trick, the ignorant
sinner, has written in Ireland, that no one may ever say, if I have
ever done or demonstrated anything, however little, that it was my
ignorance. But do you judge, and let it be believed firmly, that it
was the gift of God. And this is my confession before I die.

Thus far is what Patrick wrote with his own hand; he was translated to
heaven on the seventeenth of March.

ST. PATRICK'S EPISTLE TO COROTICUS.

_ST. PATRICK'S EPISTLE TO THE CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS OF THE TYRANT
COROTICUS._

I, Patrick, a sinner and unlearned, have been appointed a bishop in
Ireland, and I accept from God what I am. I dwell amongst barbarians
as a proselyte and a fugitive for the love of God. He will testify
that it is so. It is not my wish to pour forth so many harsh and
severe things; but I am forced by zeal for God and the truth of Christ,
who raised me up for my neighbors and sons, for whom I have forsaken my
country and parents, and would give up even life itself, if I were
worthy. I have vowed to my God to teach these people, though I should
be despised by them, to whom I have written with my own hand to be
given to the soldiers to be sent to Coroticus--I do not say to my
fellow-citizens, nor to the fellow-citizens of pious Romans, but to the
fellow-citizens of the devil, through their evil deeds and hostile
practices. They live in death, companions of the apostate Scots and
Picts, blood-thirsty men, ever ready to redden themselves with the
blood of innocent Christians, numbers of whom I have begotten to God
and confirmed in Christ.

On the day following that in which they were clothed in white and
received the chrism of neophytes, they were cruelly cut up and slain
with the sword by the above mentioned; and I sent a letter by a holy
priest, whom I have taught from his infancy, with some clerics, begging
that they would restore some of the plunder or the baptized captives;
but they laughed at them. Therefore I know not whether I should grieve
most for those who were slain, or for those whom the devil insnared
into the eternal pains of hell, where they will be chained like him.
For whoever commits sin is the slave of sin, and is called the son of
the devil.

Wherefore let every man know who fears God that they are estranged from
me, and from Christ my God, whose ambassador I am--these patricides,
fratricides, and ravening wolves, who devour the people of the Lord as
if they were bread; as it is said