Yet they held their ground during the remainder of this
reign--twenty-five years longer (A.D. 458). The king
himself never became a Christian, though he tolerated
the missionaries, and deferred more and more every year
to the Christian party. He sanctioned an expurgated code
of the laws, prepared under the direction of Patrick,
from which every positive element of Paganism was rigidly
excluded. He saw, unopposed, the chief idol of his race,
overthrown on "the Plain of Prostration," at Sletty. Yet
withal he never consented to be baptized; and only two
years before his decease, we find him swearing to a
treaty, in the old Pagan form--"by the Sun, and the Wind,
and all the Elements." The party of the Druids at first
sought to stay the progress of Christianity by violence,
and even attempted, more than once, to assassinate Patrick.
Finding these means ineffectual they tried ridicule and
satire. In this they were for some time seconded by the
Bards, men warmly attached to their goddess of song and
their lives of self-indulgence. All in vain. The day of
the idols was fast verging into everlasting night in
Erin. Patrick and his disciples were advancing from
conquest to conquest. Armagh and Cashel came in the wake
of Tara, and Cruachan was soon to follow. Driven from
the high places, the obdurate Priests of Bel took refuge
in the depths of the forest and in the islands of the
sea, wherein the Christian anchorites of the next age
were to replace them. The social revolution proceeded,
but all that was tolerable in the old state of things,
Patrick carefully engrafted with the new. He allowed much
for the habits and traditions of the people, and so made