SAINT PATRICK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 269, 27 March 1873, Page 8

SAINT PATRICK.

The following accout of St. Patrick may prove interesting : — The year of his birth is variously assigned to the years 377 and 387, of which the latter, if not even a later date, is more probable. Of the place, it is only known for certain, from his own confession, that his father had a small farm near Bonavem Tabernise ; and in one of the ancient lives he is said to have been born near Nemthur. Arguing on these data, connected with other collateral indictments, somo writers .assign his birthplace to the present Boulonge-sur-Mer ; others to a place in the estuary of the Clyde (called from him Kilpatrick) at or near the modern Dumbarton. His father, he himself tells, was a deacon named Calpurmis , his mother.*, according to the ancient biographers, was named Conches or Conchessa, according to these authorities, a sister of St. Martin of Tours. P.'s original name is said to have been Succath, Patricius being the Roman appellative, by which lie was known. In his sixteenth year he was seized, while at his father's farm of Bonavem Taherniae, by a band of pirates, and with a number of others was. carried to Ireland, and sold to a petty chief, in whose service he remained for six years : after which he succeeded in effecting his escape, and probably after, a second captivity, went to France, where he became a monk, first at Tours, afterwards in the celebrated monastery of Lerins. In the year 431 he went; to Rome, whence he was sent by the pope of the day, Celestine, to preach in Ireland; Palladius, who had- been sent as missionary to that country a short time before having died. Such is the received account of hia t mission ; but Dr. Todd, his biographer, regards this statement as erroneous, and fixes the date of his coming to Ireland eight years later. He was ordained in France, and arrived in Ireland in 432. His mission was eminently successful. He adopted the expedient of addressing himself first to the chiefs, and of improving, as far as possible, the spirit of clanship, and other existing usages of the Irish for the furtherance of his preaching ; nor can it be doubted that he had much success in Christianising the ancient Irish system of belief and of practice. By degrees he visited a large portion of the kingdom, and baptized great numbers as well of the chieftains as of the people. According

to the accounts of his Irish biographers, he founded 365 churches, and baptised with his own hand 12,000 persons. He is said also to have ordained a vast number of priests, and to have blessed very many monks and nuns. After he had been about twenty years engaged in his missionary enterprise, he jis said to have fixed his see at Armagh about the year 454 ; aud having procured two of his disciples to be ordained bishops, he held probably more than one synod, the decrees of which have been a subject of much controversy. He died at a place called Saul, near Downpatrick; and his relics were preserved at Downpatrick down to the period of the Reformation.