196 Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 



times by these people, and we had various remains in the shape 

 of arms, sepulchral remains, and different instruments for agri- 

 cultural and other purposes to prove their existence. The 

 Christianity they had there came from Ireland. They had every 

 reason to suppose there was Christianity in Ireland — to what 

 extent he was not prepared to say — before the time of Patrick, 

 the great saint of Ireland. There was ground for believing that 

 it was introduced through two channels — one from the south-west 

 of Scotland ; the other probably came through Gaul, aud also 

 perhaps through Wales, because there was a connection between 

 the Galiic and AVelsh Church, as well as a considerable connection 

 between Wales and Ireland. Patrick, to a certain extent, was a 

 mythical personage, but there could be no question there was a 

 Patrick, because they had writings which, on the whole, could 

 be attributed to him. Patrick at an early age was curried away 

 captive into Ireland, and while he was there he conceived an 

 attachment for the people that ultimately led him to go to 

 Ireland and spread Christianity there. He felt quite sure that 

 the Christianity of the West came through Pome, and he did not 

 believe in the idea of another Christianity coming from the east. 

 The Irish Church was essentially a missionary church, her 

 missionaries going through the whole of Western Europe, through 

 Germany, and even into Italy itself, preaching the Gospel, con- 

 firming the faith where it had been, and sowing it where it had 

 not been sown before. Ireland was not only the centre of 

 missionary work, but she was also the centre of education, and 

 no finer examples could be found of writings done at that time 

 than the books of the Gospels from the pens of the Irish scribes. 

 In the British Museum there was a copy of the Gospels written 

 at Lindisfarne, which was so like Irish books that no one would 

 be able to discriminate between them. Anyone who had nut 

 seen it should go to the British Museum and ask to be shown the 

 book. There was no architecture before the Conquest, as the 

 buildings before that time had no style about them, and it was 

 not until after the time of William the Conqueror that real 

 architecture began. He pointed out that there was no such 

 thing as the island of Lindisfarne ; it was simply an island on 

 the Lindisfarnensis coast. Lindisfarne, he believed, was derived 

 from the names of two streams — Lindis, which was the old name 

 of the Low, over which they crossed on the way from Berwick, 

 and the Waren, which ran into the sea a little north of Bam- 



