The Story of St. Patrick from History of the Scottish nation by Dr. J.A. Rylie PART Two of Three…

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  · The Story of St. Patrick from History of the Scottish nation by Dr. J.A. Rylie PART Two of Three

The pirates who had borne him across the sea, had no sooner landed him on the Irish shore than they proceeded to put him up for auction on the slave block. Patrick was purchased by a chieftain and sent to herd his master’s cattle and swine on the mountains.Was ever a metamorphosis so complete or so sudden? Yesterday the cherished son of a Roman magistrate, today a slave and a swine herder. Pinched with hunger, covered with rags, soaked with the summer’s rain, bitten by the winter’s frost, or blinded by its snowdrifts, he is the very picture of the Prodigal son who was sent into the fields to keep swine. Like the proud King Nebuchadnezzar, he had to learn the hard way that the Most High rules. (See Daniel 4: 33-37).After several years Patrick likewise lifted up his eyes to Heaven. He called on the name of the Lord, was born again into the kingdom of God, and indeed excellent majesty was added to his name. He was able to escape and found a ship which carried him back home. Discouraged by his parents and friends, he tried to ignore the plight of the Irish, but the Lord spoke to him by dreams for many years. One such dream he records:In the dead of night I saw a man coming to me as if from Hiberio, whose name was Victoricus, bearing innumerable letters, He gave one of them to me to read, It was entitled, “The Voice of the Irish” (Vox Hibernicaeum.) As I read I thought I heard at the same moment the voice of those that dwell at the wood of Foclut, near the western ocean; and thus they cried, as with one mouth, “We beseech thee, holy youth, come and walk still among us.” I felt my heart greatly stirred in me, and could read no more, and so I awoke.Presented by: Thomas E. Kresal from Excerpt from The Collegiate Baptist Workbook by James R. Beller, pg. 68-69