Posted on 03/18/2016 3:45:41 PM PDT by truthfinder9
A fleet of 50 currachs weaved its way toward the shore, where a young Roman Brit and his family walked. His name was Patricius, the 16-year-old son of a civil magistrate and tax collector. He had heard stories of Irish raiders who captured slaves and took them "to the ends of the world," and as he studied the longboats, he no doubt began imagining the worst.
The warriors quickly demolished the village, and as Patricius darted among burning houses and screaming women, he was caught. The barbarians dragged him aboard a boat bound for the east coast of Ireland.
Patricius, better known as Saint Patrick...What is less well-known is that Patrick was a humble missionary (this saint regularly referred to himself as "a sinner") of enormous courage. When he evangelized Ireland, he set in motion a series of events that impacted all of Europe. It all started when he was carried off into slavery around 430.
Escape from sin and slavery
Patrick was sold to a cruel warrior chief, whose opponents' heads sat atop sharp poles around his palisade in Northern Ireland. While Patrick minded his master's pigs in the nearby hills, he lived like an animal himself, enduring long bouts of hunger and thirst. Early missionaries to Britain had left a legacy of Christianity that young Patrick was exposed to and took with him into captivity. He had been a nominal Christian to this point; he now turned to the Christian God of his fathers for comfort.
"I would pray constantly during the daylight hours," he later recalled. "The love of God and the fear of him surrounded me more and more. And faith grew. And the spirit roused so that in one day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and at night only slightly less."
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
There’s a book about this...INCREDIBLE STORY of how the writings from ancient times were preserved by the Irish when just about the entire Western World was about to be annihilated.
The book is called How the Irish Saved Civilization.
The book is called How the Irish Saved Civilization.
Yep, that is it. Have a copy - VERY INTENSE reading. Amazing people, literally surviving on the Edge of the World to keep humanity from reverting back to the Stone Age.
My husband said that’s why God created beer - so the Irish wouldn’t take over the world. ;o)
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