The news is full of wars and rumors of wars.   The people of the world are trying to kill each other.  But they have been doing that for as long as we have historical knowledge of the human race.  In Matthew 24:6, Jesus is speaking: "...you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars:  don't be troubled: for all theses things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom..."  Why can't people get along with each other??!!      

I have been reading this last couple of weeks (to occupy my mind).  Four John Grishom novels that I had missed somewhere along the way.  And now I am halfway through "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill.  I had read this book a few years ago, loved it enough to add it to my permanent collection of books, and am completely fascinated with it all over again.

It takes you through all recorded civilized history, the wars they fought, and the heroes and great minds of each age.  It moves toward the fall of Rome and the burning and destruction of the records of history by the barbarians when they invaded Rome--which begins the dark ages.  Civilized living seems to be lost.  But way off in a forgotten land, far from the events in Rome, the Irish--a wild and woolly people come to the rescue.  Patrick has Christianized Ireland.  And even though they are on the outskirts of civilization--they are hardly civilized themselves--they quietly pull off a literary miracle.  And from an isolated people who for the most part can't read or write.  

It is a fascinating book.  Cahill draws a huge amount of history from the letters of Paul.  It is interesting to remember that Paul was a Roman.  He came from a wealthy family who sent him to study at the feet of Gamaliel--a doctor of the law. The leading scholar of that day.  Acts 5:34,
Acts 22:3.

We have many of the lost records of history because of the Irish.