The Meridian times. (Meridian, Idaho) 1909-1938, 1912-03-15

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kirkpatrick, near Glasgow, in Scot
land, took it's name from st. Patrick.
The saint was born about 372; was
captive and a slave of the king of
Dalaradia, in Ireland, from 3SS to 1895;
went to Gaul and was there ordained
priest; was consecrated bishop and
sent to Ireland as missionary in 432,
and died at Saul, near Strangford
Lough, County Down, Ulster, where
many years before he had founded his
church, March II, 465, the day now
sacred to his memory.
| ireland was then occupied by
| great number of petty tribes, most of
| whom were evangelical by Patrick. So
well was the work accomplished that
Ireland was known in subsequent CEN
turtles as the island of saints and
scholars"
The method employed was that of
dealing cautiously and gently with the
old paganism of the people. The chief
tains were first won over and then
through them their clans.
Of st. Patrick himself much that has
been related is fabulous, but his au-
TYPOGRAPHICAL confession and his epis-
tie to Coroticus, both Of which are I'M
questionably genuine, reveal a devout,
simple minded man, and most dis
Greet and energetic missionary.
In his epistle he states that he was
of noble birth and that his father,
Calphurnicus, was a Roman decuiro.
His Mother, Conchessa, or Conceis,
was the sister of st. Martin of Tours.
The family of the saint is affirmed
by the earliest authorities to have
belonged to Britain, but whether the
term refers to Great Britain or Brit
tany or other parts Of France is not
ascertained.
Some of the quaint stories told in
Ireland about st. Patrick would make
the traveller imagine that the saint
visited the island for the benefit of
witty guides, or to promote mirth in
wet weather. 1t is not remarkable
that the subject of these stories for 16
centuries, at countless hearths, has
been regarded and is today honored as
} the greatest man and the greatest ben
! efactor that ever trod the Irish soil,
! and considering the versatility of the
I irish character, it is not strange that
! there remains respecting the saint a
. vast cycle of legends-serious, pathet-
Ic and profound.
. 1t could not be otherwise. Such a
: people could not have forgotten the he
. roic figure who led them forth in the
: exodus from the bondage of pagan
Tn, I'M
A less has the tale become a tradition,
the foliage of an ever active popular
!. Imagination, gathered around the cen
G trail stem of fact; but the fact re-
n NAMED.
A large tract of Irish history is
. dark; but the time of st. Patrick and
+ the three centuries which succeeded
a It is clearly, as depicted by history, a
time of joy. The chronicle is a song
+ of gratitude and of hope. as BELTS the
= story of a nations conversion tc
Christianity.
The higher legends, which, how
| ever, do not profess to keep close to
the original sources, except as re
b CARDS their spirit and the manners oil
s the time, are found in some ancient
r lives of st. Patrick, the most valu
e able of which is the "Tripartite Life,
/ ascribed by Colgen to the century aft
/ err the saints death. The work was
e lost for many centuries, but two cop
j. les of it were rediscovereds one o.
s which has been recently translated By
3 an eminent Irish scholar. Mr. Hen
t messy.
b The miracles, however, recorded il
n the "Tripartite Life" are neither the
: most marvellous nor the most interest
a ing portion of that life.
t Whether regarded from the religion!
:, or philosophic point of view, few
j. things can be more instructive thar
the picture which it delineates of hu