EARLY CELTIC CHURCHES OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 207 



Arklow, and coasted along until he came to Strangforth Lough, 

 near where he had been a slave boy, in county Antrim. Speaking 

 as a patriotic Englishman, and acknowledging how much Ireland 

 has suffered from time to time at our hands, I am glad that we also 

 sent over to Ireland the greatest blessing that country ever received 

 in St. Patrick. He was undoubtedly, from his name, a Roman 

 citizen, and do not the Irish claim that the Romans never entered 

 Ireland 1 Still, whether he was or was not of British lineage, at all 

 €^■ents he came from their side of the water, and his name of 

 Patricius (Celtic " Patrick "), as I have pointed out, shows that he was 

 a Roman citizen. 



There is another interesting point that Miss Hull has lighth' 

 touched upon, the position of the bishops in the early Irish Church. 

 In a great many cases they were not only bishops, but they were 

 chiefs of particular clans, and they were used to fight with one hand 

 and pray with the other — I was going to say. I think it was St. 

 Columba, when leaving Ireland to go on his mission work, who said 

 he hoped to make amends for the number of people he had 

 slaughtered by converting ten times that numl^er to Christianity. 



Mr. David Howard, V.P. — I specially enjoyed this paper. I 

 am prejudiced in favour of the Celtic Church. I have derived my 

 name from AVelsh ancestors ; and, being an Essex man, I have a 

 respect for the Celtic Church, because we had such a strong opinion 

 about the diocese of London that we sent home what was left of 

 the missionaries and remained heathen until St. Chad took us in 

 hand from the Xorth ; and then we revenged ourselves by corrupting 

 his name to the East Anglican pronunciation of Ceddes. 



The fact that Essex owed its Christianity to the Xorth is a proof 

 •of the wonderful vitality of the Xorthern Church. It is not 

 wonderful that the Saxons absolutely declined to accept the religion 

 of the concpiered people ; there was a feeling of such tremendous 

 strength among the heathen that their God was the God of a 

 particular people. If we realise the strength of this feeling we can 

 hardly wonder that they endeavoured to stamp out the Church as 

 they went on, so that the groimd had to be re-won by Augustine 

 and his fellow missionaries ; and this fact has very much prevented 

 our appreciating the vitality and grandeur of the Celtic Church. 



There are two little details to keep in our minds : the first is the 

 constant evidences of the Eastern origin of our Christianity in the 



