Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-03-15

! tent. St Patrick remained always {
| man of action, rather than contem-
! plation. That is why it appears sc
| hard to imagine HIM as being old.
In various monaStic houses on the
| continent he spent at least another
! 20 years Some of this time was pass
| ed on the island of Lerins. off the
| coast of France, as d barefOoted her
| nit Here he devoted himself to study
and proba bly, had the assistance OF
scholars who had profited by the Ro-
| man schools
, All this time the idea slowly was
forming in his brain to return to Ire
land, to become an apostle to his for
mer masters, to save the souls ol
those who had shamefully used him
Ireland then was the abode of very
primitive men. The intellectual leyel
was probably about that of the Ameri-
can Indian tribes found by the early
explorers on the shores of the West
ern world. The northward sweep OF
Roman civilization had passed lightly
over this great island of boys. noun
tains and forests. Druidism, with all
it's beautiful pantheism and its re-
voting cruelty of human sacrifices
still held the people.
St. Patrick found no willing recipients
of his message. The strange new re-
ligion of brotherly love and a loving
God was difficult indeed to translate
into the tongue of Fingal, fashioned
for prayers to a myriad OF divinities
who knew no mercy, and whose
priests were mischievous magicians
jealous of their prestige.
Nor were the people particularly
interested in a message about saliva
ton of souls. They wanted to see a
man who could pass his palm over d
III f
rick had to match magic with magic
In fact, to judge from Muirchu he laid
the foundation of his work by demon
strating that the God he preach ed
could bring about more miraculous
things than the old gods.
There was one particularly mali
cious magician named Lucetmal, who
practiced his black art about the
court of Temoria and did a rushing
business on all holidays. He boldly
told the people that Patrick was q
big bluff"
On Easter day he challenged the
new magician to bring down snow
1t was warm and sunny. There
wasn't a cloud in the sky.
Patrick informed Lucetmal that he
was too busy to bother with such
penny-s natching miracles as that.
81 told you So" said Lucetmal
turning to the assembled multitude
of half-naked country folks. Now
watch me-"
He worked with appropriate ges-
lures and snow started to fall. IL
fell until it covered the plain, waist
deep. Having accomplished his mir
acle, Lucetmal made haste to take
ADVANTAGE of 1t. He stood high with
the people and insisted that they burn
Patrick at the stake, with dire pen
alties from his magic threatened II
they didn't get the fire started al
once.
Hold" said Patrick, or something
to that effect You have made the
snow fall. That's a mean trick tc
play on folks on such A nice Easter
day, after everybody's been sick anc
tired of Winter for the last two
months Before you burn me lets
see you get the snow away again
I'm just curious"
This isn't a literal translation from
the Erse, or even n faithful trans
cribing of Muirchu, but 1t expresses
the saints idea.
That" answered Lucetmal, flushed
with victory and proud of his magic
SIS something else again. My god:
will send the snow but they will no.
take it away. We must wait unit
it melts naturally. 1t may be {
month"
DATRICK then informed the pop
ulace that, while he didn't prac
tice ordinary cheap magic, he die
have a store of it to use in case o.