serve this nation, to whom the charity of Christ hath transferred me,
and given me for my life, if I shall survive; and that at last with
humility and truth I should serve them.

In the measure, therefore, of the faith of the Trinity it behoves me to
distinguish without shrinking from danger, and to make known the gift
of God and everlasting consolation, and, without fear, confidently to
spread abroad the name of God everywhere, so that after my death I may
leave it to my Gallican brethren and to my sons, many thousands of whom
I have baptized in the Lord. And I was neither worthy nor deserving
that the Lord should so favor me, his servant, after such afflictions
and great difficulties, after captivity, after many years, as to grant
me such grace for this nation--a thing which, still in my youth, I had
neither hoped for nor thought of.

But after I had come to Ireland, I was daily tending sheep, and I
prayed frequently during the day, and the love of God, and His faith
and fear, increased in me more and more, and the spirit was stirred; so
that in a single day I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in
the night nearly the same; so that I remained in the woods, and on the
mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer, in snow, and
ice, and rain, and I felt no injury from it, nor was there any
slothfulness in me, as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent
in me. And there one night I heard a voice, while I slept, saying to
me: "Thou dost fast well; fasting thou shalt soon go to thy country."
And again, after a very short time, I heard a response, saying to me:
"Behold, thy ship is ready." And the place was not near, but perhaps
about two hundred miles distant, and I had never been there, nor did I
know any one who lived there.

Soon after this, I fled, and left the man with whom I had been six
years, and I came in the strength of the Lord, who directed my way for
good; and I feared nothing until I arrived at that ship. And the day
on which I came the ship had moved out of her place; and I asked to go
and sail with them, but the master was displeased, and replied angrily:
"Do not seek to go with us." And when I heard this, I went from them
to go thither where I had lodged; and I began to pray as I went; but
before I had ended my prayer, I heard one of them calling out loudly
after me, "Come quickly, for these men are calling you"; and I returned
to them immediately, and they began saying to