Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/30

 CHAPTER III.

the subject of Patrick's missionary labours, he gives us but little information himself. He excuses himself, saying, 'It would be a long task to enumerate one by one my labours, or even a part of them. Briefly I may say that the very loving God has often delivered me from slavery, and from twelve perils by which my very life was endangered, besides many snares, and that which I am not able to express in words.'

But if he does not tell us much about his labours, he is not at all reticent as to the results which followed. 'Truly I am debtor to God,' he says, 'who has bestowed such great grace upon me, that through me many people should be born again in God, and that ministers should everywhere be ordained for this people newly come to the faith, whom the Lord took from the ends of the earth.' He tells us that the number of his converts is to be counted by many thousands;—that 'those who never had any knowledge of God and worshipped only idols and abominations have lately become the people of the Lord, and are called the sons of God,' and that these 'sons of the Scots and daughters of princes' were ready to suffer reproaches and persecution for 26