376 THE peesident's addbess. 



ecclesiastical shape therefrom. What Dr. O'Donovan says of 

 S. Patrick applies to all the missionaries who worked among 

 the Celts, "nothing is clearer than that Patrick engrafted 

 Christianity on the Pagan superstitions with so much skill that 

 he won the people over to the Christian religion before they 

 understood the exact difference between the two systems of 

 belief."* I would substitute "institutions" for "superstitions." 



A few years after the preaching of S. Patrick, we hear of 

 thousands of monks in one monastery, and of monastic establish- 

 ments peppered over the whole face of Ireland. We hear of the 

 Isle of Bardsey off the coast of Anglesey containing 20,000 

 saints. This would not have been possible had not Christianity 

 replaced institutions already flourishing. Converts do not become 

 ascetics at a bound. The fact that these communities did exist 

 previously we know from the classic authors. What Christian 

 monks did was to step into the shells lately occupied by the 

 Druids, or else converted Druids continued in their old 

 communities, with a changed faith, and a new worship, but with 

 their organisation unaltered. 



It is not my intention here to enter into the characteristics 

 of the Cornish saints, and of their establishments. I reserve 

 that for my address next year. 



I come now to an interesting point in Cornish history, of 

 which no proper record exists. Not only did Cornwall send out 

 swarms of colonists, but she was forced, no doubt reluctantly, 

 to receive them, and these not refugees from the east, flying 

 before the Saxons, but adventurers from the north. 



If we look at the north-east of Cornwall from the estuary of 

 the Camel at Padstow to Hartland Point in Devon, we find that 

 almost every church is dedicated to a member of one or other 

 of two closely allied royal houses, those of Brecknock and 

 Gwent. 



The Royal Brecknock family was Irish. Aulac Goronog 

 at the head of his Goidelic Picts had invaded South Wales and 

 taken possession of Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, in the 

 very beginning of the 5th century. His son was Brychan. 

 This Brychan had a numerous family, but his reputed sons and 



*0'Donovan : "The Four Masters," 1851, Vol. I, p. 131. 



