Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/159

PEEFACE. cU exercised a powerful influence in the direction which it took ; and there seems little reason to doubt that this element enters equally largely into the causes which led to so great a change in the state- ment of their history, if it did not give the first im- pulse to it. The annals of the Christian Church in Scotland shed, therefore, a great light upon the course of its civil history ; and it is hardly possible to read the one aright without clearly apprehending the bearing and influence of the other. When Church historians of Scotland commence introduction of their narrative by stating that the period of the introduction of Christianity into this country is uncertain, and its early history involved in obscu- rity, they express an opinion about as completely opposite to the real facts of the case as can well be imagined. The date of its introduction into every part of Scotland can be stated with more than usual precision. The Strathclyde Britons looked to St. Ninian as their first apostle, and as it is recorded of him that he heard of the death of St. Martin of Tours while the first Christian Church in that country was being built at Whitherne, its date is fixed to the year 397. The Angles of Northumbria were converted to Christianity by Paulinus in the year 625. Of the Picts, the southern division were converted by St. Ninian of Whitherne, and the northern Picts by St. Columba, who came from Ireland in the year 563 ; and the Scots were already Christians when they landed in Argyleshire in the year 498.