"I, Patrick, a sinner!”

It is thus the devoted and energetic missionary who has been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Ireland, begins his own confession. He starts his letter of protest to Coroticus in the same striking way.

Whatever others may have thought of him or may think of him today, he knew himself as a sinner and found salvation where only sinners find it, in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Little is actually known of his life and experience except that which he himself has told us. There are, perhaps, three authentic literary works of his that have come down to our day, the “Confession”, the “Letter to Coroticus”, and the hymn, “The Breastplate", composed about the time that he appeared before the King of Tara.

Even in listening to these, translations of which are now available in English, it is difficult at times to discriminate between what appears in the original text and later additions inserted by Roman Catholic adherents, but in the main these documents are so thoroughly transparent and ingenuous that it is unthinkable that any forger could have written them.

They show too intimate a knowledge of the grace and holiness of God to be the work of a conscienceless impostor.