Some time after the death of Celestine and the termination of Palladius's work in Ireland, Patrick commenced his missionary labours; and when he died in or about 493, he left Christianity permanently established over a considerable part of the island. That is the great fact for our present purpose, and I shall go into no details. It is a very interesting coincidence that exactly at the period when Christianity was being obliterated in Britain, it was being planted in large areas of Ireland; and that, too, by a Briton. For after all has been said that can be said against the British origin of Patrick, the story remains practically undisturbed. It is, I think, of great importance to note and bear in mind the fact that Ireland was Christianised just at the time when it was cut off from communication with the civilised world and the Christian Church in Europe. Britain, become a mere arena of internecine strife, the Picts and Scots from the north, and the Jutes and Saxons and Angles from the east and south, obliterating civilisation and Christianity,--Britain, thus barbarously tortured, was a complete barrier between the infant Church in Ireland and the wholesome lessons and developments which intercourse with the Church on the continent would have naturally given. Patrick, if we are to accept his own statements, was not a man of culture; he was probably very provincial in his knowledge of Christian practices and rites; a rude form of Christian worship and order was likely to be the result of his mission. He was indeed the son of a member of the town council, who was also a deacon,--it sounds very Scotch: he was the grandson of a priest; his father had a small farm. But he was a native of a rude part of the island. And his bringing up was rude. He was carried off captive to Ireland at the age of sixteen, and kept sheep there for six years, when he escaped to Britain. After some years he determined to take the lessons of Christianity to the people who had made him their slave. The people whom he Christianised were themselves rude; not likely to raise their ecclesiastical conceptions higher than the standard their apostle set; more likely to fall short of that standard. In isolation the infant Church passed on towards fuller growth; developing itself on the lines laid down; accentuating the rudeness of its earliest years; with no example but its own.