Part 7 (2/2)

”I had not believed in the living Divine from childhood, but had remained in the realm of death until hunger and nakedness and daily slavery in Ireland--for I came there as a captive--had so afflicted me that I almost broke down. Yet these things brought good, for through that daily suffering I was so changed that I work and toil now for the well-being of others, I who formerly took no care even for myself....

”Therefore I thank Him who kept me faithful in the day of trial, that I live to offer myself daily as a living offering to Him who saves and guards me. Well may I say, 'Master, what am I, what is my calling, that such grace and divine help are given to me--that I am every day raised to greater power among these unbelievers, while I everywhere praise thy name? Whatever comes to me, whether happiness or misery, whether good or evil fortune, I hold it all the same; giving Thee equal thanks for it, because Thou hast unveiled for me the One, sure and unchanging, in whom I may for ever believe. So that in these latter days, even though I am ignorant, I may dare to undertake so righteous a work, and so wonderful, that makes me like those who, according to His promise, should carry His message to all people before the end of the world.

”It were long in whole or even in part to tell of my labours, or how the all-powerful One many times set me free from bondage, and from twelve perils wherein my life was in danger, and from nameless pitfalls. It were ill to try the reader too far, when I have within me the Author himself, who knows all things even before they happen, as He knows me, His poor disciple. The voice that so often guides me is divine; and thence it is that wisdom has come to me, who had no wisdom, knowing not Him, nor the number of my days: thence comes my knowledge and heart's joy in His great and healing gift, for the sake of which I willingly left my home and kindred, though they offered me many gifts with tears and sorrow.

”Many of the older people also disapproved, but through divine help I would not give way. It was no grace of mine, but the divine power in me that stood out against all, so that I came to bear the Message here among the people of Ireland, suffering the scorn of those who believed not, and bearing derision and many persecutions, and even chains. Nay, I even lost my patrician rank for the good of others. But if I be worthy to do something for the Divine, I am ready with all my heart to yield service, even to the death, since it has been permitted that through me many might be reborn to the divine, and that others might be appointed to teach them....

”The people of Ireland, who formerly had only their idols and pagan ritual, not knowing the Master, have now become His children. The sons of the Scoti and their kings' daughters are now become sons of the Master and handmaidens of the Anointed. And one n.o.bly born lady among them, a beautiful woman whom I baptized myself, came soon after to tell me that she was divinely admonished to live in maidenhood, drawing nearer to Him. Six days later she entered the grade that all the handmaidens of the Anointed desire, though their fathers and mothers would hinder them, reproaching and afflicting them; nevertheless, they grow in number, so that I know not how many they are, besides widows and continent women, who suffer most from those who hold them in bondage.

Yet they stand firm, and G.o.d grants grace to many of them worthily to follow Him.

”Therefore I might even leave them, to go among the Britons,--for willingly would I see my own kindred and my native land again, or even go as far as Gaul to visit my brothers, and see the faces of my Master's holy men. But I am bound in the Spirit, and would be unfaithful if I went. Nor would I willingly risk the fruit of all my work. Yet it is not I who decide, but the Master, who bid me come hither, to spend my whole life in serving, as indeed I think I shall....

”Therefore I should ever thank Him who was so tolerant of my ignorance and sluggishness, so many times; treating me not in anger but as a fellow-worker, though I was slow to learn the work set for me by the Spirit. He pitied me amongst many thousands, for he saw that I was very willing, but did net know how to offer my testimony. For they all opposed my mission, and talked behind my back, saying, 'He wishes to risk his life among enemies who know nothing of the Master'; not speaking maliciously, but opposing me because I was so ignorant. Nor did I myself at once perceive the power that was in me....

”Thus simply, brothers and fellow-workers for the Master, who with me have believed, I have told you how it happened that I preached and still preach, to strengthen and confirm you in aspiration, hoping that we may all rise yet higher. Let that be my reward, as 'the wise son is the glory of his father.' You know, and the Master knows, how from my youth I have lived among you, in aspiration and truth and with single heart; that I have declared the faith to those among whom I dwell, and still declare it. The Master knows that I have deceived no man in anything, nor ever shall, for His sake and His people's. Nor shall I ever arouse uncharity in them or in any, lest His name should be spoken evil of....

”I have striven in my poor way to help my brothers and the handmaidens of the Anointed, and the holy women who often volunteered to give me presents and to lay their jewels on my altar; but these I always gave back to them, even though they were hurt by it; and I have so lived my life, for the hope of the life eternal, that none may find the least cause of offence in my ministry; that my least act might not tarnish my good name, so that unbelievers might speak evil of me....

”If I have asked of any as much as the value of a shoe, tell me. I will repay it and more. I rather spent my own wealth on you and among you, wherever I went, for your sakes, through many dangers, to regions where no believer had ever come to baptize, to ordain teachers or to confirm the flock. With the divine help I very willingly and lovingly paid all.

Sometimes I gave presents to the kings,--in giving presents to their sons who convoyed us, to guard us against being taken captive. Once they sought to kill me, but my time was not yet come. But they took away all we possessed, and kept me bound, till the Master liberated me on the fourteenth day, and all our goods were given back, because of the Master and of those who convoyed us. You yourselves know what gifts I gave to those who administer the law through the districts I visited oftenest. I think I spent not less than the fine of fifteen men among them, in order that I might come among you. Nor do I regret it, nor count it enough, for I still spend, and shall ever spend, happy if the Master allows me to spend my soul for you....For I know certainly that poverty and plain living are better for me than riches and luxury. The Anointed our Master was poor for us. I am poorer still, for I could not have wealth if I wished it. Nor do I now judge myself, for I look forward daily to a violent death, or to be taken captive and sold into slavery, or some like end. But I fear none of these ...but let me not lose the flock I feed for Him, here in the uttermost parts of the earth....

”I am willing for His sake to shed my blood, to go without burial, even though my body be torn by dogs and wild beasts and the fowls of the air; for I know that thus I should through my body enrich my soul. And I know that in that day we shall arise in the brightness of the sun, in the glory of the Anointed Master, as sons of the divine and co-heirs with Him, made in His likeness. For the sun we see rises daily by divine ordinance; but it is not ordained to rise for ever, nor shall its light last for ever. The sun of this world shall fade, with those that wors.h.i.+p it; but we bow to the spiritual Sun, the Anointed, that shall never perish, nor they who do His will, but shall endure for ever like the Anointed himself, who reigns with the Father and the Divine Spirit now and ever....

”This I beg, that no believer or servant of the Master, who reads or receives this writing, which I, Patricius, a sinner and very unlearned, wrote in Ireland,--I beg that none may say that whatever is good in it was dictated by my ignorance, but rather that it came from Him. This is my Confession, before I die.”

That is the story of the most vital event in the life of Ireland, in the words of the man who was chiefly instrumental in bringing it about.

Though an unskilled writer, as he says himself he has nevertheless succeeded in breathing into every part of his epistle the power and greatness of his soul, the sense and vivid reality of the divine breath which stirred in him and transformed him, the spiritual power, humane and universal, which enkindled him from within; these are the words of a man who had first-hand knowledge of the things of our deeper life; not a mere servant of tradition, living on the words and convictions of other men. He has drawn in large and universal outline the death to egotism--reached in his case through hunger, nakedness and slavery--and the new birth from above, the divine Soul enkindling the inner man, and wakening him to new powers and a knowledge of his genius and immortal destiny.

Not less vivid is the sense he conveyed, of the world in which he moved; the feeling of his dignity as a Roman Patrician, having a share of the greatness of empire; the sense of a dividing-line between the Christian realms of Rome and the outer barbarians yet in darkness. Yet the picture he gives of these outer realms is as certainly true. There are the rival chieftains, each with his own tribe and his own fort, and bearing the t.i.tle of king. They are perpetually striving among themselves, so that from the province of one he must move to the province of another with an escort, led by the king's son, who receives gifts in return for this protection. This is the world of Concobar and Cuculain; of Find and Ossin, as they themselves have painted it.

The world of Find and Ossin, of Cael and Crede, was marked by a certain urbanity and freedom, a large-mindedness and imaginative power. We are therefore prepared to expect that the Messenger of the new life would be received with openness of mind, and allowed to deliver his message without any very violent opposition. It was the meeting of unarmed moral power and armed valor; and the victory of the apostle was a victory of spiritual force, of character, of large-heartedness; the man himself was the embodiment of his message, and through his forceful genius his message was effective. He visibly represented the New Way; the way of the humane and the divine, transforming the destructive instinct of self-a.s.sertion. He visibly represented the divine and the immortal in us, the new birth from above.

Yet there were tragedies in his apostolate. In another letter a very vivid and pathetic account is given of one of these. Coroticus, a chieftain of Britain, and therefore nominally a Christian and a citizen of Rome, had sent marauding bands to Ireland to capture slaves. Some of the new converts were taken captive by these slave-hunters, an outrage which drew forth an indignant protest from the great Messenger:

”My neophytes in their white robes, the baptismal chrism still wet and glistening on their foreheads, were taken captive with the sword by these murderers. The next day I sent letters begging them to liberate the baptized captives, but they answered my prayer with mocking laughter. I know not which I should mourn for more,--those who were slain, those who were taken prisoner, or those who in this were Satan's instruments, since these must suffer everlasting punishment in perdition.”

He appeals indignantly to the fellow-Christians of Coroticus in Britain: ”I pray you, all that are righteous and humble, to hold no converse with those who do these things. Eat not, drink not with them, accept no gifts from them, until they have repented and made atonement, setting free these newly-baptized handmaidens of Christ, for whom He died....

They seem to think we are not children of one Father!”

The work and mission of this great man grow daily better known. The scenes of each marked event are certainly identified. His early slavery, his time of probation, was spent in Antrim, on the hillside of Slieve Mish, and in the woods that then covered its flanks and valleys.

Wandering there with his flocks to the hill-top, he looked down over the green darkness of the woods, with the fertile open country stretching park-like beyond, to the coast eight miles away. From his lonely summit he could gaze over the silvery grayness of the sea, and trace on the distant horizon the headlands of his dear native land. The exile's heart must have ached to look at them, as he thought of his hunger and nakedness and toil. There in deep pity came home to him the fate of the weak ones of the earth, the vanquished, the afflicted, the losers in the race. Compa.s.sion showed him the better way, the way of sympathy and union, instead of contest and dominion. A firm and fixed purpose grew up within him to make the appeal of gentleness to the chiefs and rulers, in the name of Him who was all sympathy for the weak. Thus the inspiration of the Message awakened his soul to its immortal powers.

Later, returning with the clear purpose of his message formed, he began his great work not far from his first place of captivity. His strong personality led him always to the presence of the chiefs and warriors, and he talked to them freely as an equal, gradually giving them an insight into his own vision of life, of the kins.h.i.+p between soul and soul, of our immortal power and inheritance. He appealed always to his own inner knowledge of things divine, to the light and power unveiled within himself; and the commanding genius in his words lit a like fire in the hearts of those who heard, awakening an enthusiasm for the New Way. He had a constant sense of his divine mission:

”Was it without divine promise, or in the body only, that I came to Ireland? Who led me? Who took captive my soul, that I should no more see friends and kindred? Whence came my inspiration of pity for the race that had enslaved me?”

The memory of his first victories is perpetuated in the name, Downpatrick,--that is: the Dwelling of Patrick.--where Dicu son of Tricem, chief of the district, gave him a tract of land to build a place of meeting and prayer for his disciples; while the church was being built, the chief offered his barn as a meeting-place, an incident commemorated in the name of Saul, on a hill above the town,--a name softened from Sabal, ”a barn.” This first victory was won among the rounded hills south of the Quoyle River, where it widens toward Strangford Lough; from the hill-top of Saul there is a wide prospect over the reed-covered flats with the river winding among them, the hills with their oak-woods in the bends of the river, and the widening lough with its innumerable islands, its sand-flats lit up with red under the dawn. The sun sets among the mountains of Mourne, flus.h.i.+ng from behind the purple profile of the hills, and sending golden arrows over the rich fertility of the plain. The year 432 is the probable date of this first conversion.

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