The Life and Labors of St. Patrick

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.