number. These last must be considered as employed in
furnishing the interior of the new churches. A scribe,
a shepherd to guard his flocks, and a charioteer are also
mentioned, and their proper names given. How different
this following from the little boat's crew, he had left
waiting tidings from Tara, in such painful apprehension,
at the mouth of the Boyne, in 432. Apostolic zeal, and
unrelaxed discipline had wrought these wonders, during
a lifetime prolonged far beyond the ordinary age of man.

The fifth century was drawing to a close, and the days
of Patrick were numbered. Pharamond and the Franks had
sway on the Netherlands; Hengist and the Saxons on South
Britain; Clovis had led his countrymen across the Rhine
into Gaul; the Vandals had established themselves in
Spain and North Africa; the Ostrogoths were supreme in
Italy. The empire of barbarism had succeeded to the empire
of Polytheism; dense darkness covered the semi-Christian
countries of the old Roman empire, but happily daylight
still lingered in the West. Patrick, in good season,
had done his work. And as sometimes, God seems to bring
round His ends, contrary to the natural order of things,
so the spiritual sun of Europe was now destined to rise
in the West, and return on its light-bearing errand
towards the East, dispelling La its path, Saxon, Frankish,
and German darkness, until at length it reflected back
on Rome herself, the light derived from Rome.

On the 17th of March, in the year of our Lord 493, Patrick
breathed his last in the monastery of Saul, erected on