About a hundred and fifty years before the famous Columba landed on the isle of Iona, St. Ninian, "a most holy man of the British nation," as Bede calls him, preached the gospel in the southern districts of Scotland. This missionary, like almost all the saints of early times, is declared to have been of royal blood. He received his education at Rome, studied under the famous Martin of Tours, and, returning to Scotland, fixed his principal residence in Galloway.
If his biographers can be trusted, we are to believe that he went everywhere preaching the word, and that the naked savages listened, wondered, and were converted. "He hastened about the work to which he had been sent by the Spirit, under the command of Christ; and being received in his country, there was a great concourse and running together of the people, much joy in all, wonderful devotion; the praise of Christ everywhere resounded; some took him for a prophet. Presently the strenuous husbandman entered the field of his Lord, began to root up those things which were badly planted, to disperse those badly collected, and destroy those badly built." Thousands, it is said, were baptized and joined the army of the faithful.
He began to build a church of stone on the shores of the Solway, but, before it was finished, he received intelligence of the death of his friend and patron St. Martin, and piously dedicated the church to his honor. This is said to have been the first stone building erected in Scotland, and, from its white and glittering appearance compared with the log and mud cabins hitherto used, it attracted great attention. It was called in Saxon, whithern, or whithorn, from its appearance, and so it is till the present day.
We know nothing of the immediate successors of St. Ninian: down to the mission of Columba the history of Christianity in Scotland is little known. Doubtless the Lord would keep alive the fire which He had kindled, and preserve and spread the truth of the gospel which had been received by so many. Among the Picts, south of the Grampians, Ninian appears to have labored chiefly and successfully; but with the celebrated Columba begins the most interesting period in the ancient ecclesiastical annals of Scotland.
We have already seen Columba and his colony of monks settling down in Iona. There he built his monastery, such as it was. And so famous did the college of Iona become, that it was considered for many years, nay, for centuries, the light of the Western world. Men, eminent for learning and piety, were sent forth to found bishoprics and universities in every quarter of Europe. For thirty-four years Columba lived and labored on that solitary rock. Occasionally he visited the mainland, doing the work of an evangelist among the barbarous Scots and Picts, planting churches, and exercising an immense influence over all classes; but his great object was training men for the work of the gospel at home and abroad. A close and friendly connection would, no doubt, be maintained between the North of Ireland and the West of Scotland; indeed, at that time they were considered as identical and were known by the general appellation of Scots.