Some of these devotional compositions are as old as the fourth century, such as the “Hymnum dicat” ascribed to Hilary, and the “Mediæ noctis,” ascribed to the famous Ambrose of Milan. The “Audite Omnes” was composed by Sechnall, the nephew of Patrick, towards the close of the fifth century, in praise of the Irish apostle. This piece, rather a poem than a hymn, bears to have been written “in Domhnach Sechnaill,” (now Dunshaughlin in Meath), by the St. Sechnall, or Secundinus, who was a son of Patrick’s sister, “by her husband _Restitutus_” of the “Longobards of Leatha.” The superscription reminds us of the fact that the Scots and the Gaidels were the same people, whether found in Ireland or parts of Britain. It runs thus: “Incipit Ymnus sancti Patricii episcopi Scotorum.” (“The hymn beginning, St. Patrick, Bishop of the Scots.”) The following note on it occurs in the “Leabhar Breac”: “Tempus autem.” (“But the time”);—viz: “when Leogaire, son of Niall, was King of Eirinn came to praise Patrick. Sechnall said to Patrick, ‘When shall I make a hymn of praise for thee?’ Patrick said, ‘I desire not to be so praised during my life.’ Sechnall answered, ‘Non interrogavi utrum faciam, sed quando faciam.’ (‘I did not ask whether I should do it, but when’). Patrick said, ‘Si facias venit tempus.’ (‘If you do it, the time has come’)—i.e. because Patrick knew that the time of his (Sechnall’s) death was at hand.” In the third verse we have the old Scottic interpretation of the famous passage in Matthew on which St. Peter’s chair is founded:— “Constans in Dei timore Et fide immobilis Super quem aedificatur Ut Petrum Ecclesia.” “Constant in the fear of God, and immovable in faith, upon him as upon a Peter is built a Church.” The student of these ancient writings is surprised to find the modern Irish persist in making Patrick a Frenchman. In the “Leabhar Breac” the following note, as decisive of his nationality, occurs in connection with this hymn. “Patraic umorro do bretnaibh h ercluaide a bunadus.” “Now Patrick in his origin was of the Britons of Er-Cluaide”—i.e. of the Strathclyde Britons, among whom his name has found its topographical monument in Kilpatrick, as already pointed out.