the inhabitants of
till
Continental Europe the very same Gospel preached
by
St.
Patrick to the wondering natives of Ireland.*
Concerning the theology of this period Neander writes
In the Irish Church, from the time of
'^ :
its origin,
a bolder spirit of inquiry
pagated, which caused
many
had been pro-
a reaction against the
papacy; and as in the Irish monasteries, not only
Greek
the Latin, but also the studied, so
it
more
had been
came about that from that
naturally
school issued a
fathers
original
and
free
development
of theology than Avas to be elsewhere found, and
was thence propagated
to other lands."
In the year 807 the Danes invaded Ireland.
They were
a fierce
and warlike people, and treated
the vanquished with horrid cruelty.
Themselves
worshippers of heathen gods, they considered religious
duty to exterminate the Christians.
it
a
For
two hundred years the Irish were engaged in deadly conflict with these savage hordes.
In the
beginning of the eleventh century the storm subsided.
There was a temporary calm.
two centuries of melancholy .•^
results.
civil
But already
war had produced
The
Wilson, Church of
their
great schools and colleges St.
Patrick, p. 59.
SAINT PATRICK,
214
had been plundered^ burned, and slaughtered
The churches were
or dispersed.
ruins and the flocks scattered.
many
cords and
their inmates
The
national re-
ancient documents deposited in
the monasteries had perished in the flames
bonds of society were loosened and
Though
prevailed.
from their ashes,
;
the
anarchy
social
learning and religion speedily
and schools and churches began
revived,
in
yet,
owing
to disunion
were
irregularities, the Irish
less able
to rise
and many
than before
to resist the insidious inroads of papal influence.
The Romish used
bishops of the Danes in Ireland
all their influence to
to adopt
Roman
induce the native Irish
Catholic doctrines and modes of
worship, and to acknowledge the authority of the
Roman
pontifi*.
When
pletely the early Irish ized
it is
Church had been disorgan-
by two centuries of
strange that
many
of
remembered how com-
its
civil war, it will
members proved unfaith-
ful to the old religion of their fathers,
the
new
doctrines of
Rome,
lately
Ireland by these foreign bishops.
Church
fell
not seem
away from her
and accepted brought into
Thus
the Irish
ancient faith, and before
a century had elapsed measures were taken to deprive her of her ancient independence.* ^-
Church of
St.
Patrick, pp. 60-67.
I
SAIXT PATRICK, The English invaded and took
No
Ireland in the year 1172.
215 possession of
sooner had
poj^e heard of the success of the
the
English expedi-
tion than he wrote to
King Henry
gratulation.
not (he wrote) without very
lively
'^It
sensations
is
of
a letter of con-
we have
that
satisfaction
made
learned of the expedition you have
in the
true spirit of a pious king against the nation of
the Trishj and of the magnificent and astonishing
triumph over a realm into which the princes of
Rome
never pushed their army.
fident
hope
believe
it
serve but
in
Having a con-
the fervour of your devotion,
would be your
we
only to con-
desire, not
extend the privileges of the Church of
to
Horaey and, as in duty bound,
to establish
her juris-
diction where she has none at present; we, therefore,
earnestly exhort your Highness to preserve to us
the privileges belonging to St. Peter in that land.'^ It began to appear that there were really
churches in Ireland.
Rome, with its
the
strong
new
its
arm
papal machinery, to punish those
system, and
as the managers of
thing
into
churches and
One was
their
its its
its
who
Church of
Peter's pence,
refused to adopt
swarms of English monks affairs.
hands
paris^^hes.
the
two
—
They took every-
schools,
monasteries,
The government was on
SAINT PATRICK.
216
The invading king won
their side.
and the It
yoke on the clansmen.
chieftains placed the
was thenceforth a misfortune
Irish blood in his veins;
it
the chieftains,
have
for one to
was a crime
have a
to
love for the truly ancient Church in his heart. "
The
real origin
invasion under says,
''
The
Henry
11/^ *
the English
is
Of this
reign
mark
;
and what the pope regarded
first
teachers,
had never acknowledged any subjection
Home."
The
chiefs
Catholic
;
and
to the see
became zealous
The parliament was Roman were
as the
of their imperfect conversion, they
followed the doctrines of their
of
Hume
Irish had been imperfectly converted to
Christianity surest
of Irish popery
papists.
the bishops
appointed by the pope, and they had seats
all
in the national councils
;
the kings were all
'^
most
dearly beloved sons of the pope, devout sons of the Churcli,^^
whose
will
was
law and power was
supreme.
The
other was the Church
of Saint Patrick,
greatly changed indeed, both in form and doctrine,
but yet asserting her independence of Kome.
It
was a remnant saved from the general wreck.
It
endured severe persecution.
''
The Church of
the
native Irish was discountenanced and ignored by * Soames, Lat. Church;
p. 59.
SAINT PATRICK. Rome,
as well as
by England.
217
It consisted of the
old Irish clergy and inmates of the monasteries,
who had
not adopted the
language, and
who were
and compelled
rebels,
English manners or
therefore dealt with as
from the
to seek for support
charity or devotion of the people.
took refuge in foreign
Many
countries;'^
of these
others
lingered in places where they waited for the
of a better
dav.'''
Then
centuries later
great
Reformation.
Many
received the gospel anew,
It
still
dawn
came the
revived the old
spirit.
and entered into
the Reformed churches of England or of Scotland,
and
to our times there has
been a force of staunch
Protestants in Ireland, strongest in the northern counties, w^here Saint Patrick seems to
have laid
the most enduring foundations.
Strange reversals occur in history, and one of the strangest to
Rome
is,
that the Irish people, who
owed nothing
for their conversion to Christianity,
and
who struggled long against her pretensions, should now be reckoned among her most submissive adherents.
They once quoted
Saint Patrick against
her claims and customs, but
now
they associate
their devotion to Patrick with their devotion to
popery.
Once he was * Todd's
St.
their great protestant
Patrick, pp. 237-244.
and
SAINT PATRICK.
218
the father of their Church
;
now
they imagine that
he was a papist, and they acknowledge the father-
hood of the man whose toe
is
kissed in the Vatican.
Well she might,
Ireland hates England.
reason w^ere that the English king
her
fair
domains
to the
the Peter's pence.
Henry
if
the
II. sold
pope and forced her
to
pay
Before that time she might love
England and hate Rome
now
;
she has reversed her
affection.
gem of the sea Once the the home of scholars, the abode
Beautiful Ireland, resort of students,
of
nursery of orators, the light of
poetry, the
Europe, the voyager
isle
coasts,
by Rome, religion,
so
!
of saints
and he
!
Along thy shores the
pities thee,
now so
oppressed
darkened by the errors of a perverted
and he thinks what thou wouldst have
continued to be had the Church of Saint Patrick
never been overthrown
Upon no
other land did the darkness of the
Middle Ages more slowly yet more thickly
fall;
over none did ministering angels longer hover to witness the courage of those yield
;
in
who were
the last to
none was truth more completely crushed
beneath the foreign invader's foot; from none was Christian liberty more thoroughly banished
;
and
through none did superstition more boldly walk to
SAINT PATRICK.
219
banish God^s holy word, turn history into legends, erase the early records of an independent Church,
and overthrow the monuments of the ancient
faith.
In the course of centuries missionaries dwindled into
monks, earnest pastors into exacting
ancient schools into monasteries
the Bible upon
it fell
the mass and the
;
the pulpit with
back behind the altar set up for
waxen candle
;
the simple church
was overshadowed by the cathedral erected to saints,
priests,
;
shrines were
and devotion took the form of
penance and pilgrimage. feet of the so-called
Ireland was laid at the
Virgin Mary, on whose brow
was placed the crown that rightly belonged only
True, a small, hidden remnant remained,
Christ.
waiting for the Reformation. it
came.
faith
;
to
They accepted
when
Their sons nobly restored the ancient
their toil
now
is
to bring
Ireland back to
the Church of Saint Patrick, so far as
body of
it
Christ.
In that restoration
Erin's deliverance.
May Heaven
is
it
was the
the hope of
speed the day
!
CHAPTER
XIII.
LAST DAYS.
E
As
have wandered.
the
work was
than the man^ we have quite
He
him.
lost sight of
lived to see the Druids cast into
the shade.
They were no
behind the throne. others
greater
Some
grew sullen and
longer the power
them were converted;
of
So many of the
silent.
kings were at least nominally Christian that these
men
of the oaks dared not
missionaries. ests
They might
and cut the
lift
a
hand against the
steal into the
deep for-
mistletoe, but their barbarous rites
of sacrifice were ended.
The Druids had framed many and a reform was needed.
King Laogaire brought
men
wise
to
The
of the old laws, tradition
is,
that
together a council of nine
revise the laws
of the realm
and
adapt them to the principles of the gospel.
Three
and three bards are
said to
kings, three bishops
have
sat together in the
The bishops were
:
the most devout Saint Patrick,
The good Benignus and 220
work
the wise Cairnech
SAINT PATRICK,
221
Tlie kings were Laogaire, the Irish monarch,
A
prince in heraldry exactly skilled
With him was The
joined the ever-prndent Daire,
Was
famous Core, wide Munster's martial king,
Whose The
love for letters proved his love for peace;
bards, well versed in the antiquities,
Were
And
faithful
Dubtach and the sage Feargus,
Eosa, skille4 in foreign languages
These nine conned Erased the
Or
and the
o'er the annals
errors, the effects of fraud
the statutes and the histories.*
of the works said to have come from the
hands of
this
committee
" Patrick^s Law/'
the Cain PairaiCy or
is
Perhaps
time, but the greater part of
it it is
was begun in ridiculous
have come only from the monks of a
to
To him
a tract
is
all
The Three
the living
It
Habitations/' in the
now
his
enough
later age.f
often ascribed concerning the
present world, heaven and hell. tled "
laws,
ignorance, and by the test of truth
Made good
One
and the third
w^arlike king of Ulster;
is
aptly enti-
of which
first
dwell, and in one of the other
two every soul must abide
after death.
no reference
There
to purgatory.
* One ancient MS. bears the
title
is
It
makes
no proof that
of the Leabhar na
Huaidh-
chongabhala, a work into which we do not pretend to have dipped.
It
t Todd's
was highly approved by the three bards. St. Patrick,
pp. 483, 484.
SAINT PATRICK.
222
he wrote a word of the legend of
'^
nor has
it,
Loch Erne
later day.
any reference
to
Saint Patrick's Purgatory/' which
has become proverbial. island in
it
It seems that on a little
a monastery
When some
grew up
at a
of the inmates needed to
be punished, they w^ere sent to a cave near by to bring themselves into a better mood, or pilgrims
were there placed to do penance for their
sins.
It
was easy to imagine that through the gloomy cavern were seen the spirits of the unhappy, whose
penance had not been tales
sufficient
upon
earth.
Wild
were told about such visions in order to win
more money from those who were made that even Christians after death.
monks
To
must be
purified
had been
in the cave,
Owen went
An
thither
English
was de-
It
and there had
a sight of the flames of purgatory."^
w^hat he saw.
suffering
name of Patrick, which had
a charm for the Irish ear and heart.
knight named
by
give force to the superstition the
laid hold of the
clared that he
to believe
An
English
and shuddered at
monk
wrote a pre-
tended history of the place, and the gross imposture was supported for centuries
bishops
in
Donegal in order
people to Rome.
It
is
by the Anglo-Irish to bring
over the
a specimen of the lying
^ Camden, Britannia,
p. 1019.
SAINT PATRICK,
223
wonders fixed upon the popular Saint Patrick, and this
is tlie
He
foundation of his purgatory.
believed that to the dying
Lord was
me
saying,
man
that
This day shalt thou be with
The
in Paradise/^
held
''
is
true
is sufficient
that the sinner
brings
him
in Christ,
all
Patrick
St.
own but
his
sin
that
;
for the salvation of the sinner;
who
saved by the grace of God,
to a sense of his unbelief through faith
and not by
saved sinner
do
is
Church of
naturally ignorant of the true
God, and has nothing of Christ
Christian the
is
his
own works
;
that every
constrained by love to be holy and
the good he can, though he does not thereby
gain any merit
;
and that when the believer
dies he
passes immediately into glory.*
Great was the love of the people for the zealous missionary, so well and so widely known.
sands looked up to him as a father whose
been endured for their good. for power, for
his
for his
had
himself, not
They began
Lord.
when he must
die.
to count
They looked
uj)on
shorn head,t and thought of the crown of
* Wilson, Ch. of f
toils
nor for his own glory, had he lived, but
them and
the years
IS^ot for
Thou-
He
St.
Patrick, p. 77.
was often called the
Tailcend,
was a general custom of that age
"the shorn crown."
for the clergy to
It
be marked
224
SAINT PATRICK.
righteousness
of which
When
he
wont
M^as
speak.
to
may have
they saw his gray hairs^ they
thought^ as was said of another venerable man,
When
the snow on that mountain-top melts,
There
will be a great flood in this valley.
It appears that he
when the
worked on
his strength failed,
trodden
paths,
planted, plunge into
he ceased to travel along churches
the
visit
new
forests, enter
already
among wild warlike
tribes, call for lodgings at the castles of chiefs,
Only
to the last.
expose himself to perils by robbers and
murderers, search out the scattered sheep of
Master, found
and
set
them
new
new
churches, ordain
to feed the flock of
time came when he could not ride so
pastors
But
God.
liis
i\\Q
by day,
far
nor face the storm so bravely, nor so safely risk the cold, ^^rise
damp up
air of night.
Not
so early could he
at the voice of the bird ;" the silver cord
was loosening, the golden bowl breaking, Perhaps
by the tonsure. white cravat
now
it
meant
at first little
does with some clergymen.
the seventh century a weighty matter.
more than the
But
Then
the Irish tonsure was quite different from the
it
he
for
it
became
was found
Eoman.
in
tliat
In the
Irish the head was shorn on the front, from one ear over to the
other; in the
Roman
gument then was their example.
What
made
The
ar-
had Saint Patrick
for
the whole top was
that the Irish clergy
grave disputes about
bare.
trifles
!
SA INT PA TE ICK. was going
He
upon him. no wife
to sit
Old age was creeping
home.
to his long
had no
eartlily
way
of their pilgrimage; no
him beneath a roof
brothers in Ireland to invite
where he might take
morning be gone,
make
home, no family
by a hearthstone and talk of the
past scenes on the
sisters to
225
his last sleep,
to their surprise
soft the last
warm hands upon
his
brow
and on some and
Nor
to that
no
couch and press their as
it
grew cold and the ;
only spot that he could claim as his grave.
grief;
had he any
own was
title-deed
;
it
the
must
be granted in charity.
The that he
story
is,
must soon
that of Brigid, its
that a gentle voice whispered to rest
from his labours.
whose name
is
him
It
was
linked with his in
vast popularity, and given to thousands of Irish
children.
The legend runs
that she was
daughter of a bard and a beautiful captive,
'^
the
whom
her master had sent away, like Hagar, at the suggestion of his wife.
Born
in grief
and shame, she
was received and baptized along with her mother
by the
In vain would
disciples of Saint Patrick.
her father have taken her back and bestowed her in marriage
when her beauty and wisdom became
apparent.
She devoted herself
to
God and
the
poor, and went to live in an oak wood, formerly 15
SA INT PA TRICK,
226
consecrated to the false gods.
the
.
.
.
female monastery which
first
She founded Ireland
known, under the name of Kildare, the oak/' *
cell
had
of the
It can hardly be denied that in the time
of Patrick
some pious women caught the
a secluded
life.
Were
not for
it
lived at
Only
all.
winnowed from which assume
to
we should
this,
think that Brigid lived at a later age,
spirit of
if
indeed she
a few grains of wheat can be
of
bushels
the
Yet
be her history.
legends
chaffy it
is
barely
possible that, with tear-dewed hands, she embroid-
ered a shroud for the
should
body of Patrick when he
die.
The aged missionary could not
forget the
first
of earth which he had secured for his Lord.
spot
The
old barn, the Sabhal church, could not be deprived
of his since
first
love.
About
he had landed on
fifty its
years had passed
neighbouring shore.
Thither he went to die in the arms of the brethren,
who
there had their
struction
of youth. t
^ Montalembert,
Monks
fit was another Patrick,
He
home
for
study and the in-
Their spiritual father of of the West,
who
ii.
p. 393.
died at Glastonbury, in Wales.
seems to have been an abbot
at
in 850 from the fury of the Danes.
Armagh, and
to
have died
In later times he was con-
founded with his great namesake, and pilgrimages were made
by the Irish
to
Glastonbury on account of Saint Patrick.
SAINT PATRICK.
must have warned them against
ninety-six years
an abuse of devotion
name
He
of Jesus. that
believe
to study,
and preach
to go forth
to the
and entreated them ignorant tribes the
was not a monk.
monasteries
where the Lord dwelt. advised in later times^
think he
227
were
the
He
did not
chief places
Perhaps he said as another ^^
Go away from God,
if
you
only at a convent, and you will find
is
him wherever you labour
Such,
for him.^^
we
think,
would have been the counsel of Patrick.
When and a
he died the sad report went forth
in all the churches there
privilege
to
be at
his
What
was weeping.
funeral
!
afar,
The
clergy
gathered in large numbers to lay him in his grave.
We
give no credit to the legend that
Armagh
sharply disputed with Saul for his body, and that to settle the matter
oxen bidden to a place
was
father
to
now
was placed
in a cart,
and the
go whither they pleased, taking called Downpatrick.
When
to be buried the sons did not all
They
fools.
it
it
their
become
surely did not separate into armies,
fighting for his remains, until the oxen decided the case,
and then drop the
feud.
The simple
fact
seems to be that he was solemnly and honorably laid in a grave at
he had
first
Downpatrick, near the spot where
preached the gospel in Ireland.
SA INT PA TRICK.
228
The
early
have adored grave, that
Church of Saint Patrick seems not There was no virtue in
his relics.
it
ing upon
They
it.
reared no
lights ever burn-
monument over
To
which time could not destroy. no pilgrimages, thus favour as a patron
to
No
saint.
known upon that
their hearts; his
shrine was there for
Had
monument was
worthy of a good man,
No
land he
may
called
tradition,
is
fixed,
so
by the Annals of there any good
is
from earth on a Wednesday
of
is
That he was born, baptized
it.
framed to suit the
seventeenth
other
toil.
date of his death
reason to question
work
the
whatever age he may
in
Ulster, in the year 493,"^ nor
and
such been the
His name was written
he had done for Christ.
The
to gain his
grave would certainly have been better
in after centuries.
live, or
it
made
they
it
win merit or
the offerings of their penance. case, his
his
should become a sacred place of re-
Those Christians kept no
sort.
to
March
Roman
a mere
The
theories.
observed
is
is
^^
as
Saint
Patrick^s Day,^' but the day of his decease none
can determine. to seize
It
was a cunning
artifice
of
Rome
upon the names of eminent Christians and
claim them as her
^^
saints.'^
* Thus also ]Jssher, Anc. Irish
;
Even
the apostles
Cave, Scrip. Eccl.
SAINT PATRICK. and
were taken bv her
craft,
upon her calendar^
as if they
229
names enrolled
their
had been one in
faith
Nor was
this
with every Boniface and Gregory,
These
the worst.
^^saints^^
came
to be adored.
The
pope declared that they were worthy objects of general worship, and prayers were addressed to
them
Roman
captured by for
the people
Psalters he
is
to
Thus Patrick was
God.
as intercessors with
hands, and set up as an idol adore.
In one of the Irish
mentioned as
The
divine Saint Patrick,
The
first
And was
who
possessed
place in the Irish calendar, the guardian angel of the
And
this saint- worship
when
there was
is
isle.
not a folly of the past,
some excuse
for ignorance.
own
a sin of the present, and in our
land.
approved by the highest authorities of the
Church of
in America.
Saint
Patrick,
Patrick^^
apostle
of
Those who repeat
offer
these
Ireland,
advocate Patrick^^ tions
:
!
is
pray for us
even worse
" Glorious
The
!" ;
for in
Saint
It
is
Roman ^^
Saint
model of bishops, zeal,
example
of charity, glory of Ireland, instructor of protector,
is
^^The Litany
words:
profoundly humble, consumed with
ones, our powerful
It
little
our compassionate "
Novena
it
Patrick
to Saint
are these peti!
receive
my
SAINT PATRICK.
230
prayers, and accept the sentiments of gratitude and
veneration with which thee.
flock
.
!
.
O
.
my
all
filled
is
toward
shepherd of the Irish
charitable
who wouldst have
laid
lives to save one soul, take
of
heart
my
down
a thousand
soul and the souls
Christians under thy especial care, and pre-
serve us from the dreadful misfortunes of sin.
.
.
.
I most humbly recommend to thee this country [the United States], to thee while
To
which was so dear
on earth."*
rescue the true Patrick from the hands of
who
such Romanists,
man,
that
Avitli
is
work
a
insult
God by adoring a good If the
that needs to be done.
present attempt shall aid in such a result
shown that they have no
sort of claim to
if it
;
him
;
be if
the reader shall find evidence that he was a zealous missionary, that,
with
who sought
all his errors,
the greatest
men
to
win souls
to Christ,
and
he was nevertheless one of
of his age, and if anything shall
be found herein to kindle piety,
—the
effort
may
be
blessed.
The God of Joseph was
the
the one case he permitted a
God
of Patrick.
Hebrew youth
In
to be
* " The Golden Manual, being a Guide to Catholic devotion, &c.
With
the approbation of the Most Rev.
Archbishop of
New
York." 1853.
John Hughes,
SAINT PATIilCK. taken from
231
home, and sold into Egypt
liis
for a
great purpose; in the other, he had a wise design in 30 bringing
evil that a British
How
dark was his providence
younger days
goodness
in the event,
afterward
man borne
it
and yet how plain
his glory
He
dust: if so be there
^'
slave.
yoke in
and keepeth
upon him.
silence,
It his
be hope.
For the Lord
but though he cause
for a
youth.
He
mouth
putteth his
may
good
is
because he hath
He
cheek to him that smiteth him; he reproach.
in
read his
that he bear the
sitteth alone
them
to
Each was a
!
to each of
Plow hard then
!
lad
and sold into Ireland.
stolen from his parents
was
his
good out of
is
in the
giveth his filled
with
will not cast off for ever
grief,
yet w411 he have com-
passion according to the multitude of his mercies.^^'^
Each of
these
bondsmen
in a foreign land
dreamer of such dreams as God sent toward a people.
Joseph
is
for
good
led to provide abun-
dant stores of corn for a time of famine is
was a
—Patrick
led to bear the bread of eternal life to a people
famishing in
sin.
Each
sees the mysteries of
open with mercies, and can thank him
ways wdiich were higher than thouo;:hts
which
w^ere
his \vays,
for
iii.
27-32.
the
and the
above his thout^hts.
* Lamentations
God
This
SAINT PATRICK.
232
may have
parallel
mind of
struck the
Patrick^ and
possible that he once used such words as are
it is
put into his mouth by one of his biographers
am
'^ :
I
here by the same Providence that sent Joseph
Egypt
into
to
save the lives of his father and
brethren/^ Still farther
may we compare them.
and thus Avon the favour of
faithful to his master^
who had
those it
the
command
seems to have been
Joseph was
w^ith
lesson should not be lost.
Thus
of his services.
young Patrick.
Such a
Those who may be under
the bidding of severe and exacting employers
by being
gain their confidence
them
qualifies
for
a good
faithful.
influence.
God may
his ear
after
;
;
Patriek^s prayer
never has he turned away
day,
amid sunshine and
in stormiest
never was he slumbering when the seeker
God
dawn.
be
from the voice of the penitent, crying to
him night and days
may
be glorified.
The Lord who heard young has never grown weary
This
Character
speaks; the light shines; hardest hearts touched^ and
may
rose
up
to plead with
him
before the
Thus Patrick sought the Lord amid the
rains and snows and darkness
gracious Redeemer.
Is any so devout ?
Is
;
he found the ever-
anyone now
Patrick,
God
is
so earnest?
waiting for
SAINT PATRICK. The young
the voice of prayer.
a covenant-keeping God. parents, to
To
233
exile
found him
be born of Christian
have been dedicated
Lord
the
to
infancy, to be the child of prayers and tears,
great
Such
privilege.
lineage.
one
a
is
a
has the noblest
Let every one thus favoured think of the
obligations that rest
inherited by birth
But grace
upon him.
is
who
is
his sins, repent,
made
grace of the covenant his parents
and
and consecrated
their to
He
good, between
for his
Who
him.
knows but
Lord granted
Who
sake of that covenant
and accept the
God, when he was baptized
virtue of the sign the
things signified?
is
a presbyter.
that succession Patrick could not depend.
must remember
not
—not even from a father who
a deacon, and a grandfather
On
in
knows but
to
that in
him the
that for the
God remembered him
in a
strange land, turned the iron furnace into a school
of prayer and piety, blessed
ance of his soul from
and restored him
knows but
to
him with
sin, led
his
the deliver-
him out of bondage
father's
house
?
Who
that his father and mother had often
besought the Lord to make their son a preacher of the gospel, like his grandfather? in
Perhaps
it
was
answer to their prayers that Patrick became a
missionary, so eminent in his day that he stands
SAINT PATRICK.
234
forth as the type of a class of Christian heroes,
plunged into deep
who
and triumphed over the
forests
forces of barbarism.
What
kindles the missionary spirit
young men
will induce
salvation of the pagan
Patrick to devote his
God and
felt in his
with his eyes.
his
hills,
God,
What
world
life to
the
effort for
heart
Think
of
the
Just what led
?
work
— the love of The
the sad condition of the heathen.
one he had
on the
make an
to
What now
?
—the other he had seen him tending the
flocks
where he met not a man who knew of
his
gospel, his heaven or his eternity.
a moral desert
Savage
!
were ever
chiefs
plotting war, and degraded clansmen rushing to
Barbarous revels were heard
the fray. castles,
forests.
and the howling of the Druids Robbers were the freemen
to sicken
every child
;
heathen of Ireland, and no
man
duty to the pagan world unless he a like compassion.
land
;
You
the picture of
Christian magazine.
its
need not
pitied the
will ever is
He
do his
touched with
visit the
heathen
may come
in the next
hour's study
may waken
woes
An
slave.
He
his heart.
the
in the oaken
might be carried away and sold as a
saw enough
in
the pity that will kindle the spirit to lend the
needed
aid.
Patrick went himself.
A
world of
SAINT PATRICK. work was
The mode
before him.
was simple; the courage
But he
pitied
235
of boginuing
to begin at all
men^ he prayed
to
was sublime.
God, he went
everywhere preaching the Word, with love ners and an enthusiasm for Christ.
was a harder
a nobler missionary than Patrick.^^
was such a
We first
civilizing
surely
may
power
to sin-
There never
There never was
''
field for labour.
it
There never
as Christianity.
man who
think of Patrick as a
entered Ireland as a slave, but
who
died in
Xo
it
a victor.
Erin never knew his
name was
ever so stamped upon that island and
her people.
man we ;
It
expect
compliment
him
to
answer
mother who gives
more
real
honour
Patrick than
his
him by
is
it
upon
it.
to
the
rendered in
It
is
Irish-
Ireland's
The
her son bestows
memory
all the
of
Saint
prayers offered
the multitude of people who. sw^ear
name and hold him
would
to
other
to her greatest Christian teacher.
Irish
to
synonym of an
the very
is
like.
as a guardian saint.
restore his character,
by
We
and remember him
as
man who was fired with the missionary spirit who braved the seas in his little boat and landed a
among to
strangers
offer
heaven
;
to
;
who walked up from
the barbarians
the
who gathered about him
the shore
greatest
a
gift
little circle
of of
SAINT PA TRICK,
236 listeners,
and moulded them into
men;
different
who overthrew
great idolatries, and raised the true
cross of Jesus
where had stood the
altars of the
He
stood before
His sphere enlarged.
Druids.
he travelled through the counties.
courts;
dictated reforms to the
He
monarch on the throne, and
sought liberty for the menial beneath the thatch.
He
set
on foot a system of schools, in which were
reared kings for the crown, ministers for the State,
Christian bards to
men
a nation's songs, and wise
frame her laws, pastors for the gathering
to
flocks
make
and missionaries
to foreign
lands.
In no
small degree he changed the State and reared the
He
Church.
put in motion the forces of a Chris-
tian civilization,
no doubt taking up the measures
which the Culdees had introduced before him, fusing a
new
spirit into their system,
out of their secluded
cells
in-
and bringing
the light that was meant
to shine forth into the broad world.
In such a man we ought
Not
faultless,
;
much
to imitate.
not free from certain errors of his age,
not a Paul of the nineteenth
to find
first
century, not a Judson of the
yet he shared largely in the traits of
an apostle and the devotion of a missionary.
To
preach Christ to the heathen was his great idea and purpose.
With him
the gospel
was not simply a
SAINT PA TRICK, revelation of God's love
which he could accept into
to himself;
not a gift
for himself alone,
some remote corner
was a proclamation.
237
It
to study
retreat
and cherish
was something and
and
to be
;
it
pub-
to be
urged upon
the dullest ear and the hardest heart.
He would
lished, to be told everywhere,
be
its
herald, giving
it
forth to all
men with a
generous hand.
To live for Christ, as he thought, was not to be a monk it was to be a missionary. This was his ;
character.
We
doubt whether there was one other
missionary in the
fifth
century
who was
his equal
one other so unresting, so ardent, so enthusiastic for souls, so stout in
to
lift
up
rough
trials,
his voice in wilds
Jesus had never been uttered.
and so anxious
where the name of
We
doubt whether
man in that of young men with
the example of any other
more
to fire the hearts
was the burning
sionary spirit.
It
Irish Church.
When
age did the mis-
coal in the
he was gone, an host of
messengers arose, not to light a torch at the king's flame,
and run over the
hills
with
^'
the fiery cross'^
of the Druids, but to touch Patrick's burning coal
with their
lips,
and hasten
Christ to the perishing.
afar with the
name of
Despite the tendency in
Irishmen to become monks, no other land
in that
SAINT PATRICK.
238
age sent forth more missionaries. excelled pel.
Rome
in the
Ireland tlien
work of publishing
Hear one of them of the ninth
Claude Clement, who
is
the goscentury,
said to have founded the
University of Paris under Charlemagne, and then
He
gone into Northern Italy.
came
says
:
"
When
I
to Turin, I found all the churches full of
abominations and images
and because I began
;
to
destroy what every one adored, every one began to
open his mouth against me. not believe there
is
say,
'
We
do
anything divine in the image
we only
reverence
whom
represents.^
it
They
it
in
honour of the individual
I answer, If they
who
liave
quitted the worship of devils, honour the images
of saints, they have not forsaken idols
only changed their names
upon a wall the
;
for
whether you paint
pictures of St. Peter or St. Paul,
or those of Jupiter
or
Mercury, they are
neither gods, nor apostles, nor men.
changed
:
—they have now
The name
the error continues the same.
is
... If
the cross of Christ ought to be adored because he
was nailed
to
it,
for the
same reason we ought
to
adore mangers, because he was laid in one; and swaddling-clothes,
them. to bear
because he
AVe are not ordered it,
was wrapped
in
to adore the cross, b;ut
and denv ourselves.
Shall
we
not be-
SAINT PATRICK, lieve
God when he
239
swears that neither Noah, nor
Daniel, nor Job shall deliver son or daughter by their righteousness
for this
end he makes the de-
none might put confidence in the
claration, that
intercession of
zealous
;
This learned and
the saints/^*
man may have
imitated Saint Patrick, but
He
he did not worship him. churches of Piedmont the
swept out of the
Roman
novelties,
and
aided the ancient Waldenses in bringing the people
back to the old religion of apostolic days.
A late
Roman
Catholic author, ashamed of the
puerilities of Joceline,
and yet anxious
to set forth
Patrick as the " patron Saint of the Emerald Isle/^ if
not of
all
America, says of him, in about the
best passage of his book
much more arduous
to
He
found
it
a task
reform the heart and root
out paganism and vice,
and long habits
'' :
when
fortified
by custom
but his constant application to
;
the great work, his patience, his humility and invincible courage, conquered all opposition.
Divine
Providence .... endued this champion of the gospel with all the natural qualities quisite for the functions of
which were
an apostle.
re-
His genius
was sublime and capable of the greatest designs his heart fearless
;
his charity
was not confined to
* Uglier, Religion Anc. Irish.
SAINT PATRICK,
240
words and thoughts, but shone out
and extended
actions^
whom
neighbours^ to
itself to
In
works and
the service of his
he carried the light of the
gospel/^ "^
We
harmony with the
close in
who
believe
God^ and who may condescend
to look
of the Confession
and
fear
" I
final sentence
into this writing,
:
pray those
which Patrick the sinner, an un-
learned man, wrote in Hibernia, if I have done or established
any
that not a
man
norance did
it
believed that
it
* Life of
St.
little
thing according to G*d^s will,
of them will ever say that ;
but think ye and
was the
gift of
Patrick, published
THE END.
let it
my
ig-
be verily
God/^ by Murphy, 1861.
