He

much; but I was detained by the Spirit, denouncing to me, that if I did so, I should be regarded as an offender. I fear to lose the labours which I have sustained; yet not I, but the Lord Christ, who has commanded me to abide for the remainder of my life with those among whom I have come.' desires to visit Britain and his parents, Gaul and his spiritual brethren but of Italy or the Pope, there is no mention. The elder Cumian, the disciple and biographer of Columba, who wrote at the close of the sixth, or the beginning of the seventh century, calls Patrick the first apostle of Ireland. Thus it appears, that while the Papal writers make Palladius the first apostle, and take no notice of Patrick, the Irish make Patrick the first, and take no notice of Palladius.

The hymn of Fiech, of the same antiquity, also opposes the Roman hypothesis. In the first four stanzas we have the parentage of the apostle, his captivity and flight from Ireland; then the story proceeds as follows :—

He traversed the whole of Albion, He cross'd the sea; it was a happy voyage;

And he took up his abode with German,
Far away to the south of Armorica,

Among the isles of the Tuscan sea.
There he abode, as I pronounce.
He studied the canons with German;
Thus it is that the churches testify.

To the land of Erin he returned,
The angels of God inviting him ;
Often had he seen in visions,
That he should come once more to Erin.

Here the route of the apostle is traced for us with the accuracy of a map, - from Ireland, through Britain, across the channel, through Armorica, to the south east corner of Gaul, on the coast of which are situated Lerins, and some other islands, the seats in those days of collegiate institutions. When his studies are concluded, he is brought

back to Ireland, aud through the sequel of the poem he is represented as continuing there for the remainder of his life. Through the whole piece, Italy is omitted, and in a narrative so orderly and circumstantial as this is, omission is equivalent to exclusion.' I now come to the Cottonian MS. This very curious and important document concurs entirely with the hymn of Fiech. It makes him a student of Lerins. It says that the Bishops German and Lupus nurtured him in sacred literature; that they ordained him, and made him the chief bishop of their school among the Irish and Britons.

'On the subject of the Roman mission of Patrick, these documents maintain a profound and eloquent silence, a direct contradiction to the hypothesis we cannot expect from them, without ascribing to their authors the gift of prophecy; but they do what is equivalent, they leave no room for it. They give us all the particulars of which we could reasonably expect to be informed ; they tell us both the place of his birth and education; they state who instructed him, who ordained him, who sent him to preach in Ireland, and finally they shew, that after the commencement of his ministry, he never left the island. On the other hand, it has appeared that the adherents of Rome are as silent concerning Patrick, as Patrick and his disciples are with respect to Rome.'

How, then, is the Roman hypothesis sustained by the learned and zealous writers of whom I speak? They take refuge in those obscure and recent legends which they are ashamed to quote, when maintaining the existence of Patrick, and which on every other occasion they reject with a contempt as undisguised as it is unmerited; and yet after all they cannot agree. Drs. Milner and

O'Conor assert, that Patrick was ordained by Celestine; Dr. Lanigan, after, as he declares, the labour and close application of many years, after having collated every tract and document that he could meet with, gives the ordination to an unknown bishop of an unknown place!

Again, Dr. O'Conor thinks himself very safe, when he states that Patrick was not at Rome earlier than the year 402, but Dr. Lanigan will not allow him to have been there for twenty-nine years after.

Still further, Dr. Milner says, that in the year 461, Patrick went to Rome to render an account of his ministry to the Pope; the Irishmen, more candid or more wary than their fellow-labourer, reject the account as " a fable.' In fine, except upon the one indispensable point, these learned men oppose each other, with as little ceremony as they controvert Dr. Ledwich, and in that particular they reverse the natural order of evidence they assume that Patrick must have had a commission from Rome, and then they conjecture when and how he obtained it. Instead of deriving their hypothesis from facts, they rest their facts upon an hypothesis.

A further and striking proof of the eastern and, consequently, the anti-Romish origin of the Irish church, appears to be the great multiplication of bishops in Ireland, where they changed and multiplied them at pleasure. In like manner, we read that St. Basil, in the fourth century, had fifty rural bishops in his diocese; and that there were five hundred sees in the six African provinces. This rule of the Irish church occasioned great animosity on the part of Rome. Anselm complains bitterly, that

our bishops every where were elected and consecrated without a title, and by one bishop instead of three, which was according to the Roman plan. No objection can

be made to the testimony of St. Bernard and Anselm on this head, being Romanists themselves; but the truth of it does not depend on their statements alone. Virgil and seven Irish bishops went forth on a mission together to Germany in the middle of the eighth century.

In the seventh century they swarmed in Britain, as may be seen from Bede; in fact, the churches in Scotland and the north of England were regularly supplied with bishops and presbyters from the Irish church, and this was become so general that there could not be found three Romish bishops to consecrate Wilfred; all being of Irish consecration and natives of Ireland.

In 670, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, decreed that they who were consecrated by Irish or British bishops should be confirmed anew by a Catholic one.

The fifth canon of the council of Ceale-hyth, in section 16, requires 'that none of Irish extraction be permitted to usurp to himself the sacred ministry, in any one's diocese; nor let it be allowed such an one to touch any thing which belongs to those of the holy order; nor to receive any thing from them in baptism, or in the celebration of the mass; or that they administer the eucharist to the people, because we are not certain how or by whom they were ordained. We know how it is enjoined in the canons, that no bishop or presbyter invade the parish of another, without the bishop's consent, so much the rather should we refuse to receive the sacred ministrations from other nations, where there is no such order as that of metropolitans, nor any regard paid to other orders.'

Here we can trace, by collecting and comparing these facts, the steps taken by the ever-watchful jealousy of the church of Rome to supplant the Irish church, which had taken so deep a root at this

time in England, and which was extending its influence to so many different parts of Europe.

6

The fears of the Saxons were soon communicated to the continental clergy. The forty-second canon of Chalons, in section 13, forbids certain Irishmen who gave themselves out to be bishops, to ordain priests or deacons without the consent of the ordinary.' The same year the council of Aix La Chapelle observes, that in some places there were Irish, who called themselves bishops, and ordained many improper persons, without the consent of their lords or of the magistrates.' These alarms could only have been excited by the number, zeal and perseverance of the Irish bishops, and the jealousy with which the Romish clergy regarded their exertions as a missionary church.

There is a very curious and authentic record preserved in Wilkins's Councils, which not only confirms what has been advanced with respect to the number of Irish bishops, but also clearly explains the nature of their ancient episcopacy. 'A. D. 1216. Constitutions made in the cathedral church of St. Peter's and St. Paul's of Newton, Athunry, by Simon Rochford, by the grace of God, bishop of Meath,-Cardinal Paparo, legate of the sovereign pontiff Eugenius III.' having directed in the third general council, held at Kells, in Meath, in the year 1152, among other salutary canons, that on the death of a village bishop, or of bishops who possessed small sees in Ireland, rural deans should be appointed by the diocesans, to succeed them, who should superintend the clergy and laity in their respective districts, and that each of their sees should be erected into a rural deanery,—we, in obedience to such regulations, do constitute and appoint that in the churches of Athunry, Kells, Slone, Skrine and

Dunshaughlin, being heretofore bishops' sees in Meath, shall hereafter be the heads of rural deaneries, with arch-presbyters personally residing therein.'

Here we have a clear and full developement of the state of our ancient hierarchy, and a confirmation of what has been stated, namely, that Ireland was full of village bishops. Meath could boast of Clonard, Duleek, Trim, Ardbraccan, Dunshauglin,Slane, Foure, Skrine, Mullingar, Loughseedy, Athunry, Ardmirchor and Hallyloughort, Dullin, Swords, Lusk, Finglas, Newcastle, Tawney, Leixlip, Bray, Wicklow, Arklow, Ballymore, Clandalkin, Tallagh, and O'Murthy. These were all formerly rural sees. The transmutations, however, which commenced with the introduction of popery in 1152, proceeded very slowly, for by Bishop Rochfort's constitutions, it appears they were far from being completed in the thirteenth century.

If the number of rural deaneries at their first erection and afterwards, in consequence of Paparo's regulation, could be ascertained, it would give us the number of our rural sees. Our bishops,' says Ledwich, might have amounted to above three hundred.' This

peculiarity in our ecclesiastical polity strongly indicates our eastern, and consequently our anti-Romish origin.

The next proof of the eastern origin of the Irish church, and its opposition to Rome, is derived from the circumstance, that the original practice of hereditary succession was firmly established in the primitive Irish church.

St. Bernard, in his life of Malachy, complains of this custom in the following words:- ..A most pernicious custom had gained strength, by a diabolical ambition of some men in power, who possessed themselves of bishoprics by hereditary succession; nor did they

suffer any to be put in election for them, but such as were of their own tribe or family, and this kind of execrable succession made no small progress, for fifteen generations had passed over in this mischievous custom, and so far had this wicked and adulterous generation confirmed itself in this untoward privilege, that although it sometimes happened that clergymen of their family failed, yet bishops of it never failed; in fine, eight married men, and not in orders, though men of learning, were predecessors of Celsus in Armagh.

The first twenty-seven bishops of Ross Carbery were of the family of St. Fachan, its first prelate. To this we may add that Columba, founder of the celebrated Culdean Monastery at Iona, being of the Tyrconnelian blood, the abbots his successors were of the same race. Hereditary succession became a fixed municipal law, and pervaded church and state, and hence the struggle in the See of Armagh, to which Malachy O'Morgan was appointed in 1129, to the exclusion of the old family; which had nearly proved fatal to him, and called forth the warm resentment of St. Bernard his friend. It further appears that after the consolidation of Glendalough with Dublin in 1152 and 1179, the Tooles, the original proprietors, still obtained the title and presentation until 1497.

From this it seems evident that our bishops and clergy were married men, till the introduction of popery in the 12th century, and to this St. Bernard refers when he says, they were a wicked and adulterous generation.'

Again, the ancient liturgy of the Irish church agreed with the Greek, and manifestly differed from the Roman, in the Communion Service, in the prophetical lessons, in the sermon and offices after it, and in various other parti

culars. The Irish we are told by St. Bernard, in his life of Malachy, rejected auricular confession, as well as authoritative absolution.' They confessed to God alone, as believing God alone could forgive sins.' They would neither give to the church of Rome the tenths nor the first-fruits, nor would they be legitimately married; that is, according to the forms insisted on by the Romish church. Before the council of Cashel, convened by Henry II. in 1172, marriage was regarded as a civil rite, and was performed by the magistracy: at that council, the priests were authorised to perform the ceremony, and therefore we find the ancient Irish Christians denounced 6 as schismatics and heretics,' by St. Bernard; and as being in reality Pagans, while calling themselves Christians.'

6

Such were the charges brought against the early Irish Christians, and such were some of the heresies which Adrian authorised Henry to root out of the land. But these were not all, the early Irish Christians did not believe in the efficacy of prayers to saints and angels. They neither prayed to dead men, nor for them, nor was the service for the dead ever used by the Irish church till they were obliged to attend to it by the council of Cashel, as may be seen by a reference to the proceedings of that convention.

That the doctrine of transubstantiation was not held by the early church of Ireland, is evident by the reception which it received, on its being first promulgated by several Irish divines, among others, by the justly celebrated Joannes Scotus Eugina, so highly esteemed at the court of Charles the Bald, for his learning and piety, and whose book was condemned by the pope and the council of Versailles, as the only way they could confute Previous to this the Irish received the Lord's Supper in both

it.

kinds, and they called it "the communion of the body and blood of their Lord and Saviour."

In their places of worship they had no images nor statues; on the contrary, their use was not only expressly condemned, as we learn from Sedulius, one of their early divines, but mentioned also by others of them as heathenish and idolatrous.'

So far were the early Irish Christians from believing in purgatory, that until the period of Henry and Adrian's usurpation, the word does not appear to have been known to the Irish writers. That a number of the ceremonies of the Romish church, such as attending to canonical forms, singing in choirs, the use of the consecrated chrism in baptism, the sacrifices of the mass, and the dispensing of indulgences, were unknown, or at least unpractised in Ireland, until the period referred to, is matter of undoubted historical record; the circumstances being alluded to by various Romish writers, who complain of the stubbornness and heretical feeling of the Irish on these points, and who have happily furnished the most undoubted evidence as to the comparative purity of the church they so fiercely endeavour to maligu.

Among others who have unwittingly substantiated its claims, we may mention Gillebert, the pope's Legate, and bishop of Limerick, who in the eleventh century wrote what he calls the canonical custom of performing the offices of the whole ecclesiastical order,' in which he informs those for whom they were prepared, that it was 'to the end that those different and schismatical orders by which almost all Ireland was deluded, might give place to one Catholic and Roman office.'

The letter of Henry to Adrian is conclusive evidence on this subject. In that letter, he alleged,

that as the Irish were schismatics

and bad Christians, it was necessary to reform them, and oblige them to own the papal authority, which they had hitherto disregarded, and that the most probable means was to bring them into subjection to the crown of England,' which he says

had ever been devoted to the holy see; and as the best evidence that can be adduced is that of an enemy, I may also mention, that furnished by Bede, from whom we learn that Pope Honorius, when using the strongest argument he could devise in order to induce the Irish church to submit to the Ro

man see, exhorted them, ' not to

esteem their own small number wiser than all the rest of the world;' hereby admitting in the strongest possible way their estrangement from, and entire disagreement with the see of Rome.

Before concluding this part of our subject, it may be well to notice the peculiarities of the seven churches, and the round towers existing so generally in Ireland, both striking manifestations of our eastern origin. The Irish, it is evident, entertained a singular veneration for the number seven,witness the seven churches at Glendalough, Clonmacnois, Inniscatry, Inchferrin, Inniskeatra, and the seven altars of Clonfert and Holy Cross. In fact the country is studded with their remains, which are generally found situated in islands.

This number seven seems evidently to have been chosen in honour of him from whose disciples they had received the gospel, and in an humble imitation and remembrance of the seven primitive churches of the book of Revelations, to which this great apostle of the early saints in Ireland addressed his seven epistles from the isle that is called Patmos. When we take all these separate facts into consideration, comparing the admission of enemies, and the testimony of friends, and the remains