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Show WORSHIPPED IN HIS YOUTH THE LITTLE ISLAND F ST. HOMO RAT MEAU CANNES FRANCE, AND ITS TREFOIL SHAPED CHAPEL WHICH SUGGEST ED THE EMBLEM OF THE SHAMROCK TO IRELAND'S PATRON SAINT M SS53S$3E3 HILE I was at home in 0?e&taa& :l v'M";i OI the night 1?r yLsffl(& I saw one who seemed ffivffivi to come from Ireland, Kjffi Aft Ac?ii bringing innumerable L?wiflaSfi 'etters. He gave me jBSMaBaEfl one of the letters, in which I read, 'The voices of the Irish' . , . and while I read it it seemed to me that I heard the cry of the dwellers by the forest of Foclut, by the Western ocean, calling with one voice to me, 'Come and dwell with us'.' My heart was so moved that I awoke, and I give thanks to my God, who after many years has given to them according to their petition." Thus wrote Patrick in one of his letters let-ters preserved in the ancient book of Armagh, which dates from A. D. 807. In a dream he heard the cry of the dwellers in the forest of Foclut: "Come and dwell with us!" and his thoughts carried him back to the days when he was a captive and a slave in that self-same forest by the Western ocean. Patrick himself does not tell us the details of his stay in France, as he is hurrying his narrative forward to the time of his mission to Ireland; but there is an abundance of very early testimony in old Gaelic and Latin which makes it certain that he was associated with three great men who at that time dominated the spiritual life of Gaul. The first of these was Saint Martin of Tours, a native of Hungary, son of a tribune in the Roman armies and himself a soldier. Tradition says that Patrick's mother was the sister, or at least a close relative, rela-tive, of Martin of Tours, though his father's family belonged to the north of Britain, close to the rock of Dumbarton Dum-barton on the Clyde. Another great man with whom Patrick Pat-rick was associated at this time was Saint Germanus of Auxerre. Like Martin, he was of martial origin and of a bold, warlike spirit. The third great man of Gaul who influenced in-fluenced Patrick in the years of his young manhood he was 22, he tells us, when he fled from slavery in Ireland Ire-land was Honoratus. With his brother broth-er Venantius this ardent and aspiring aspir-ing soul had set forth to the east, to give his life to the ascetic devotion and spiritual seclusion which was the ideal of eastern Christendom. On his brother's death he returned and fixed his abode on a little island off the Riviera, within two or three miles of Cannes. Here, with a group of kindred spirits, he established one of those little lit-tle religious colonics which play so large a part in early European history, his-tory, and from which so much that was purest and noblest in the life of Europe was destined to come forth. As in all these colonies, a church was built and made the center of the life of the place. The teacher and his disciples, as always, were their own builders, masons and carpenters. Then they added dwellings and places of study, and soon they were immersed in a life of profound activity, spiritual, intellectual and physical at the same time. To the perfect balance, self-sacrifice and devotion of this life is due much of the spiritual power of the great men who went forth from just such religious settlements as that of Honoratus. To this settlement among the blue Mediterranean waves Patrick came, and here he studied for many years. From his letters we can form a somewhat some-what precise estimate of what he read. Latin had been his mother tongue; the tongue, in fact, both of his father's family in the Roman colony col-ony on the Clyde and of his mother's people, the family of the tribune in the Roman armies. But, Patrick tells us, he had neglected the study of Latin while he was a boy, and had apparently ap-parently pretty well forgotten it during dur-ing the six years of his slavery in Ireland, Ire-land, where, however, he learned to speak Irish correctly and even eloquently, elo-quently, as his intercourse with the Celtic princes abundantly shows. In the Isle of Honoratus he took up his Latin studies once again, and attained a fair proficiency in the tongue of Imperial Rome, as his Latin letters show. His style is rugged, sometimes obscure, but always forcible, often eloquent, elo-quent, and with the ring of entire sincerity sin-cerity and genuine faith. Patrick then set himself to read and reread the sacred books, New Testament and Old Testament alike, in the very imperfect Latin versions which preceded the accepted ac-cepted translation of St. Jerome. In his letters he quotes abundantly from many books of the Old Testament. In this Mediterranean isle Patrick was within the spiritual province conquered con-quered by the great Irenaeus, the disciple dis-ciple of Polycarp, the disciple of St John; and it is noteworthy that wa find the followers of Columba, tb.6 Apostle of Scotland, likewise claiming spiritual descent from St. John. A very interesting fact has been pointed out by Mrs. Devenish-Meares It is that the chapel of Honoratus, in which Patrick worshiped during several sev-eral years, is dedicated to the Trinity, and is distinguished architecturally by a triple apse, three bays in the eastern east-ern end of the chapel, typifying the triune godhead. The eastern end ol the chapel floor and ceiling are, there fore, in form like a trefoil or shamrock; sham-rock; and it may well be this familiar building which suggested to Patrick the simile of the shamrock to illustrate illus-trate the teaching of the trinity. It was in this little chapel on the isle ever since dedicated to St. Honoratus that Patrick prepared himself for his marvelous and fr "ul mission to Ire land. |