Ireland, so near the coast of Britain, and so full of warriors,
wizards, and idolatrous agencies and objects, was well known to the
churches of Britain, and without doubt often occupied their
thoughts and enlisted their supplications. The Romans never
attempted its conquest; and it is probable that the Christian
Britons were deterred from adequate efforts to secure the
conversion of a savage people outside the protection of the Roman
legions. That they made the attempt, however, more than once, in
some form, their invincible zeal and historical facts assure us.
St. Patrick was brought up in a Christian family in Britain, where
he was born, and the truth which saved him when a youthful slave in
pagan Ireland was taught him in the godly home of Deacon
Calpurnius, his father, and in the church of which he was a member
and officer. When he escaped from slavery and re-turned to his
home, and once more enjoyed Christian society his believing
experience was greatly enlarged, and his reliance upon Christ
strengthened; and soon he was persuaded that he must become a
missionary to the Irish. His family, while probably approving of
his zeal, was alarmed at the prospect before him. Slemish, the
mountain, with its swine, guarding which he spent six dreary years,
in snow, in drenching rain, in rags, and in pinching hunger, by day
and by night, reared its rugged sides and black summit before them
in horror. And still more fatal dangers were presented to their
imaginations, and full of fears for his safety, they entreated him
to stay with them. They offered him gifts; and when these and
pressing appeals failed, they resorted to threatenings and
imprisonment; and as Patrick in his "Confession" calls himself a
"fugitive," it is supposed that the resolute young Briton had to
fly from his home to enter upon his great work of saving Ireland.
This was the spirit of many saints who carried the gospel over
Britain until its people were converted, and probably of several
others who proclaimed the glad tidings in Ireland.
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