ST. PATRICK AND THE IRISH CHURCH.

Waikato Times, Volume 2620, Issue XXXII, 27 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

ST. PATRICK AND THE IRISH CHURCH.

Till", reader of Church history cannot do belter than follow- the example of tho learned Roman Catholic Church historian, Tillnmont, of Port Royal, and accept only the account of this great missionary given byS. Patrick himself. 'Ne voyaut rein do certain dans les vies de Saint Patrice nous almons inieux nous contenter d'un 6orit qu'on appelle sa Confession qu'on croit litre de lui meme et qui vferitablement enestdigne.' (Tiliomont, Hist. Eccl. vol. xvi. p, 732 ) In his Coufoicdoß S. Patrick gives an interesting accouut of his life, entirely free from tho apocryphal miracles with which later writer*, in a dark age, havo crowded his pages. He begins: 'I, Patrick, a sinner, had for my father Colpurnius, a Deacon, and for my grandfather Potit'is, a Priest.' His birthplace has been identified with Kirkpatriek, in Scotland, between Dumbarton and Glasgow. He therefore belonged to tho ancient British Church. Ho describes his capture by Iri-h slave dealers, who ravaged tho coasts of Great Britain at that time' When made capture I was scarcely sixteon years of age, but I was ignorant of God, and therefore it was that I was led captivo into Ireland among so many thousands. . . . Often on wintry iiipht* I wandered as a shepherd on the mountains of Ireland.'

After a time he was delivered from his oaptivity and was able to return to his parents in Britain. He had resolved, however, during his hard life as a slave in the north of Ireland, to become a miflsionary to his oppressors. He says ■ — 1 After a few years I was again with my parents in Britain, who received me affectionately, and entreated me to stay with them, and leave them no more, after all the tribulations I had suffered. But lo ! that very night I saw in a vision a man coming, aa if from Ireland, by name Victorious, with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them to read, at the head of which was written "The Voice of the Irish" ; and as I read, I thought at the same moment I heard the voice of those who dwell in the wood of Foehid, near the Western Ocean, crying as though with one mouth, and saying, " We beseech thee, holy youth, come and

walk still among us.". . . . God be praised, who many years afterwards rendered to th am according to their cry. (I'dfricii Confe-ssio.

Before returning to Ireland he spent fifteen yeara in France; the Church of that country being then closely connected with that of Britain, both being probably of Eastern origin, and, though Irenioua of Lyons, connected with the Church of Ephesus and S. John. Bishop Wordsworth says "He received the holy orders of Deacon, Priest, and Bishop, aud, in the year of our Lord 43'2, he returnee to Ireland. There he spent the residue of his life, a period of sixty years." It has besn stated that S. Patrick went to Rome, and received episcopal conseoration from Pope Celestine, but there nre many difficulties in the way of this assertion. It is of comparatively lato date, being first made in the ninth century. In S. Patrick's Confession there is not the slightest allusion to liomo or the Roman Bishop, and, as tho Roman Catholic Tillemont has said, wo can rely on this work only. It iB scarcely crodible that if S. Patrick had been at Rome, and received consecration there, he should make no mention of the fact in his autobiographical memoir addressed, as a lust gift, to his converts. Bede, in his history, refers frequently to the disputes between the Churches of Rome and Ireland in early days—his own sympathies being on the Roman side, yet he never claims S. Patrick, never even mentions his name. Ur Neauder (vol. iii. p. 17o)nays:—' If Patrick came to Ireland as a doputy from Rome, it might have been expected that in the Irish Church a certain Bense of dependence would always havo beon preserved towards tho mother Church of Rome; but wo find, on the contrary, in the Irish Church afterwards a spirit of Church freedom similar to that shown by the aucient British Church, which struggled against the yoke of Roman ordinances. Wo find, subsequently, atuong the Irish a much greater agreement with the ancient British than with Roman ecclesiastical usages. This goes to prove that the origin of the Irish Church was independent of Rome.'—K., Church News.