ARMAGH AND ST. PATRICK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 166, 15 June 1936, Page 7

ARMAGH AND ST. PATRICK.

THE SAINT’S EARLY HISTORY. It is generally admitted bv historical scholars that Armagh was founded by St. Patrick in the fifth century. The date now agreed upon is the year A.D. 444. As compared with most churches of Western Europe, that is an immense antiquity. It is possible to know what sort of man St. Patrick was, and the principal events of his life, because two writings of his, his “Confession” and his “Letter,” have come down to us. These are admitted as genuine bv all authorities. The xtudv of these little documents should make all Irishmen, no matter what Church they belong to, love and admire the national saint, writes Dr. C. E. D’Arcy. Primate of All Ireland, in a Sydney journal. St. Patrick tvas not an Irishman, tie was a native of Britain, but of Britain as it was before the Saxon conquest. His father was Calpurnius, a deacon m the Church, and a Decurion, that is a town councillor. His grandfather was Potitus, a Presbyter. They were people of some property. One day a raid from Ireland carried away a great- number of young people into slavery. Patrick became a slave in Ireland, and there his old teaching came back to him, and he prayed very earnestly. And, after six years, he escaped in a ship which lie sought pud whose owners allowed him to join them. He was 16 years old when carried into activity, and therefore -2 at the time of his escape. . It is clear that he got some teaching, for he was ordained and returned to his family. But there came to him the earnest desire to go to Ireland to spread the Gospel, and he seemed to hear the people of Ireland calling him. He does not tel] how lie became ordained as a missionary bishop, hut it was in that capacity that he returned to Ireland, and his work there proved wonderfullv successful. . Then some men of learning, who, it appears, had fled from Gaul, r l7 c ( n out bv tlie cruel Huns, attacked Patrick say in" he was an ignorant man and’quite unfit for the work he was doing It was to answer this charge that he wrote his “Confession.” Now the only answer he gave was a frank admission that he was not a learned man but that the rail had come to him’ from God, and that God had Messed his work. He appealed to no other authority. He chose Armagh, as the centre of his labours, and built his church on its hilltop, where the cathedral stands today.