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lives in foreign lands, and both might have embraced Christianity somewhere else than in their own. But that Pelagius was not an Irishman, we have the undoubted authority of St. Augustine*, Prosper of Aquitaine †, Orosius, the venerable Bede, and other authorities, which must, with every unprejudiced reader, set the question at rest; and by legitimate inference we may conclude that Celestius was a Briton from one of the kingdoms noth of the Tweed. Another proof adduced is, that Palladius, a dean of the Roman church, was sent as first bishop to the Scots believing in Christ §," these Scots being assumed to be no other than Hibernians. It should, however, be recollected that the Scots were established in Caledonia no less than in Ireland; and that the term was as properly applied to the former as to the latter. Besides if, as we may clearly infer, not a Christian existed in Ireland when St. Patrick entered on his mission, with what justice could the Irish Scots, or any portion of them, be termed "believers in Christ ?" There can be no reasonable doubt that, by the term Scoti in Christum credentes, we are to understand that portion of the Caledonian Scoti who had already embraced Christianity. Yet it is not improbable, as indeed is affirmed by later writers, that the mission of Palladius might have been intended to embrace the whole Scottish nation in both islands; and in this sense he may be called Scotorum apostolus, just as St. Ninian is termed Pictorum apostolus. But he died the very

Epistola, p. 106.; ad Paulinum Nolanum. Augustine was a personal acquaintance of the heresiarch.

"Hac tempestate Pelagius Brilo dogma nominis sui contra gratiam Christi," &c. (Chronicon, apud Canisium, Lectiones Ant. pp 1-298.)

Britannicus Noster, Apologet. contra Pelag. All three were contemporaries of Pelagius.

"Pelagium Britonem gratiam Dei impugnavisse." Bede, Libell. de Lex Actat. et Hist. lib. i. cap. 10. From St. Jerome (Promium ad Prophet. Hieremiæ) we may infer that he was a North Briton, that is, a Briton from the north of the Tweed. He professed at the monastery of Bangor, near Chester.

Mr. Moore (History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 206.) will have both to be Irishmen; and he ingeniously converts the Bangor of Wales into the Bangor near Carrickfergus, though, had he reflected a single moment on the subject, he must have remembered that the Irish monastery was not founded in the time of this heresiarch.

"Ad Scotos in Christum credentes."- Prosperi Chronicon.

year he was consecrated bishop; and we have no contemporary authority for believing that he even so much as set foot in Ireland. If this evidence be more favourable to the opinion that Palladius was sent, not to the Hiberni but to the Caledonian Scoti, we may augment it by observing, first, that from the confession of all writers, he died in North Britain; and secondly, that his two disciples, Servanus and Tervanus, were by him appointed missionaries, not to any region or people of Ireland, but to the Orkneys and the Picts. Had Palladius really laboured in Ireland, would he not have appointed them coadjutors to some diocese in that country? would he and they have laboured so vainly, as not to leave a vestige of success behind them? None could be discovered by St. Patrick or his companions; yet that success did attend the efforts of Palladius is positively asserted by the chronicler of Aquitaine, who says that while endeavouring to keep the Roman island catholic (alluding to his efforts against the heresy of Pelagius, then so prevalent in this island), he had made the barbarous island Christian. It is manifest that Prosper could never have applied this strong language to the Irish Scots. Both from authority and from reason we may therefore conclude that St. Patrick was the first Christian missionary who ever preached in Ireland.*

There is no instance on record of a success so as-432. tonishing as that which attended the labours of Patrick and his immediate successors. They found a great nation of pagans: before the missionary's death hundreds of thousands had been received into the bosom of the church; in less than a century universal Ireland was enclosed in the same fold, though this fact is

See, besides the authorities quoted in this paragraph, Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (sub annis). Prosperi Aquitani Chronicon, p. 299. (apud Canisium Lect. Ant. tom. i.). Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, lib. i. cap. 13. Centurii Magdeburgensis, cent. v. cap. 20. Usserius, De Primordiis, p. 797, &c. (this great writer, however, is opposed to us). Álfordus, Annales Ecclesiæ Anglo-Saxonicæ, A. D. 431. To us the subject appears to be settled by this learned Jesuit.

Mr. Moore (History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 210.) is also against us. On this subject, however, we should not object to break a lance with him.

521.

not inconsistent with the retention of some ancient superstitions by the new converts. Nor is it less remarkable that before the close of the sixth century, Ireland should boast of names which, whether for piety or learning, had no superiors in the most cultivated regions of the Continent. Monastic schools were established by the apostle of the country; by his disciples they were multiplied and enlarged, until their celebrity was diffused throughout Europe, until, as we learn from the venerable Bede, the youths of Britain were sent to them for education. Of these, St. Patrick and his disciples founded above a hundred; and a hundred more are said to have been indebted for their existence to St. Columba. Of all the Irish seminaries, that of Banchor, near Carrickfergus, is, perhaps, the best known to the generality of English readers; yet it was not so eminent as the one of St. Finnian at Clonard, which is said to have been attended by 3000 pupils at one time. This fact alone would prove the vast benefit derived by this fiercely barbarous island from the introduction of Christianity; but we might add others

the extinction of a bloody worship, the infusion of a better spirit into the national character, the spread of the useful arts, and the vast improvement in the social no less than in the moral condition of the island. Of this improvement we shall perceive evidence enough in the life of St. Columba.*

This life was written by several ecclesiastics, — by some, perhaps, immediately after the death of the subject. Magnus O'Donnell, an Irish friar, who compiled one in Erse early in the sixteenth century, had evidently authorities before him no longer extant; and, about the middle of the following, Colgan was enabled to mention fifteen. Of the ancient ones, however, two only have survived the wreck of time. One of these, by Cummins (Cuminius), his successor, was written between sixty and seventy years after the apostle ; - for Columba died in 597, and Cummins governed the monastery of * Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 27. Moore's Ireland, vol. i. chap. 12.

Iona from 657 to 669. The second life was also compiled by an abbot of the same house Adamnan, who presided over it, and the monasteries dependent on it, from 679 to 704, and who probably executed his task between eighty and ninety years after Columba's death. These undoubted relics of antiquity are, it may be said, sufficiently near to the time of the saint's peaceful career to merit our confidence ; yet such, alas! is not the fact. Both are literally a tissue of miracles, · of miracles astounding as those which signalised the apostolic age. In regard to Cummins this is the more surprising, as he must have conversed with men who had personally known the first abbot; for, assuming that he was thirty years old (though more probably he was forty) on succeeding to the government of the establishment, he might, even at twenty years of age, have consulted many who in the prime of life had seen Columba. Were these miracles really performed? In these days the most credulous Roman catholic in Europe will not answer in the affirmative. Were they invented by the two biographers? Though this is not impossible, to us it appears highly improbable. From internal evidence, we should pronounce both of them to be very good, though very credulous, men. To say that this credulity was inseparable from the period, is scarcely enough; we must also take into consideration the peculiar circumstances of that period. He who is acquainted with the nature of idolatry, in its infinitely varied ramifications; how prolific of wonders, how full of devilry and magic; how the supernatural was interwoven with the thoughts, the feelings, the habits of mankind, he who has even a mere schoolboy acquaintance with the most common Latin and Greek writers, will be at no loss to account for the universality of superstition *, not only during its unmolested reign, but long after its downfal. If Christianity destroyed the outward form, it could not, except by slow degrees, exorcise the

"Nam, ut vero loquamur, superstitio fusa per orbem oppressit omium fere animos, atque hominum occupavit imbecilitatem." Cicero.

concealed spirit. Credulity the most absurd had, in the seventh century, reigned above 2000 years. Could it be exiled by any human means, - by the preaching of bishop or of monk? But neither bishop nor monk endeavoured so much to destroy as to direct the universal feeling of the age. In the first place, they themselves necessarily partook of the same spirit; their minds had been habituated to the reception of wonders, in comparison with which those of Christianity were absolute probabilities: hence they were prepared for the exercise of an ample faith whenever it should be required from them. In the second place, they knew that miracles had been wrought in the earlier ages of the church; they believed that miracles were still wrought: nor did their piety permit them to examine, with a keen eye, into the circumstances of such as were daily reported to them. With a yielding faith in regard to paganism, could they have an inferior one in regard to Christianity? They were sure that the devil empowered his votaries, that is, all idolators, to display signs and wonders; they could not imagine how their God, the sovereign even of the devil, could consent, by the withholding of similar powers, to see the evil cause triumph. In most chapters of the Old and New Testament they read of miracles; that the lame were made to walk, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, the dead to arise; that devils were bodily cast out; that infernal spirits often displayed on earth wonders almost equal to those wrought by the chosen of God; and they fully believed that the power of displaying such wonders still subsisted, granted alike by hell and heaven to their respective servants. The day, indeed, would come when this power, in regard to Satan, would be destroyed; but that of God's saints would endure for ever. They had Scriptural authority for the fact that the apostles, and the immediate successors of the apostles were favoured with the gift; and they doubted not that its virtue had descended on all the holy missionaries of the Gospel, in the same manner that the mantle of the prophet had