abandoned the field, with his assistants for North Britain, where he died among the Picts.^48 For
nearly two centuries after this date, we have no authentic record of papal intercourse with Ireland;
and yet during that period it took its place among the Christian countries. It was converted by two
humble individuals, who probably never saw Rome, St. Patrick, once a slave, and St. Bridget, the
daughter of a slave-mother.^49 The Roman tradition that St. Patrick was sent by Pope Caelestine is
too late to have any claim upon our acceptance, and is set aside by the entire silence of St. Patrick
himself in his genuine works. It arose from confounding Patrick with Palladius. The Roman mission
of Palladius failed; the independent mission of Patrick succeeded. He is the true Apostle of Ireland,
and has impressed his memory in indelible characters upon the Irish race at home and abroad.
St. Patrick or Patricius (died March 17, 465 or 493) was the son of a deacon, and grandson
of a priest, as he confesses himself without an intimation of the unlawfulness of clerical marriages.^50
He was in his youth carried captive into Ireland, with many others, and served his master six years
as a shepherd. While tending his flock in the lonesome fields, the teachings of his childhood
awakened to new life in his heart without any particular external agency. He escaped to France or
Britain, was again enslaved for a short period, and had a remarkable dream, which decided his
calling. He saw a man, Victoricius, who handed him innumerable letters from Ireland, begging him
to come over and help them. He obeyed the divine monition, and devoted the remainder of his life
to the conversion of Ireland (from a.d. 440 to 493).^51
"I am," he says, "greatly a debtor to God, who has bestowed his grace so largely upon me,
that multitudes were born again to God through me. The Irish, who never had the knowledge of
God and worshipped only idols and unclean things, have lately become the people of the Lord, and
are called sons of God." He speaks of having baptized many thousands of men. Armagh seems to
have been for some time the centre of his missionary operations, and is to this day the seat of the
primacy of Ireland, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. He died in peace, and was buried in
Downpatrick (or Gabhul), where he began his mission, gained his first converts and spent his
declining years.^52
His Roman Catholic biographers have surrounded his life with marvelous achievements,
while some modern Protestant hypercritics have questioned even his existence, as there is no certain
mention of his name before 634; unless it be "the Hymn of St. Sechnall (Secundinus) in praise of
St. Patrick, which is assigned to 448. But if we accept his own writings, "there can be no reasonable
doubt" (we say with a Presbyterian historian of Ireland) "that he preached the gospel in Hibernia
(^48) He is said to have left in Ireland, when he withdrew, some relics of St. Peter and Paul, and a copy of the Old and New
Testaments, which the Pope had given him, together with the tablets on which he himself used to write. Haddan & Stubbs, p.
291.
(^49) Hence Montalembert says (II. 393): "The Christian faith dawned upon Ireland by means of two slaves." The slave-trade
between Ireland and England flourished for many centuries.
(^50) This fact is usually, omitted by Roman Catholic writers. Butler says simply: "His father was of a good family." Even
Montalembert conceals it by calling "the Gallo-Roman (?) Patrick, son of a relative of the great St. Martin of Tours" (II. 390).
He also repeats, without a shadow of proof, the legend that St. Patrick was consecrated and commissioned by Pope St. Celestine
(p. 391), though he admits that "legend and history have vied in taking possession of the life of St. Patrick."
(^51) The dates are merely conjectural. Haddan & Stubbs (p. 295) selecta. d.440 for St. Patrick’s mission (as did Tillemont
& Todd), and 493 as the year of his death. According to other accounts, his mission began much earlier, and lasted sixty years.
The alleged date of the foundation of Armagh isa. d.445.
(^52) Afterwards Armagh disputed the claims of Downpatrick See Killen I. 71-73.