ves. And the holy man saw in this the
image of the mystery of the Cross, by which the divine blood has clothed
the earth with a royal purple. In the offing a line of dark blue marked
the shores of the island of Gad, where St. Bridget, who had been given
the veil by St. Malo, ruled over a convent of women.

Now Bridget, knowing the merits of the venerable Mael, begged from
him some work of his hands as a rich present. Mael cast a hand-bell of
bronze for her and, when it was finished, he blessed it and threw it
into the sea. And the bell went ringing towards the coast of Gad, where
St. Bridget, warned by the sound of the bell upon the waves, received it
piously, and carried it in solemn procession with singing of psalms into
the chapel of the convent.

Thus the holy Mael advanced from virtue to virtue. He had already passed
through two-thirds of the way of life, and he hoped peacefully to reach
his terrestrial end in the midst of his spiritual brethren, when he knew
by a certain sign that the Divine wisdom had decided otherwise, and
that the Lord was calling him to less peaceful but not less meritorious
labours.

II. THE APOSTOLICAL VOCATION OF SAINT MAEL

One day as he walked in meditation to the furthest point of a tranquil
beach, for which rocks jutting out into the sea formed a rugged dam, he
saw a trough of stone which floated like a boat upon the waters.

It was in a vessel similar to this that St. Guirec, the great St.
Columba, and so many holy men from Scotland and from Ireland had gone
forth to evangelize Armorica. More recently still, St. Avoye having come
from England, ascended the river Auray in a mortar made of rose-coloured
granite into which children were afterwards placed in order to make
them strong; St. Vouga passed from Hibernia to Cornwall on a rock whose
fragments, preserved at Penmarch, will cure of fever such pilgrims as
place these splinters on their heads. St. Samson entered the Bay of St.
Michael's Mount in a granite vessel which will one day be called St.
Samson's basin. It is because of these facts that when he saw the stone
trough the holy Mael understood that the Lord intended him for the
apostolate of the pagans who still peopled the coast and the Breton
islands.

He handed his ashen staff to the holy Budoc, thus investing him with
the government of the monastery. Then, furnished with bread, a barrel
of fresh water, and the book of the Holy Gospels, he entered the stone
trough w