angels with
beautiful countenances and corporeal shapes. In particular, one angel
of the order of the Seraphim attended her in times of danger with a
flaming sword, to drive back her enemies. Among St. Teresa's other
powers was one of no mean importance--the power of delivering souls
out of purgatory. Her faith in holy water was great, for by its force
she swept away devils as by a mighty river.

St. Hilarian was a match for Satan and his sorcerers. A young man,
desperately in love with a lady of rare beauty and chastity, who
rejected his advances, applied to certain sorcerers, ministers of the
temple of Esculapius. By means of their evil devices the damsel began
to love her admirer extravagantly; indeed, so much so, that her
emotions savoured more of madness than of true affection. Her parents
laid her at St. Hilarian's feet, and he immediately drove out a devil
that had taken possession of the maiden, both bodily and mentally. At
one time St. Hilarian did what at first seemed invaluable service to
the neighbourhood in which he lived. The people besought him to send
rain, as their crops were withering away, and their cattle dying of
thirst. He sent what they desired, but the rain bred serpents and
venomous creatures, which destroyed the fruits of the earth and
injured the inhabitants. Like St. Patrick, he drove away the reptiles,
and healed the people who had been wounded by them. St. Hilarian also
consumed, as with fire, a dragon of enormous size which swallowed
oxen, devoured men, and laid waste the country far and near.

St. Martin, like many other saints, possessed the wonderful power of
bringing the dead to life. It was said he had dominion over devils and
men, over the heavens and the elements, over diseases, and over all
birds and beasts of the field.

So holy was St. Catherine, that, when she died, angels carried her
body to Mount Sinai and buried it there, that her persecutors might
not discover where she was laid. From her place of sepulture a sweet
smell long continued to pervade the neighbourhood.

Although it would appear that all saints had many gifts and graces,
certain of them possessed peculiar talents denied to others. St.
Francis Xaverius, for instance, held the elements in his power. He was
almost constantly at war with the devil and the flesh. To frighten
away the one he kept ringing a bell by night, and to subdue the other
he wore a hair shirt, lived on spare diet, and slept on hard boards or