appreciated in Gaul, as Professor Bury suggests (p. 30), it would take
more than "a day or two" to collect a sufficient number for
exportation. There is nothing stated in the "Confession" to limit the
time that St. Patrick had to wait before the ship, sailed away from
port.

Moreover, in the solitude of Mount Slemish, absorbed in prayer and in
guarding his flock, the saintly shepherd had no opportunity of making
any acquaintance whilst in slavery. "After I had come to Ireland I was
daily attending sheep, and I frequently prayed during the day, and the
love of God and His faith and fear increased in me more and more, and
the spirit was stirred; so that in a single day I have said as many as
a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that I remained
in the woods and on the mountain. Even before the dawn I was roused to
prayer in snow, in ice and rain, and I felt no injury from it, nor was
there any want of energy in me, as I see now, because the spirit was
then fervent in me." These certainly are not the words of a youth who
was in the habit of journeying from Croagh Patrick to Foclut to make
the acquaintance of the inhabitants. It is, on the contrary, easy to
imagine what a powerful effect a Saint, so stirred by the Spirit of God
as his words express, would have on all with whom he came in contact
after he had been freed from his duties as a shepherd. St. Patrick's
history of himself suggests at least that his acquaintance with others,
except those of his master's household, must have been made after his
escape from captivity.

Professor Bury, however, is the latest convert to the opinion that St.
Patrick fled to Gaul, and not to the Island of Britain, after his
escape from captivity in Ireland. The Professor narrates that
considerable regions in Gaul were a desolate wilderness, according to