IRISH MISSIONARIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 271, 12 July 1878, Page 17

IRISH MISSIONARIES.

St. Patrick's bishops arid priests were so ardent in their zeal that they can id the light of the gospel into England, Scotland, Germany France, and even into Italy, regaining to the Church many of those people who had lost the faith on account of the incursions of barbarians, and the breaking up of the Roman Empire. These holy missionaries from Ireland are invoked as patron- saints in these countries. We have venerated their relics in cathedral churches, in monasteries, in rural parishes on the continent of Europe. We found St. Cataldus, the Apostle of Tarentuin, near Naples ; St. Sedulius famous for his fourteen books of commentaries on the Epistles of St' Paul ; St. Fridoliu, who instituted religious houses "in Alsace, Strasbourg, and Switzerland, and who is interred on an island in the Rhine, in a monastery built by himself ; St. Columbanus, the founder of the celebrated monastery of Bobbio, near Milan, in Luxan ; and Fontaine St. Gall, near Lake Constance, famous to the present time for its learned men and holy monks, the admiration of all travellers ' St. Fiacre, the Patron Saint of many churches in the diocese of Meaux and through Picardy, and whose relics are the objects of Pious pilgrimages to the present day ; St. Aidan, who preached the gospel to Northumbrians in England, and who was the first bishop of the See of Lindisfarne ; St. (Jolman, who preached the gospel to the Northern Saxons ,• St. Fursey, especially invoked in numerous chapels built by him near Paris ; St. Abrogast, Bishop of Strasbourg, buried on Mount Michael, where there was a monastery dedicated under his patronage ; Sb. Maidulphns, who established the famous school of 'lnglebome, now Malmsbury ; St. Cuthbert, son of an Irish Prince of Kells, in Meatli, Bishop of Lindisfarne, now invoked as an English saint ; St. Killiau' apostle of Franconia, and first Bishop of Wirtzburg, who gained the crown of martyrdom, like St. John for having reproached the incestuous adulteress, Goilana ,- St. Virgilius, Bishop of Fiesole, preacher of the gospel to the Etruaians ; St. Findin, Abbot of Richew, on the Rhine ; Sfc Buo and St. Ernulphus, who carried the Gospel to Iceland and founded a church under the patronage of St. Columba. We have mentioned enough of illustrious names of the Irish nation to show how they fulfilled their mission on the continent of Europe in early ages. — Archbishoj) Lyncli of Toronto.