During the Roman occupation of Britain in which that country was Christianized, pagan Ireland heard nothing of the new evangel almost at her door. But in 432, after Britain had relapsed into paganism, St. Patrick came into the darkened isle. If ever Pentecostal fires descended upon a nation it was in those sixty years during which one saintly man transformed a people from {203} brutish paganism to Christianity, and converted Ireland into the torch-bearer and nourisher of intellectual and spiritual life, so that as the gothic night was settling upon Europe, the centre of illumination seemed to be passing from Rome to Ireland. Their missionaries were in Britain, Germany, Gaul; and students from Charlemagne's dominions, and the sons of kings from other lands, flocked to those stone monasteries, the remains of which are still to be seen upon the Irish coast, and which were then the acknowledged centres of learning in Europe. It was not until late in the ninth century that Ireland played a truly great part in European history. Rome became jealous of these fiery Christians; they had never worn her yoke, and concerned themselves little about the Pope. They had their own views about the shape of the tonsure, and also their own time for celebrating Easter, which was heretical and contumacious, and there began a struggle between Roman and Western Christianity. The passion for art and letters which accompanied this spiritual birth makes this, indeed, a Golden Age. But the painting of missals, and study of Greek poetry and philosophy, {204} brought no change in the life of the people. It was for the learned, and a subject for just pride in retrospect. But the Christianized septs fought each other as before, and life was no less wild and disordered than it had always been.