The Churches and Schools of Armagh are said to have been founded between the years A.D. 450 and 457--we can scarcely assign an earlier date. At that time St. Patrick had done much for the conversion of Ireland, but much still remained to be accomplished, so he chose and consecrated as his coadjutor Benignus, his young and faithful disciple, to preside over the Church of Armagh and over all its monasteries and schools. Thus in truth we may regard Benignus as the first president, and one of the chief professors of the young seminary which St. Patrick had just founded. Benignus from his boyhood had been trained by St. Patrick himself; he had accompanied him hitherto on all his missionary journeys; he was "psalm-singer" to the Saint, by whom he was tenderly loved, and not without good cause. The brief story of the life of Benignus is very touching--beautiful with a beauty that is all divine. As we have seen, when St. Patrick first came to preach the Gospel in Ireland, he coasted northward, seeking a suitable spot to land, and amongst other places he put in for a little at the stream now called the Nanny Water in the County Meath, a little to the south of Drogheda. There he visited the house of a certain man of noble birth, by name Sescnen, whom, after due instruction, he baptized, together with his wife and family. Amongst the children there was one, a fair and gentle boy, to whom the saint, on account of the sweetness and meekness of his disposition, gave in baptism the appropriate name of Benignus. Shortly after the baptism Patrick, wearied out with his labours by sea and land, fell asleep where he sat, as it would seem, on the green sward before the house of Sescnen. Then the loving child, robed in his baptismal whiteness, gathered together bunches of fragrant flowers and sweet smelling herbs and strewed them gently over the head and face of the weary Saint; the child then sat at his feet, and pressed Patrick's tired limbs close to his own pure heart and kissed them tenderly. The Saint's companions were in the act of chiding the boy, lest he might disturb Patrick, who thereupon awaking and perceiving what took place, thanked the tender-hearted child for his kindness, and said to those standing by: "Leave him so; he shall be the heir of my kingdom," by which he meant, says the author of the _Tripartite Life_, to signify that God had destined Benignus to succeed Patrick in the primatial chair as ruler of the Irish Church. After this nothing could separate the boy from his spiritual father; he hung on the words of wisdom that fell from Patrick's lips; he accompanied him everywhere, and thus from his boyhood was trained by the apostle himself in all divine and human knowledge. We cannot stay to discuss the question whether Secundinus preceded Benignus as coadjutor to St. Patrick in the See of Armagh. It seems he did; it is certain at any rate that for ten years, about the time we speak of, that is, from A.D. 455 to 465, Benignus ruled under the