ars did he feed swine; four years did he
feed with the sweet food of the Gospel those who before were swine, but
who, casting away the filth of their idolatry, became his flock of
unspotted lambs; eighteen years did he study under Saint Germanus, the
Bishop of Auxerres. When he had reached his fiftieth and third year,
he was invested with the episcopal dignity, and returned unto Hibernia,
therein to preach; in the space of thirty and five years converted he
unto Christ all that country and many other islands; and during the
thirty and three years which remained unto him, leading a life of
contemplation, abided he chiefly in Saballum, or in the monastery which
he had founded in Ardmachia. Nor did he willingly leave those holy
places, unless some cause of inevitable urgency called him forth;
nevertheless, once in every year did he celebrate a council, that he
might bring back unto the right rule those things which he knew to need
reformation.

CHAPTER CXCII.

_The Funeral Honors which Men and Angels paid unto the Body of the
Saint._

And as Saint Patrick expired, the surrounding circle of monks commended
his spirit unto God, and enwrapped his body in the linen cloth which
Saint Brigida had prepared. And the multitude of the people and of the
clergy gathered together, and mourned with tears and with sighs the
dissolution of Patrick, their patron, even as the desolation of their
country, and paid in psalms and in hymns the rites which unto his
funeral were due. But on the following night a light-streaming choir
of angels kept their heavenly watch, and waked around the body; and
illumining the place and all therein with their radiance, delighting
with their odor, charming with the modulation of their soft-flowing
psalmody, poured they all around their spiritual sweetness. Then came
the sleep of the Lord on all who had thither collected, and while the
angelic rites were performed, held them in their slumber even until the
morning. And when the morning came, the company of angels reascended
into heaven, leaving behind them the sweet odor which excelled all
perfumes; the which, when the sleepers awakened, they and all who came
unto the place experienced even for twelve succeeding days. For during
that time was the sanctified body preserved unsepultured, inasmuch as
the controversies of the people with the clergy permitted it not to be
buried in that holy place.

CHAPTER CXCIII.

_The Light continueth f