cade was out Athanasius could write of Britain as notoriously
orthodox,[416] and before the century closes we have frequent
references to our island as a fully Christian and Catholic land.
Chrysostom speaks of its churches and its altars and "the power of
the Word" in its pulpits,[417] of its diligent study of Scripture and
Catholic doctrine,[418] of its acceptance of Catholic discipline,[419]
of its use of Catholic formulae: "Whithersoever thou goest," he says,
"throughout the whole world, be it to India, to Africa, or to Britain,
thou wilt find _In the beginning was the Word_."[420] Jerome, in turn,
tells of British pilgrimages to Jerusalem[421] and to Rome;[422] and,
in his famous passage on the world-wide Communion of the Roman See,
mentions Britain by name: "Nec altera Romanae Urbis Ecclesia, altera
totius orbis existimanda est. Et Galliae, et Britanniae, et Africa, et
Persis, et Oriens, et Indio, et omnes barbarae nationes, unum Christum
adorant, unam observant regulam veritatis."[423]

["Neither is the Church of the City of Rome to be held one,
and that of the whole world another. Both Gaul and Britain
and Africa and Persia and the East and India, and all the
barbarian nations, adore one Christ, observe one Rule of
Truth."]

SECTION F.

British Missionaries--Ninias--Patrick--Beatus--Heresiarchs--Pelagius
Fastidius--Pelagianism stamped out by Germanus--The Alleluia
Battle--Romano-British churches--Why so seldom found--Conclusion.

F. 1.--The fruits of all this vigorous Christian life soon showed
themselves in the Church of Britain by the evolution of noteworthy
individual Christians. First in order comes Ninias, the Apostle of the
Southern Picts, commissioned to the work, after years of training at
Rome, by Pope Siricius (A.D. 394), and fired by the example of St.
Martin, the great prelate of Gaul. To this saint (or, to speak more
exactly, under his invocation) Ninias, on hearing of his death in A.D.
400, dedicated his newly-built church at Whithern[424] in Galloway,
the earliest recorded example of this kind of dedication in
Britain.[425] Galloway may have been the native home of Ninias, and
was certainly the head-quarters of his ministry.

F. 2.--The work of Ninias amongst the Picts was followed in the next
generation by the more abiding work of St. Patrick amongst the Scots
of Ireland. Nay, even the Continent was indebted to British piety;
though few British visitors to the Swiss Obe