CHAPTER XIII.

_How Saint Patrick was Carried into Ireland._

As, according to the testimony of Holy Writ, the furnace tries gold and
the fire of tribulation proves the just, so did the hour of his trial
draw near to Patrick, that he might the more provedly receive the crown
of life. For when the illustrious boy had perlustrated three lustres,
already attaining his sixteenth year, he was, with many of his
countrymen, seized by the pirates who were ravaging those borders, and
was made captive and carried into Ireland, and was there sold as a
slave to a certain pagan prince named Milcho, who reigned in the
northern part of the island, even at the same age in which Joseph is
recorded to have been sold into Egypt. But Joseph, being sold as a
slave, and being after his humiliation exalted, received power and
dominion over all Egypt. Patrick, after his servitude and his
affliction, obtained the primacy of the especial and spiritual dominion
of Ireland. Joseph refreshed with corn the Egyptians oppressed by
famine; Patrick, in process of time, fed with the salutary food of the
Christian faith the Irish perishing under idolatry. To each was
affliction sent for the profit of his soul, as is the flail to the
grain, the furnace to the gold, the file to the iron, the wine-press to
the grape, and the oil-press to the olive. Therefore it was that
Patrick, at the command of the forementioned prince, was appointed to
the care of the swine, and under his care the herd became fruitful and
exceedingly multiplied. From whence it may well be learned that as the
master's substance is often increased and improved by the attention of