egan his mission in
Ireland. He is generally considered to have been a native of North
Britain, who, at the age of sixteen, was taken prisoner by pirates, and
carried as a slave to Ireland. On regaining his liberty, he resolved
to devote his life to the conversion of the country of his captivity;
and having been consecrated Bishop, he returned to Ireland, and spent
fifty years as a missionary in that hitherto heathen land. At the time
of his death, A.D. 493, the Church was firmly rooted in Ireland, and
possessed a native priesthood and a native Episcopate.

[Sidenote: Late development of dioceses and parishes in Ireland.]

It may, however, be mentioned, that neither the diocesan nor the
parochial systems were developed in Ireland until a very late period,
whilst, from the very large number of Bishops existing there in early
times, we are led to infer that in Ireland, as before in the earliest
ages of the Church, each missionary was invested with episcopal powers,
and that the office of priest, separate from that of Bishop, was at
first almost unknown. Gradually there sprang up Cathedral chapters,
whose members acted as curates to the Bishop, and to this succeeded the
parochial system.

Section 3. _The Church of Scotland._

The CHURCH OF SCOTLAND may, perhaps, like the Church of England, trace
its foundation to the labours {76} of St. Paul, and seems to be
included in Tertullian's mention of the far-off limits to which
Christianity had reached in his days. [Sidenote: St. Ninian the first
authenticated missionary in Scotland.] Little is, however, known of
very early Church history in Scotland until the beginning of the fifth
century, when St. Ninian, who is said to have been the son of a British
chief, preached to the Southern Picts, A.D. 412-A.D. 432. We have
already seen that St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, was a Scotchman,
and the fruits of the benefits thus conferred on the one country were
reaped by the other in the next century, when St. Columba went from
Ireland and founded the celebrated monastery of Iona in one of the
isles of the Hebrides. [Sidenote: Intercourse between Irish and Scotch
Churches.] Iona, like the Irish monasteries of the same period, sent
out many missionaries, and the monks of the two countries appear to
have kept up friendly communications with each other.

Section 4. _Continental Churches._

The CHURCH OF ITALY, as we have already seen (pp. 42, 43), was founded
by the