[Illustration: The Saint Patrick of Our Own Century.]




THE LIFE AND ACTS OF ST. PATRICK.

BY JOCELIN.


CHAPTER I.

There was once a man named Calphurnius, the son of Potitus, a
presbyter, by nation a Briton, living in the village Taburnia (that is,
the field of the tents, for that the Roman army had there pitched their
tents), near the town of Empthor, and his habitation was nigh unto the
Irish Sea. This man married a French damsel named Conchessa, niece of
the blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours; and the damsel was elegant in
her form and in her manners, for, having been brought from France with
her elder sister into the northern parts of Britain, and there sold at
the command of her father, Calphurnius, being pleased with her manners,
charmed with her attentions, and attracted with her beauty, very much
loved her, and, from the state of a serving-maid in his household,
raised her to be his companion in wedlock. And her sister, having been
delivered unto another man, lived in the aforementioned town of Empthor.

And Calphurnius and his wife were both just before God, walking without
offence in the justifications of the Lord; and they were eminent in
their birth, and in their faith, and in their hope, and in their