[Sidenote: English Church depressed by Saxon invasion.]
When the Romans abandoned Britain early in the fifth century, the Saxons took advantage of the defenceless state of the inhabitants to settle in the island, at first as colonists and afterwards as conquerors. The intermingling of these fierce heathens with the Christian population had a depressing influence on the Church; and the Bishops and Clergy, belonging as they did to the weaker and conquered portion of the community, seem to have been unable to do much towards the conversion of the invaders. [Sidenote: Diminution and retreat of Clergy.] Gradually, as the Saxons became more and more powerful in the island, the number of Bishops and Clergy in the accessible portions of of England grew smaller and smaller; and such as remained were at last compelled to take refuge with their brethren, who had retired to the mountain fastnesses, rather than live in slavery. Hence the records of the Church of England in the sixth century are chiefly confined to those dioceses which were situated in what we call Wales, or in other mountainous districts.
The CHURCH OF IRELAND is said by some to have been first founded in the Apostolic age, but this seems doubtful. The first certain information which we have { 75} respecting the presence of Christianity in the island, is that in A.D. 431, a Bishop named Palladius was sent thither on a mission by Pope Celestine. He appears, however, not to have met with much success, and he soon left the country and died, probably in Scotland. [Sidenote: St. Patrick the Apostle of Ireland.] A few years later, about A.D. 440, the celebrated St. Patrick began his mission in Ireland. He is generally considered to have been a native of North Britain, who, at the age of sixteen, was taken prisoner by pirates, and carried as a slave to Ireland. On regaining his liberty, he resolved to devote his life to the conversion of the country of his captivity; and having been consecrated Bishop, he returned to Ireland, and spent fifty years as a missionary in that hitherto heathen land. At the time of his death, A.D. 493, the Church was firmly rooted in Ireland, and possessed a native priesthood and a native Episcopate.