h 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
title 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 wa