he power, all the riches, all the delights of the
whole world, were to him but as the emptiest smoke compared with those
celestial joys which he had proved with the eye of faith. But I
entreat, said he, that I may be loosed from the body of this death, and
delivered instantly from this prison-house; for earnestly I desire to
be dissolved and to be with Christ. Thus having said, he received the
Eucharist, and, falling asleep in the Lord, went unto the place of
immortality.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

_A Man of Gigantic Stature is revived from Death._

And Patrick was journeying on a certain day for the wonted purpose of
his preaching; and he found near the road a sepulchre of wondrous
length. And his brethren who journeyed with him beheld it; but with
their very admiration could they not believe that the body of any man
was buried in such a tomb. But the saint affirmed that God could prove
it by the resurrection of this gigantic man, so that they did not
falter in the faith; for there was then no small doubting of the
general resurrection. Then prayed the saint earnestly that his acts
might be accorded with his words, and that thereby he might remove from
their hearts every scruple of doubt. Wonderful was the event, and to
past ages wholly unknown! The holy prelate, having first prayed,
signed the sepulchre with the staff of Jesus, and awakened from the
dust the buried man. Then stood one before them horrible in stature
and in aspect; and he looked on the saint, and, bitterly weeping, said
unto him: "How great thanks do I give unto thee, O beloved and chosen
of God! who even for one hour hast released me from unspeakable
torments and from the gates of hell!" And he besought the saint that
he might go along with him; but the saint refused, for that no man for
very terror could stand before his countenance. And being asked by
Patrick who he had been, he replied that he was the son of Chaiis, by
name Glarcus, formerly a swineherd of the King Leogaire; and that when
he was an hundred years of age, he was slain in an ambush by a certain
man named Fynnan Mac Con. Then the saint admonished him that he should
believe in the three-in-one God, and in His name receive baptism unto
salvation, so that he might escape that place of torment. And he
answered that he firmly believed in the God, whom he knew to be
almighty, and in his name desired to receive baptism. And he said that
while he had lived he understood of the Crea