Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

A.D. 30-507. 7
was making itself felt with peculiar ferocity, in 450,
a band of missionaries, escorting a whole population
of men and women, left the shores of Wales in open
boats made of skins sewn together, and landed in
Armorica, the real Brittany of to-day. For a hundred
*/ years those missionaries toiled, * and the result of their
labours is felt even now in the strong Catholic faith
of those regions. Neither Principality nor Power
has been able to wrest the precious seed from Breton
hearts, and this they owe to the exiled Britons.
The chief apostles are sometimes called the Seven
Saints of Brittany. They were all monks, and all
canonised, and their names, besides being written in
heaven, are part of the soil. Samson of Dol was
the Metropolitan, with his six suffragans : Pol de
Leon, Tugdual of Treguier, Corentin of Quimper,
Paterne of Vannes, St. Brieuc, and St. Malo.1
Th missionary spirit existed, therefore, in no
small degree amongst the Britons. How comes it,
then, that they absolutely refused to enlighten the
Saxons In Armorica they were addressing themselves
to a Celtic race, and it is certain that the Celt
prefers to convert other Celts even in our own day.
As a people they are peculiarly open to the influences
of the national spirit.
God rewarded their love for the souls of Armorica
by an increase of spiritual life and vigour at
home. The very invasion under Hengist and Hor-
sa (449), which had driven them away, was raging,
1 Moines