he most celebrated saints of Ireland, published by Usher, is
placed St. Cammin, who in his youth retired from the noise of the world
into the island of Irish-Kealtair, in the lake of Derg-Derch, or Dergid,
in the confines of Thomond and Galway. Here several disciples resorting
to him, he built a monastery, which, out of veneration for his
extraordinary sanctity, was long very famous among the Irish. The church
of that place still retains, from him, the name of Tempul-Cammin. His
happy death is placed in the Inis-Fallen annals, about the year 653. See
Usher's Antiqu. p. 503.

{661}

MARCH XXVI.

ST. LUDGER, BISHOP OF MUNSTER,

APOSTLE OF SAXONY.

From his life, written by Altfrid, one of his successors, and another
compiled by a monk of Werden, about sixty years after the death of St.
Ludger, of inferior authority to the former, both extant in Mabillon,
Act. Bened. t. 4, p. 489: also a third life in Surius and the
Bollandists, written by the monks of Werden perhaps twenty years after
the latter. See Hist. Litter. Fr. t. 5, p. 660.

A.D. 809.

ST. LUDGER was born in Friseland, about the year 743. His father, who
was a nobleman of the first rank in that country, at the child's own
request, committed him very young to the care of St. Gregory, the
disciple of St. Boniface, and his successor in the government of the see
of Utrecht. Ludger had the happiness to have seen that holy martyr, and
received from him strong impressions of virtue. Gregory educated him in
his monastery, and admiring his progress in learning and piety, gave him
the clerical tonsure. Ludger, desirous of further improvement, passed
over into England, and spent four years and a half under Alcuin, who was
rector of a famous school at York. He was careful to employ his whole
time in the exercises of piety, and the study of the holy scriptures and
fathers. In 773 he returned home, and St. Gregory dying in 776, his
successor, Alberic, compelled our saint to receive the holy order of
priesthood, and employed him for several years in preaching the word of
God in Friseland, where he converted great numbers, both among the
pagans and vicious Christians, founded several monasteries, and built
many churches. This was the state of affairs, when the pagan Saxons,
ravaging the country, obliged him to leave Friseland. Whereupon he
travelled to Rome, to consult pope Adrian II. what course to take, and
what he thought God required of him. He then retired for thr