new Churches having been founded at that period, but none of them owe their origin to the labours of apostles solemnly sent forth for the purpose of evangelization. In the case of Abyssinia, for example, two youths, who had been taken prisoner by the inhabitants, instructed their captors in the faith of Christ, and spread among all the people the light of the Gospel. In Georgia, too, a captive was the first to preach amongst the people the unsearchable riches of Christ, and thus a 'little maid' was honoured of God in being chosen to be the means of their conversion.
The Christian Church, in its corporate capacity, gave no sanction to these and similar enterprises, and had quite forgotten that its mission was to preach the Gospel to every creature. In the apostolic age the idea was that Christianity should be like a great sea, spreading over the whole earth. In the fourth century Christians were content that it should be like a river—a broad and mighty river, it is true, but with heathenism as banks on each side, unmeasured in extent, and not to be reached by the healing waters.
When Christianity became generally diffused over Western Europe, two nations were passed over. The Irish were not evangelized until the fifth century, and the tribes of Germany and the northern parts of the Continent remained in heathenism for some centuries later. Both of these facts have to be kept in mind when we come to study the history of Christianity in Ireland.
The particular time at which a Church was founded must necessarily influence its future to a great extent, particularly when, as in Ireland, the country is more or less isolated from the rest of the world, and is scarcely, if at all, influenced by the
