Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. SAINTS OF THE FIRST PERIOD—S. BRIGIT. A Writer of the eighth century divides the time from S. Patrick to A.d. 665 into three periods, and describes the difference which the religious character of each presented. The document is entitled " A Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland according to their Different Periods,"l and it points to a decline in religion as having taken place after the close of the first, which includes the mission of S. Patrick. The saints of that period are accounted most holy ; those of the second very holy; those of the third holy ; and they are respectively compared to the sun, the moon, and the stars. It will be convenient to follow this arrangement in treating of the history of the Church between the beginning of the fifth and the middle of the seventh century, not affirming its perfect accuracy as to dates, but regarding it as giving a fair representation of the condition of religion. The " Catalogue " begins thus : " The first order2 of saints was in the time of Patrick ; and then they were all bishops, famous and holy, full of the Holy Ghost, 350 in number, founders of churches. They had one Head—Christ, and one chief—Patrick ; they observed one mass, one celebration, one tonsure from ear to ear. They celebrated one Easter on thefourteenth moon after the vernal equinox, and whoever was excommunicated by one church all excommunicated. They rejected not the services and society of women, because, founded on the Rock Christ, they feared not the blast of temptation. All these bishops were sprung from the Romans, Franks, Britons, and Scots."l This period terminated at A.d. 543. 1 First published by Usslier, " Works," vi. 477479 i subsequently liy Fleming, "Collectanea Sacr.i," pp. 430, 431, with some differences. 3 The word Catholic, whic... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.