, and whom we think it most becoming to obey. But if any snake
in the way, or serpent in the path, watching our steps, shall rashly
accuse us herein of presumption, and shall attack our hand with viper
tooth, yet do we, with the blessed Paul, collect the vine-twigs for the
fire, and cast the viper into the flame. Wherefore, in describing the
saints that sleep, which were the branches of the true vine, so that
the minds of the faithful may be inflamed toward the love and belief of
Christ, we little regard the tongue of the scorner and of the
slanderer; for if we are to be judged of such, with the apostle setting
them at small account, we commit all to the divine judgment.

[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
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