The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-03-18

of starvation, and there is no lfke- lihood of our seeing any mani And Patrick, in the spirit of the mission ary, replied Nothing fs impossible to the Lord, my Godl Turn to Him truly that He may send you food fin your path this day till ye are filled, for He has plenty in all places.' Pres ently a drove of pigs appeared on the road, and the starving wayfar- CTS killed many, and rested there two nights and were refreshed.
 We find him next at Auxerre taking up the study that was to fit him for the task that in dream and vision he saw was to be his in carry ing Christianity to the heather of Ireland. And finally, after fourteen years. spent partly in ecclesiastical training and partly by reason of de- lays, impediments, and difficulties to the realizing of his aim, he was ready to go to Ireland.
 ''In 432 he set out for Ireland which for thirty years was to be the scene of his labors and from which he was to emerge as one of the great figures of Christianity. It has been said that he found no Christians in Ireland when he went there and that he left no pagans there when he died.
 "He was an evangelist-an early Billy Sunday. But to the power of the evangelist he added the fervor of the missionary, the zeal of the cru- sader. and the vision of Pericles.
 Churches, schools, cathedrals ssprang up in his path as he jour neyed up and down the ancient counties of Ireland. Legends and myths cluster round his name. How apt he was in driving home his arr t<. l~~ <xk] fu seizing a shamrock leaf to illustrate by the three petals on single stem the trinity, the oneness of Father, Son. and Holy Spirit.
 Patrick had been enough years in Ireland when Leo, the Great, be- came pope. It was the following year, according to accepted author ity, that Patrick went to Rome. On his return. he founded the church Of Armagh, fixing his see there and establishing 1t as the primatial church. The result of his visit to Rome is briefly stated in words which probably are a contemporary record-'He was approved in the Catholic faith He bore back with him to Ireland visible and material proofs of the goodwill of Rome. He received gifts which to Christians of his day seemed the most precious of all gifts, relics not of any lesser martyrs. but of the Apostles Peter and Paul. They were gifts partic- u.arly opportune for bestowing pres- tige upon the new church which he was about to found and where they were afterwards preserved.
 There are extant but two writ ings which are accepted as genuine writings of St Patrick. One of these Is a letter to Coroticus, a ruler in northern Britain who had descended on the coast of Ireland on a maraud- ing expedition. The other is his confession. Though not an auto biography, it contains many import ant autobiographical facts. It was written in his old age.
 "Aside from these writings, the Irish chant, known as the Breast plate Hymn, four sayings and some proverbs of great antiquity attribut- ed to him, he left no written record of his work. And yet it was his great achievement to bring about peacefully and without bloodshed the conversion of Ireland to Chris tianity, which in turn had it's place among those changes by which a new Europe was being termed In the 6th century. The beginning of the work had been noiseless and date- less, due to the place of accident and the obscure zeal of nameless pion- eers; but 1t was organized and es-j tablished so that 1t could never be undone, mainly by the efforts of one man, a Roman citizen of Britain, who devoted his life to the task.
 Some chroniclers would have 1t appear that he died in 493, but this seems to be due to the desires of the Irish to make his age 120, exactly equal to Moses. 1t was probably in 463, after 60 years of missionary work, partly as priest, partly as bishop, that he died at an advanced age (nearly 90) and was buried at Ttowu m fricx v