The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-08

later chroniclers as simply exeesses of pious asceticism.
 A still greater peeuliarity was thelr | fondness for travelling the sea on mlll- i stones. St Piran came from Iceland l this manner; and MT. Barring Gould l who ought to know, says that ne l brought the art of distilling good Whls- key with him. It was actually While
 distilling on the sly that he discoveed
 tin. One day he was visited by St. Ger moe. Apparently it was Saturday night, or perhaps the saint bathed every 1 day, In any case, Piran said to Ger moe: Tt Is my tubbing tirne Will you | have a bath, too?" So the two saints l rubbed together, and, though Germoe found the water very cold, he was re- l Warded by catching a fish in the tup' St. Eric used to sit in his bath all day,
 reciting the Psalms; in the evening he | would get out and regale hfcself, on eggs and watercress. But the saints had means for preserving themselves from undesirable baths, as we learn from the story of St. Tathan.
 i ST. HAITIAN SAVED FROM THE
 KINGS CRAFT.
 A certain king invited the saint to dine with him one day and desired himI to be seated on a couch of rushes. These rushes were in reality strewn over q cauldron of boiling water, into which the king intended his guest to fall, but therushes immediately became stiff, and afforded Tathan perfectly safe seat.
 A curious story is told of the birth of seven saints, named the DymrWyr. Their mother had been in the habit of bearing child annually. At last, for seven years in succession, she had no
 more children and the father began to breathe freely. Suddenly the woman made up for lost time by having seven at birth. The father thought that this was too much of a good thing, and he proceeded to drown the seven babes like so many kittens. They were res- cued by St. Tello, and reared to be saints. It may be wrong, but one can hardly help sympathizing with the fath- CT.
 In a similar manner ones human sympathies go out to the mother of St. Semen or Senan, who has already been mentioned. They were changing houses, and in the thick of the trouble the boy Senan, instead of helping, knelt down to pray. The mother first abused him. and then appears to have poured water over him.. The boys inopportune devotion continued, but miraculous powers were at hand; the domestic arti- cles which he ought to have been re- moving moved of themselves. This same saint at his burial unexpectedly sat up on his bier and stated that his anniversary should be held on March 8, instead of on the proper day, He gave no reasons. Probably the feast day was changed for parochia1 reasons, and the story invented to excuse the change. Another saint, whose head was cut off, gathered the head under his arm, and walked in this manner to the spot where he wanted to be buried. TASTY ST. SIDWELL AND HIS SIS
 TER.
 St. Sidwell, believing a false report killed his sister by cutting her head off She at once arose, took up her head and walked with it to the church where she wished to be buried. It does not appear why the saint did not cure the damage he had done. The Irish St. AL dan called down vengeance on mur- derer, whitening his hand, and saying | that the hand should not get better till | the murdered man had forgiven him. Some days later voice came from the | grave of the slain man, saying: "Sa tan, you brute, forgive you Of | the arm got we'll. We meet | such absurditiesi in all hagiology, par ticularly in saintly lives of compara- lively late invention.
 The Celtic saintly memoirs are better, | not worse, than those of the Latin call | endar. In such lives as those of Pe- | trock, Samson or Columbia there is of- | ten a touch of true beauty and note | of reality It is the later accretione hat in most cases are so utterly foolish. | The tendency of all biographies is to de- velop into romance, and where the lives 1ealt with are those of saints that ten lency seems magnfied tenfold-Lon- lon Standard.