onary in Ireland he never
once left, and ended his days in the land of his adoption. "Though I
could have wished to leave them" (the Irish), writes the Saint in his
"Confession," "and had been desirous of going to Britain, as if to my
own country and parents, and not that alone, but even to Gaul to visit
my brethren, and see the face of the Lord's Saints. But I am bound in
the spirit, and He who witnesseth all will account me guilty if I do
it, and I fear to lose the labour which I have begun; and not I, but
the Lord Christ, who commanded me to come and remain with them for the
rest of my life, if the Lord prolongs it, and keeps me from all sin
before Him." This statement, which was made by St. Patrick just before
his death, when he wrote the "Confession," could never have been
volunteered if he had once left the country where the Lord had
commanded him to remain for the rest of his life.

THE SCOTCH THEORIES ON THIS SUBJECT.

The Scholiast and Colgan, who identify the Crag of Dumbarton with the
Nemthur of the Saint's nativity, are faced by the unanswerable
difficulty that though Nemthur may be the name of a tower, or may be
the name of the district in which the tower stood, it cannot be the
name of a town. The Saint in his "Confession" states that his father
hailed from the suburban district of a town called Bonaven Tabernise,
where he possessed a country seat, from which he (the Saint) was
carried off into captivity. Bonaven, therefore, is rightly regarded as
St. Patrick's native town. St. Fiacc simply states that St. Patrick was
born at Nemthur, but he does not assart that Nemthur was a town,
otherwise he would be at variance with his Patron, who plainly gives us
to understand that he was born at Bonaven Tabernise, The only way of
reconciling this apparent conflict of evidence is to assume that St.
Fiacc is giving the name either of the tower or the district in which
St. Patrick was born, while the Saint is giving the name of the town of
which he was a native, but not the name of the district which was
honoured by his birth.

Dr. Lanigan, however, objects "that no sensible writer, wishing to
inform his readers where the Saint was born, would say that he came
into the world in a tower" ("Eccl. Hist.," vol. i., p. 101).

Nemthur may indeed be a corruption of Neustria, as Dr. Lanigan
suggests; but it must not be forgotten that districts not unfrequently
derive their names from famous monuments that either stand or h