“Believe ye in life after death? Believe ye in the resurrection at the Day of Judgment?” “We believe.”
“Believe ye the unity of the Church?” “We believe.”
‘And they were baptized, and a white garment put upon their heads. And they asked to see the face of Christ, and the Saint said unto them, “Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye receive the sacrifice.” And they answered, “Give us the sacrifice, that we may behold the Son, our Spouse.” And they received the Eucharist of God, and they slept in death.
“The articles of the Creed recited in this extract are those alone, it has been observed, which are to be found in symbols of the very highest antiquity, and the dialogue illustrates, what has been already noticed, the Celtic belief in genii or aerial beings, inhabiting mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, and fountains, and the existence of nature-worship in its simplest form.”—See the works of Skene, Todd, Cusack, Hennesy, Foster, Sherman, and for special purposes Whitley Stokes, Miss Stokes, G. T. Stokes, along with Maclear’s “Celts.”
CHAPTER II.
SOUTH ALBIN GAELS—BRIGIT.
It has been usually taken too much for granted that the early Christian preachers of Britain and Ireland succeeded in fully Christianising the districts in which they laboured, and with which their names are associated. This is a very imperfect apprehension of the results of their efforts. No missionary of the cross could excel Patrick and Columba in their enthusiasm for work, in their devotion to the Gospel cause, and in their resolute attempt to conquer the whole land for Christ. Yet we find that their evangelisation of the races to which they were respectively sent was very incomplete. Patrick writes of the large numbers who were converted under his preaching, but there is no evidence that Christianity was universally adopted by the whole people. On the contrary it is clear that the Ardri, or chief king of Ireland, continued to be a Pagan during the whole period of the mission of Patrick. It was only in the year 513 that a Christian sovereign exercised rule for the first time from the throne of Tara. This was some time after the death of the apostle of Ireland, [which occurred in] 493.
While Patrick was labouring to lay the foundations of the Irish Church, spiritual decay appears to have crept over the [heart of his] own native church among the Gaels of Strathclyde. The poetic and literary flowering of this period we have in the person of the celebrated Brigit. In those who are familiar with the revivals and declensions of church life, as unfolded in history, such a decay can excite no surprise. In our own times, with all the rich aids of civilization and Christian literature, enkindling and preservative that we possess, we find that one generation of earnest believers in a district is frequently succeeded by an apathetic one. So the living church of Strathclyde from which Patrick went forth, was in a decadent condition when his name began to shine and burn brightly on the shores of Erin.
There were many causes that contributed to the weakening of this Gaelic Church of the Clyde valleys. The Roman arms had been withdrawn and all over the Romanised provinces political disintegration set in. Dependence on a foreign rule, and the enervating luxuries of more southern lands had not only paralysed the native manliness of the British races, but had also greatly emasculated the primitive Christianity of these islands. Indeed, in southern Britain the early Christianity became so completely extinguished that it had to be re-kindled from the north in the sixth and seventh centuries. The vigorous forces of the unconverted and unconquered tribes of the north were too powerful for a Church which had been accustomed perhaps to lean too much on the civil protection afforded by an alien power. It must not also be forgotten that those early Christians had literally no help to feed the flame of their devotion. The fragments even of the Scriptures that may have been in circulation could only have been in the hands of a very limited number; while the languages in which they were written were utterly unknown to the people, and there were no translations. When all this is remembered it becomes rather a matter of marvel that the sacred glow of Christian truth survived so long in some places after the personal life that kindled it ceased to be. Those were truly ages when Christian witnesses were, and had to be living epistles known and read of all men; for the personal life became practically the literature in which the gospel was heralded. So the strength of a Church depended mainly on the character and personality of the teachers.