_A Stone is changed into Milk, and Milk is changed into Stones._
And one who had long time been a servant unto many evil-doers, hearing
of the virtues and the miracles of Saint Patrick, came unto him, for
the purpose of contending with him in working signs. And many false
signs did he multiply, the which the saint, having prayed and made the
sign of the cross, dispersed. Then the magician seeing all his
inventions to be frustrated, required of Patrick that he should work
signs to evince the power of his God; and the saint delayed not to do
what might prove the virtue of Christ, and instruct in the faith many
Christians: for he changed an hard stone into a soft mass of curdled
milk, and of this milk, in the name of Christ, he changed two soft
pieces into hard stones. But lest these should be accounted false and
like unto the signs of the magicians, the stones continued in the same
hardness whereunto they were transformed. But this which was
corporally done before the eyes of men, doth the divine virtue
spiritually do in the conversion of believers; inasmuch as the
worshippers of stones, men of hardened hearts, become soft unto the
faith and love of Christ, and as if again born infants, they desire the
milk of the apostolic doctrine, that thereby they may grow up unto
salvation. So did it happen unto the magician, who beholding this
miracle believed in the Lord and was baptized.