March 17, 461 (traditional date): Patrick, missionary to Ireland and that country’s patron saint, dies. Irish raiders captured Patrick, a Romanized Briton, and enslaved him as a youth. He escaped to Gaul (modern France) but returned to Ireland after experiencing a vision calling him back to preach. Patrick enjoyed great success there as a missionary, and only the far south remained predominantly pagan when he died (see issue 60: How the Irish Were Saved).
March 17, 1780: Thomas Chalmers, pastor, social reformer, and one of the founders of the Free Church of Scotland (FCS), is born. By his death in 1847, he had started missions in hundreds of poor urban settings, and he led a third of the Scottish clergy and a half of the laity of the church of Scotland into FCS in 1843. His chief concern throughout his life was the evangelization of the urban poor.
