efficacy. It not only had power over the mountain and internal fires,
but it conveyed virtue to everything it touched, similar to that which
itself possessed. There were few Catanians who did not obtain, through
this veil, sovereign protections from evil.

_St. Patrick_, the apostle and father of the Hibernian Church, and
patron or tutelar saint of Ireland, was a Briton by birth, having been
born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in the year 377. When about
sixteen years of age he was taken prisoner and conveyed to Ireland,
where he was sold as a slave. Escaping from his master, he returned to
the place of his nativity. When in exile, he saw the evils arising
from Paganism, and resolved to do what he could to convert the Irish
Pagans to Christianity. In due time he entered into his missionary
labours with indefatigable zeal, and proved to be the blessed means of
converting the benighted Irish to the true faith. The miracles
attributed to him are numerous, the most noted of which is the
expulsion of reptiles from the Irish soil. It was he who made the
shamrock--the Irish national emblem--so famous.

_St. Germanus_, bishop of Auxerre, and _St. Lupus_, bishop of Troyes,
were sent to Britain by Celestine, the forty-second bishop of Rome, in
the year 429, to preach Christianity. The two missionaries, on their
way, passed through Paris; thence they pursued their journey to the
sea-side, and embarked. On the ocean a storm was raised by the devil,
when Germanus, who was asleep, awoke just as the vessel was on the
point of sinking, and having rebuked the sea and poured a few drops of
oil into it, the raging of the waves ceased. Germanus, after safely
landing in Britain, restored to sight a blind girl by the application
of certain relics he possessed.

_St. David_ was a learned, elegant, and zealous saint, reported to
have performed miracles. The Welsh regarded him as their tutelar
saint, and annually held festivals in his honour. In answer to the
saint's prayers in the year 640, the Britons, under King Cadwallader,
gained a complete victory over the Saxons. From a garden near the
battle-field, he caused leeks to be pulled and stuck in the caps of
the British warriors, to enable them to distinguish each other,
whereas the opposing parties, through want of a distinguishing badge,
mistook friends for foes, and cut one another to pieces. From this
circumstance sprang the custom of the Welsh wearing leeks in their
hats on St. David's