religion. And though in their outward habit and abiding they seemed to
serve under the yoke of Babylon, yet did they in their acts and in
their conversation show themselves to be citizens of Jerusalem.
Therefore, out of the earth of their flesh, being freed from the tares
of sin and from the noxious weeds of vice by the ploughshare of
evangelic and apostolic learning, and being fruitful in the growth of
all virtues, did they, as the best and richest fruit, bring forth a
son, whom, when he had at the holy font put off the old man, they
caused to be named Patricius, as being the future father and patron of
many nations; of whom, even at his baptism, the God which is three in
one was pleased, by the sign of a threefold miracle, to declare how
pure a vessel of election should he prove, and how devoted a worshipper
of the Holy Trinity. But after a little while, this happy birth being
completed, they vowed themselves by mutual consent unto chastity, and
with an holy end rested in the Lord. But Calphurnius first served God
a long time in the deaconship, and at length closed his days in the
priesthood.




CHAPTER II.

_How a Fountain burst forth, and how Sight and Learning were given to
the Blind._

A certain man named Gormas, who had been blind even from his mother's
womb, heard in a dream a voice commanding him that he should take the
hand of the boy Patrick, then lately baptized, and make on the ground
the sign of the cross--adding that at the touch a new fountain would