; and other chiefs
followed, with their fierce heathen warriors. There was a struggle
between these and the Britons, which lasted a hundred years, until at
length the invaders got the better, and the land was once more
overspread by heathenism, except where the Britons kept up their
Christianity in the mountainous districts of the west,--Cumberland,
Wales, and Cornwall. You shall hear by-and-by how the Gospel was
introduced among the Saxons.

CHAPTER XXV.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

The only thing which seems to be settled as to the religious history of
Scotland in these times, is, that a bishop named Ninian preached among
the Southern Picts between the years 412 and 432, and established a see
at Whithorn, in Galloway. But in the year of St. Ninian's death, a far
more famous missionary, St. Patrick, who is called "the Apostle of
Ireland," began his labours in that island.

It is a question whether Patrick was born in Scotland, at a place called
Kirkpatrick, near the river Clyde, or in France, near Boulogne. But
wherever it may have been, his birth took place about the year 387. His
father was a deacon of the church, his grandfather was a presbyter, and
thus Patrick had the opportunities of a religious training from his
infancy. He did not, however, use these opportunities so well as he
might have done; but it pleased God to bring him to a better mind by the
way of affliction.

When Patrick was about sixteen years old, he was carried off by some
pirates (or _sea-robbers_), and was sold to a heathen prince in Ireland,
where he was set to keep cattle, and had to bear great hardships. But
"there," says he, "it was that the Lord brought me to a sense of the
unbelief of my heart, that I might call my sins to remembrance, and turn
with all my heart to the Lord, who regarded my low estate, and, taking
pity on my youth and ignorance, watched over me before I knew Him or had
sense to discern between good and evil, and counselled me and comforted
me as a father doth a son. I was employed every day in feeding cattle,
and often in the day I used to betake myself to prayer; and the love of
God thus grew stronger and stronger, and His faith and fear increased in
me, so that in a single day I could utter as many as a hundred prayers,
and in the night almost as many, and I used to remain in the woods and
on the mountains, and would rise for prayer before daylight, in the
midst of snow and ice and rain; and I felt no harm from