Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CHKISTIAN SETTLEMENT. No reliable details exist of the time when, the persons by whom, or the modes by which the conversion of Britain and Ireland to Christianity was accomplished. It is fairly certain that towards the close of the Roman military occupation of the country, before the garrisons were withdrawn, Christianity was established here; but for how long this had been the case, or how, or in what manner it came about, there is not only no satisfactory evidence, but really no evidence at all. It is important to remember this, for the want of definite reliable information has led to the growth of a series of legends, some of great beauty, all of great interest, as to the establishment of Christianity in Britain and Ireland. As is usually the case, whenever there is a demand for knowledge on a particular subject, the mediaeval writers furnished a supply to meet it. The result here is, that in the south part of Wales alone, there are a series of legends, which ascribe at the very least to no less than eleven persons the honour of being the founder, or early teachers of Christianity in Britain. Here are to be met with Apostles, companions of our Lord, members of the early Church, whose names are written in the Pauline Epistles, all of whom are alleged to have come ad ultimos Brittannos. Probably no one would be more astonished than these worthies themselves, on being told all the adventures they are stated to have met with in their journeys to these Islands. Not content with this series of improbabilities, the Welsh have set up a theory of their own, and sent a Welsh Prince to Rome, in the legend of which Bran forms one of the leading characters. Of his existence the evidence is most meagre; of his journey to Rome there is still less; of his conversion …
