_Of the Miraculous Voyage of the Leper._
When the blessed Patrick, speeding his journey toward Ireland; was
about to embark with his disciples at a British port, a certain leper
standing on the shore met the holy man, beseeching in the name of the
Lord Jesus that he would carry him over in his ship. The man of God,
abounding with the bowels of compassion, listened to the prayers of the
poor leper; but the sailors and the others that were of the ship
forbade him, saying that the vessel was already enough loaded, and that
_he_ would be to them all at once an encumbrance and a horror. Then
the saint, confiding in the power of the divine mercy, cast into the
sea an altar of stone that had been consecrated and given to him by the
Pope, and on which he had been wont to celebrate the holy mysteries,
and caused the leper to sit thereon. But the pen trembles to relate
what, through the divine power, happened. The stone thus loaded was
borne upon the waters, guided by Him, the head-stone of the corner,
and, diverse from its nature, floating along with the ship, held
therewith an equal course, and at the same moment touched at the same
shore. All, then, having happily landed, and the altar being found
with its freight, the voice of praise and thanksgiving filled the lips
of the holy prelate, and he reproved his disciples and the sailors for
their unbelief and hardness of heart, endeavoring to soften their stony
hearts into hearts of flesh, even to the exercising the works of
charity.