Saint Patrick | Page 4

of Saint Pat-rick, you are still only upon the threshold of
your inquiries; for you next find before you for examination a vast
variety of miracles, accredited to him, which you must examine,
weeding out such as are puerile and are manifestly not well established,
and retaining such as are proved to your satisfaction. You will be struck
at once with the novel and interesting character of some of them. Prince
Caradoc was changed into a wolf. An Irish magician who opposed the
saint was swallowed by the earth as far as his ears, and then, on
repentance, was instantly cast forth and set free. An Irish pagan, dead
and long buried, talked freely with the saint from out his turf-covered
grave, and charitably explained where a certain cross belonged which
had been set by mistake over him. The saint was captured once, and
was exchanged for a kettle, which thenceforth froze water over the fire
instead of boiling it, until the saint was sent back and the kettle returned.
Ruain, son of Cucnamha, Amhalgaidh's charioteer, was blind. He went
in haste to meet Saint Patrick, to be healed. Mignag laughed at him.
"My troth," said Patrick, "it would be fit that you were the blind one."
The blind man was healed and the seeing one was made blind;
Roi-Ruain is the name of the place where this was done. Patrick's
charioteer was looking for his horses in the dark, and could not find
them; Patrick lifted up his hand; his five fingers illuminated the place
like five torches, and the horses were found.
You see that one has a good deal to go through who undertakes to
prepare a life of Saint Patrick.

But our thoughts have wandered from Dr. Parsons. He has gathered the
books before him with great pains, from public and private libraries,
and he religiously meant to make an exhaustive study of them all; but
sermons and parish calls and funerals, and that little affair of Mrs.
Samuel Nute, have forced him, by a process of which we all know
something, to forego his projected subsoil ploughing and make such
hasty preparation as he can.
He has read the Confession and the Epistle to Coroticus, and he has
glanced over the "Life and Legends," reading in a cursory way of the
leper's miraculous voyage; of the fantastic snow; of the tombstone that
sailed the seas; of the two trout that Patrick left to live forever in a
well,--
"The two inseparable trout, Which would advance against perpetual
streams, Without obligation, without transgression-- Angels will be
along with them in it."
And being very fond of pure water himself, the Doctor is touched by
Patrick's lament when far away from the well Uaran-gar:--
"Uaran-gar, Uaran-gar! O well, which I have loved, which loved me!
Alas! my cry, O my dear God, That my drink is not from the pure well
of Uaran-gar!"
But finally he has settled down, as most casual students will, to the
sincere and charming little sketch by William Bullen Morris,--"Saint
Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland." He is reading it now by the east
window, holding the book at arm's-length, as is his wont.
The theme is new to him. There opens up a fresh and interesting field.
The dedication of the little book strikes his imagination: "To the
Members of the Confraternity of Saint Patrick, established at the
London Oratory, who, with the children of the saint in many lands, are
the enduring witnesses of the faith which seeth Him who is invisible."
He is interested in the motto on the title-page,--"En un mot, on y voit
beaucoup le caractère de S. Paul," and in the authorization,--"Nihil

obstat. E. S. Keagh, Cong. Orat." "Imprimatur, + Henricus Eduardus,
Card."
The Doctor looks through the book in order. First, the introduction; and
here he considers the questions--First, was there in fact such a man as
Saint Patrick? Second, what was his nationality? Third, when was he
born: and, herein, does the date of his escape from captivity conflict
with the date of his visit to his kinsman, Saint Martin of Tours? Fourth,
to what age did he live? Fifth, where and by whom was he converted?
Sixth, are his miracles authentic? and so forth.
After this introductory study the book takes up the saint's life in
connected order. Patrick was the son of a Roman decurio. From his
earliest days wonders attended him. When he was an infant, and was
about to be baptized, it happened that no water was to be had for the
sacrament; whereupon, at the sign of the cross, made by the priest with
the infant's hand upon the earth, a fountain gushed forth from the
ground, and the priest, who was blind, anointing his own eyes with the
water, received his