ST. PATRICK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 56, 16 March 1943, Page 5

ST. PATRICK

PATRON SAINT OF IRELAND

TO-MORROW'S ANNIVERSARY

(E.M.H.) To-morrow, March 37. many people in New Zealand will be wearing a sprig of green, in honour of Saixitl Patrick. Not in New Zealand onJyr will this name be honoured, bu.tr throughout the world, where ever Irish people foregather. This man, who was one. of. the master missionaries of*al-1 time lived about fil'tcn hundred years ago— nine hundred years before the Chris-, tian Church Jbccame two parties. He had a very romantic boyhood, with thrillsf enough to satisfy the most modern of youth. From his home in South Wales hes was captured by pirates,, and sold into slaA-ery in Ireland. One who made a study of his life wrote "I look with reverent admiration upon his spare form and slightly stooping figure; I gaze long and intently into those flashing eyes In whic.li the fires of a quenchless enthusiasm seemed to be always burn.-* ing. Slavery in Ireland With hundreds of others, Patrick w&s, in his seventeenth year, carried away captive into Ireland. Within a few hours hundreds of young people from Bonnaventa and its neighbouring villages were taken on board ship. Most, of them were in tears. After a miserable voyage, the ship reached her destination, and the; prisoners were marched across tie country in chains. And there is Conn-aught, famished, exhausted, homesick, and utterly wretched, they were sold into bondage. For six years Patrick endured the unspeakable horrors of slavery. It wjLs while, he ate the bitter bread of. that hateful servitude in a foreign land that his spiritual awakening came. He thought of what had been taught in his old home l —things that there had seemed of little ac-i count to him. By means of these memories, he was led 'into definite Christian experience—or as he himself put it, he learned that Christ is life. Escape and 1 Dedication He had a sensational escape from slavery; then he travelled, on tiie Continent. And then lie decided to dedicate his life to the work of the ministry. For more than twenty years ha persistently contemplated a noble revenge. Although he could not think of Ireland without a shudder, he bravely resolved to return as a missionary to the. people who hod enslaved him. Youth passed away, and maturity and the silver had begun to creep into his hair, before the. day broke for which he yearned so long. At length he was made bishop over Ireland. His joy knew no bounds. Ireland- Evangelised Under his ministry Ireland was transformed by a great religious revival, and came to be distinguished throughout the whole world, by the extraordinary title of the Island of Saints. Every great movement takes to itself something of the personality of the man who leads it. It was incvitable that the Church that sprang up under the hand of St. Patrick should be marked by the most intense missionary fervour. Preaching from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey some time ago, Dr. J. B. Crozier declared that if justice were done St. Patrick would be recognised not only as the Apostle of Ireland, but as the Apostle of England, and of Scotland too.