The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-17
ST. pArRICK's DAY.

where throughout the state by our Irish
American countrymen.
Christianity made itself felt in Ireland
pan. The Roman conquest never reached
Ireland; the Saxon conquest halted before
the Welsh. The Norman occupation of
England was a century old before the
freebooting mobiles of Henry the Second
invaded Ireland. Druidism had but a
weak life in ireland, and before the Roman
armies left Britain it is certain that
Christianity had already reached Ireland.
The Christian church was at first Oriental
in its character. Up to the middle of the
third century all the literature of
the church was Greek, and the church
was composed mainly of Greeks,
or Greek-speaking Jews. The Church of
Rome as we know it did not then exist.
IL is an error, therefore, to count st.
Patrick among the eniissaries, mission
aries or nuncios of the See of st. Peter.
His conversion OF Ireland was an inde-
pendent act. like the conversion of the
Bulgarians and other nations to the East
ern church by st. Cyril four hundred years
later Rome had failed to convert Ireland.
A few years before the arrival of st.
Patrick "a. D. 1907 the pope, Celestinus l..
sent Bishop Psladius, who was permitted
by the pagans to build churches and leave
pastors, but his reception was so chilling
that he left. st. Patrick came and sue
ceeded where the italian ecclesiastic failed.
Rome did not like Ireland, for st.
Jerome refers to Celestius, the Pelagian,
as "gorged with his Irish mush." st.
Patrick was an Irish-Scot by residence. if
not Scot by birth, student in Gaul, and
a man who distinctly denied that he was
learned, but he did what Bishop Paladius
could not do-he converted Ireland from
paganism to Christianity. The singular
success of st. Patrick was due to the fact
that he had nothing to do with Rome or
Italy, which recommended him to the
upper classes, the kings, the chiefs and
druids, and to the scattered Christians
who resisted the pretensions of the Roman
bishops. He addressed himself to the
temporal and intellectual leaders because
he was man of genius and saw that only
in that way could a community existing
on the clan system be converted; he
adapted his methods to the nature of the
people and the policy that ruled. He
brought ideas that belonged to Alexan-
dria or Byzantium rather than to Rome.
The Southern Irish did not accept the
Roman Easter until A. D. 633: Northern
Ireland, with its missionary monks of
Iona, did not give in until A. D. 716,
while Wales held out until A. D. 1853.
1t is perfectly clear that the Christianity
preached by St. Patrick was essentially
Oriental. The Irish cross owes its exist
ence to the Eastern origin of Irish
Christianity. The blending of the cross
and the wheel was final effort to con-
ciliate the pagans and Greek Christians.
The Irish priesthood from the day of
St. Patrick have never been cordial toward
Rome. Down to the twelfth century in
Ireland the priests had wives and bish-
opric might pass from father to son.
Rome hated Ireland and granted Henry
the Second plenary powers to use her and
abuse her at his will. The Irish clergy so
hated Rome that in 1910, when King
John, an accommodated monarch, Wis
tied Ireland he found no difficulty in
securing Irish allies. In 1924 an Irish JUS
tice, lie Poer, said before the parliament at
Dublin, 'If any interloper from England
shall wander thither with bulls or privi-
leges alleged to have been obtained in the
Roman court we are not bound to obey
until they have been certified to US under
our kings SEAL" and this same lie Poer
ordered a bishop out of his court, calling
him a coarse London friar. when the
bishop tried TO read the decretals issued by
the papacy against heretics. 1t is historic
ally clear that while the people of Ireland
have always been true and fervid Catholics
they have never been fanatical papists,
even so devout Catholic as Daniel or Con-
nell saying that he "would as soon think
of taking his politics from Constantinople
as from Rome"
st. Patrick found Ireland pagan, but
when he died the spirit of Christianity
was over the island and the power of the
old gods gone forever. He was buried in
Saul, County Down, and long after his
death his disciples carried tho cross Of
Christ to the Scottish Highlands. the Ger
man pine forests, the savage settlements
of Gaul, to Britain and the wild islands of
the northern seas. The Irish monks
Illuminated the waste places of Ireland,
and noble monasteries, the homes of re-
hgion and learning, sprang up wherever
they set their feet. The fathers of the
Irish church preached in the court of
Charlemagne and in the basilicas of Rome.
and foreign ecclesiastics visited the Irish
monasteries, famous for their learning,
their libraries and their peace.
For a long time all Christendom looked
upon Ireland as the peculiarly blessed and
fortunate home Of religious wisdom. Their
monastic culture included the arts of
music, architecture. the working of metals
and the study of the languages of Greece
and Rome. Of sll nations the Anglo
Saxons derived most profit from the teach
ing of the Irish schools. Alfred the Great
received his education in an Irish uni
versity. This reign of primitive and re-
hgious peace, with its still air of studies
was, toward the end of the eighth century.
dissipated by the invasion of the Danes.
who spent their pagan fury upon the
church of the West and drove the Irish
scholars to carry their culture and their
philosophy TO the great cities of the Eu-
ropean continent.
1t was Tyrone Power, the most brilliant