Patrick was not the baptismal name of the saint; it was given him by St. Celestine[118] as indicative of rank, or it may be with some prophetic intimation of his future greatness.  He was baptized by the no less significant appellation of Succat—­“brave in battle.”  But his warfare was not with a material foe.  Erinn received the faith at his hands, with noble and unexampled generosity; and one martyr, and only one, was sacrificed in preference of ancient pagan rites; while we know that thousands have shed their blood, and it maybe hundreds even in our own times have sacrificed their lives, to preserve the treasure so gladly accepted, so faithfully preserved.[119]

Moore, in his History of Ireland, exclaims, with the force of truth, and the eloquence of poetry:  “While in all other countries the introduction of Christianity has been the slow work of time, has been resisted by either government or people, and seldom effected without lavish effusion of blood, in Ireland, on the contrary, by the influence of one zealous missionary, and with but little previous preparation of the soil by other hands, Christianity burst forth at the first ray of apostolic light, and, with the sudden ripeness of a northern summer, at once covered the whole land.  Kings and princes, when not themselves amongst the ranks of the converted, saw their sons and daughters joining in the train without a murmur.  Chiefs, at variance in all else, agreed in meeting beneath the Christian banner; and the proud druid and bard laid their superstitions meekly at the foot of the cross; nor, by a singular blessing of Providence—­unexampled, indeed, in the whole history of the Church—­was there a single drop of blood shed on account of religion through the entire course of this mild Christian revolution, by which, in the space of a few years, all Ireland was brought tranquilly under the dominion of the Gospel.”

It is probable that St. Patrick was born in 387, and that in 403 he was made captive and carried into Ireland.  Those who believe Alcuith or Dumbarton to have been his birthplace, are obliged to account for his capture in Gaul—­which has never been questioned—­by supposing that he and his family had gone thither to visit the friends of his mother, Conchessa.  He was sold as a slave, in that part of Dalriada comprised in the county of Antrim, to four men, one of whom, Milcho, bought up their right from the other three, and employed him in feeding sheep or swine.  Exposed to the severity of the weather day and night, a lonely slave in a strange land, and probably as ignorant of the language as of the customs of his master, his captivity, would, indeed, have been a bitter one, had he not brought with him, from a holy home, the elements of most fervent piety.  A hundred times in the day, and a hundred times in the night, he lifted up the voice of prayer and supplication to the Lord of the bondman and the free, and faithfully served the harsh, and at times cruel, master to whom Providence had assigned him.  Perhaps he may have offered his sufferings for those who were serving a master even more harsh and cruel.