The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-19
His Capture By Pirates-ContestW With
the Druids-How He Rid His
Adopted Land of Snakes.
New York Evening POST

birth, life and death of this popular
saint.
The only authentic literary remains
of ST. Patrick that have been preserved
are a confession and one letter written
by him in unpublished Latin, but of great
historical interest.
DR.. Whitley Stokes has written THE
Tripartite Life of st. Patrick" wherein
he has given us every fragment of the
saints history that has come down to
US from the middle ages. He has print
ed also the documents from the Book
of Armagh" in which are the earliest
notices of the saint and the foundation
upon which all later lives have been
built
The main facts that can be stated
with certainty about st. Patrick are
these: He was born about the year 373
at Nemptor, which must have been in
the valley of the Clyde. His father,
who belonged to a Roman colony, was
named Calpurnius; his mother was
Concessa, a sister of st. Martin, and
his tutor or foster father was Patricius,
and his own baptismal name was
Sucab, meaning warlike. 1t was the
name of Cymric war-god, some of
whose exploits may have helped to
form the legend of our saint. The name
Patricius was given him by the pope.
In his sixteenth year st. Patrick
fathers farm, was taken captive by
pirates and carried to Ireland, where
he was sold; and here for six years he
pursued the same occupation and de-
voted himself to prayer. Finally he
escaped, and after sailing for three
days he landed and, journeying for
twentyeight days through a. desert, he
reached his home
During the period of thirty-seven
years that followed there is nothing
but conjecture as to what he did. Ira
dition says that after a. second captiv
ity, which lasted but two months, he
betook himself to the best schools of
! the west of Europe and first came to
Ireland to preach the gospel in the
sixtieth year of his life. There sre OBJ
| jections to this story, for if st. Patrick
| had been absent studying in these
schools, he would, in all probability,
have forgotten his Irish, and would
have learned to write better Latin than
| that of the 'Confessio'' and the letter
| to Coroticus; and then again, he says
| in his own words, 'eYe know, and God
from my youth up, both faithful in
| truth and sincere in heart"
| However, he left home and parents TO
preach the gospel to the Irish tribes. He
found Ireland under the domination OF
! the Druidical priests of the more an
Gent faith, who, as might naturally be
| supposed, We're exceedingly adverse to
| any innovation. These Druids, being
great magicians, would have been for
midable anita onistS to any one of less
miraculous and sanity powers than st.
Patrick His course through thesisland
was so beset by obstacles and villain
! Gus trickery that, in spite of his benev-
| olent and kindly disposition, he was
compelled to punish the impious people
and to curse the fertile lands SO that
! they became dreary boys; to curse their
rivers SO that they produced no fish;
| to curse their very kettles SO that with
| no amount of fire and patience could
they ever be made to boil; and as
! last resort, to curse the Druids them
selves, so that the earth opened and
swallowed them. His imprecations all
began with the phrase. My Gods
DOOM" and then followed the remark
able miracles which Immediately ami
Inflated his enemies.
Towards the close of his career he
wrote the "Confessio.'' He wrote also
the "Offenses Sendschreiben,' concern
ing Coroticus, but when does not APP
pear; there are also various poems as
scribed to him.
He was we'll verses1 in the Latin
Scriptures, both canonical and apocry-
phal and was modest and even con-
temptuous of his own learning. In
character he was shrewd, generous, EN-
thuaiastic, with a sort Of Celtic ten
dency to exaggerate failure and sue
cess. And he was especially anxious
to suffer martyrdom like his model, st.
Paul.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary
nature of these stories of ST. Patrick's
life, they seem prosaic when compared
with the fascinating legends which are
SO popular among all people, and which
are 50 we'll remembered. He is always
represented in art in the costume of a
bishop with a staff, in the act of driv
ing an army of snakes and toads before
him, illustrating what is considered tbs
greatest of ST. Patricks miracles
CoIgan seriously relates that st. Pat
rick accomplished this feat by beating
a drum, which he struck with such
feTvor that he knocked a hole in it,
thereby endangering the miracle. But
an angel appearing mended the drum.
and the patched instrument was long
exhibited as a holy relic. A more nat
ural story than the extinction of the
serpents had afforded material for the
painter as we'll as the poet. When bap-
thing an Irish cfiettain. the venerable
saint leaned heavily on his croZier, the
sseel-spiked point of which he had I'M
Willingly placed on the great toe of
in his ignorance of Christian rites, be-
I'leving this to be an essential part of
the ceremony, bore the pain without
fiinching or murmuring, though the
blood flowed SO freely from the wound
that the Irish named the place Struth-
fhull (stream of blood, now pro-
nounced Struill, the name of a we'll
known place near Downpa trick where
the good saint died.
AS the birthplace of st. Patrick has
been disputed, so has that of his burial.
But the general evidence is that he
was buried at Downpatrick, and that
the remains of st. Columbo and ST.
Bridget were laid beside him. This
accords with the old monkish Leonine
distich, which may be rendered:
ION the hill of Down, buried in one
tomb,
Were Bridget and Patricius, with Co
Jumbo the pious"
In the memory of people now living
the jawbone of st. Patrick, containing
| five teeth. was in the possession of a
family in Belfast. AS various members
departed for America, three teeth at
different times We're extracted and
were carried as talismanS. by the de-
under the altar of the Roman Catholic
church of Derriaghy The jaw with
the remaining tooth is still carefully
kept 1t is said to have great curative
powers.
The shamrock, or small white clover,
is almost universally worn throughout
Ireland on st. Patrick's day. The pop
ular notion is that when ST. Patrick
landed at Wicklow the inhabitants