always be a primary fact in their history. It is not
merely for the error it abolishes or the positive truth
it establishes that a national change of faith is
historically important, but for the complete revolution
it works in every public and private relation. The change
socially could not be greater if we were to see some
irresistible apostle of Paganism ariving from abroad in
Christian Ireland, who would abolish the churches,
convents, and Christian schools; decry and bring into
utter disuse the decalogue, the Scriptures and the
Sacraments; efface all trace of the existing belief in
One God and Three Persons, whether in private or public
worship, in contracts, or in courts of law; and instead
of these, re-establish all over the country, in high
places and in every place, the gloomy groves of the
Druids, making gods of the sun and moon, the natural
elements, and man's own passions, restoring human sacrifices
as a sacred duty, and practically excluding from the
community of their fellows, all who presumed to question
the divine origin of such a religion. The preaching of
Patrick effected a revolution to the full as complete as
such a counter-revolution in favour of Paganism could
possibly be, and to this thorough revolution we must
devote at least one chapter before going farther.

The best accounts agree that Patrick was a native of
Gaul, then subject to Rome; that he was carried captive
into Erin on one of King Nial's returning expeditions;
that he became a slave, as all captives of the sword did,
in those iron times; that he fell to the lot of one