The Legends of Saint Patrick | Page 5

the Saint loosened the tongue of the
dumb child was an apt emblem of
Christianity imparting to the Irish
race the highest use of its natural faculties. The Christian clergy turned
to account the Irish traditions, as they had made use of the Pagan
temples, purifying them first. The Christian religion looked with a
genuine kindness on whatever was human, except so far as the stain
was on it; and while it resisted to the face what was unchristian in spirit,
it also, in the Apostolic sense, "made itself all things to all men." As
legislator, Saint Patrick waged no needless war against the ancient laws
of Ireland. He purified them, and he amplified them, discarding only
what was unfit for a nation made Christian. Thus was produced the
great "Book of the Law," or "Senchus Mohr," compiled A.D. 439.
The Irish received the Gospel gladly. The great and the learned, in
other nations the last to believe, among them commonly set the
example. With the natural disposition of the race an appropriate culture
had concurred. It was one which at least did not fail to develop the
imagination, the affections, and a great part of the moral being, and
which thus indirectly prepared ardent natures, and not less the heroic
than the tender, to seek their rest in spiritual things, rather than in
material or conventional. That culture, without removing the barbaric,
had blended it with the refined. It had created among the people an
appreciation of the beautiful, the pathetic, and the pure. The early Irish
chronicles, as well as songs, show how strong among them that
sentiment had ever been. The Borromean Tribute, for so many ages the
source of relentless wars, had been imposed in vengeance for an insult
offered to a woman; and a discourtesy shown to a poet had overthrown
an ancient dynasty. The education of an Ollambh occupied twelve years;
and in the third century, the time of Oiseen and Fionn, the military
rules of the Feine included provisions which the chivalry of later ages
might have been proud of. It was a wild, but not wholly an ungentle
time. An unprovoked affront was regarded as a grave moral offence;
and severe punishments were ordained, not only for detraction, but for
a word, though uttered in jest, which brought a blush on the cheek of a

listener. Yet an injury a hundred years old could meet no forgiveness,
and the life of man was war! It was not that laws were wanting; a code,
minute in its justice, had proportioned a penalty to every offence, and
specified the Eric which was to wipe out the bloodstain in case the
injured party renounced his claim to right his own wrong. It was not
that hearts were hard--there was at least as much pity for others as for
self. It was that anger was implacable, and that where fear was
unknown, the war field was what among us the hunting field is.
The rapid growth of learning as well as piety in the three centuries
succeeding the conversion of Ireland, prove that the country had not
been till then without a preparation for the gift. It had been the special
skill of Saint Patrick to build the good which was lacked upon that
which existed. Even the material arts of Ireland he had pressed into the
service of the Faith; and Irish craftsmen had assisted him, not only in
the building of his churches, but in casting his church bells, and in the
adornment of his chalices, crosiers, and ecclesiastical vestments. Once
elevated by
Christianity, Ireland's early civilisation was a memorable
thing. It sheltered a high virtue at home, and evangelised a great part of
Northern Europe; and amidst many confusions it held its own till the
true time of barbarism had set in--those two disastrous centuries when
the Danish invasions trod down the sanctuaries, dispersed the libraries,
and laid waste the colleges to which distant kings had sent their sons.
Perhaps nothing human had so large an influence in the conversion of
the Irish as the personal character of her Apostle. Where others, as
Palladius, had failed, he succeeded. By nature, by grace, and by
providential training, he had been specially fitted for his task. We can
still see plainly even the finer traits of that character, while the land of
his birth is a matter of dispute, and of his early history we know little,
except that he was of noble birth, that he was carried to Ireland by
pirates at the age of sixteen, and that after five years of bondage he
escaped thence, to return A.D. 432, when about forty-five years old;
belonging thus to that great age of the Church which was made
illustrious by the most eminent of its Fathers, and tasked