"I imagined that I heard in my mind the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is near the western sea, and thus they cried: We pray thee, holy youth to come and walk again amongst us. 'a3 before?"
That story of the call to St. Patrick to return to Ireland for jhe Purpose of weaning it to the Roman Catholic Church is probably no} more authoritative than many of] the other tales that are told of the patron saint whose memory is) celebrated to-day. For there is) much of tradition which surrounds the personality of St, Patrick and not too much of what might be unreservedly accepted as historical~ ly correct. St. Patrick lived at time and in a country where records received no very great attention, and many of the stories which are now extant about him must have been passed round by word of mouth and lost nothing in [the transmission, Nevertheless there is left the picture of the small lad, probably educated as a Christian in England, carried off by some Irish marauders, to spend six years of captivity herding sheep for his captors. During that time he is said to have become subject to religious emotion during which he saw visions which prompted him to make his escape into Gaul, and thereafter to spend some years in a monastery at Lerins to ft him for the great work which he was subsequently to do in Ireland. There was Christianity already in that country, but it was so involved in heresy that Rome decided to send emissaries to root it out and bring the Church in Ireland back to the Mother Church.
Patrick did not at first receive the appointment, muck: to his dissatisfaction, but ultimately he did. His task not easy for on the one hand he was struggling with Pelagianism within his own church, and with the hostilities of the Druids outside it. There are stories or Patrick challenging the royal prerogatives of one of the +mall ings, of trials of slcill between himself and the Druids, not unlike that between Elijah and the priests of Baal, and of his having thrown th down idols in some miraculous manner. But all these thingy are probably apocryphal accretions to the memory of an ardent and saintly churchman who served its cause with a whole-souled and effective devotion. If the writings which are, said to be his are indeed his work, then it is clear that the enemies who accused him of illiteracy had more than a little Justifeation, deed the writer, whoever he was, admitted that failing in addition to betraying it in the crudities of his style. No malter how that may be there still remains sufficient known about the man to form the estimate of his character that he was of an intensely spiritual nature, a strong. man of action and endowed with that enthusiasm which enabled him to surmount all difficulties, His. importance to the history of Ireland and the Irish Church arose from the fact that he brought Ireland into touch with western Europe and Rome, and that he introduced Latin into Ireland as the language of the Church. His work consisted in organizing the Christian societies which he found already in existence, and in planting the faith in districts such as the extreme west of Connaught which had not then come under the sway of the Gospel.
Whether the patron saint cast all reptiles out of Ireland or not is entirely beside the point in considering the worth of the man. Those who believe that he did can point to the fact that no such creatures exist on the island, though the sceptic will hesitate to accept that as proof of the old legend. Tt will be noticed that St. Paltick, unlike some of the other patron saints in the world actually worked In the country which accepted him for its own. He was not a native of Ireland, but the mere accident jeoneerning the place of his birth measures as little against the stature of the saint. That he died at Saul whence he retired at the end of an active life, seems to be true, though speculation still exists concerning the place of his burial, a matter of dispute in early Irish, times. Taking into consideration the general trend of Irish history some may pardonably remark that the aalnt rendered the country the greatest service by giving them this
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.