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THE SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL. 269
may
choose which country he likes and he will find clever and ingenious
arguments to support his theory. The Saint himself says that his
father's name was Calpornius and that he dwelt in the village of
Bannaven Tabernia, and the learned, if agreed upon no other point, are
at least at one upon this — that they don't know where that village
was. Saint Patrick's father had a small farm and seems to have been of
noble birth, but the Saint invariably speaks of himself as the rudest
of men, and deplores his want of learning. " I, Patrick a sinner, the
rudest and the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to very
many," is the beginning of his Confession, a work written by himself
and containing most of the few facts known about his life.
At
the age ,of sixteen he was taken captive, whether from Armorica in
Brittany, or from Dumbarton on the Clyde, it is impossible to say, and
carried " along with many thousands of others " into barbarous Ireland.
This evidently
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