One afternoon at about this time you might have seen Mr. Cole,
the missionary of the Day-Star,--a small, lithe man, with a red
beard,--making his way up town. He walked rapidly, as he always did, for
he was a busy man.
He was an exceedingly busy man. During the past year, as was shown by
his printed report, he had made 2,014 calls, or five and one-half
calls a day; he had read the Scriptures in families 792 times; he had
distributed 931,456 pages of religious literature; he had conversed on
religious topics with 3,918 persons, or ten and seven-tenths persons per
day, Sabbaths included. It was perhaps because he was so busy that there
was complaint sometimes that he mixed matters and took things upon his
shoulders which belonged to others.
Mr. Cole's rapid pace soon brought him to a broad and pleasant
cross-street; he went up the high steps of one of the houses, rang the
bell, and was admitted.
Rev. Mr. Martin was in his study, and the missionary was shown up.
Precisely what the conversation was has not been reported; but certain
it is that the next day after Mr. Cole's call, Mr. Martin began to
prepare himself for an address upon the life of Saint Patrick. It was an
entirely new topic to him; but he soon found himself in the full current
of the stream, considering--First, did such a man really exist, or is
Saint Patrick a mere myth, floating in the imagination of the Irish
people? Second, what was his nationality? Third, where was he born, and,
herein, how are we to reconcile his escape from captivity in 493, with
his visit to his kinsman, Saint Martin of Tours, after his escape from
captivity, in 490? Fourth, to what age did he live? Fifth,--and so
forth.
Mr. Martin had begun his labors by taking down his encyclopaedia and
such books of reference as he had thought could help him, and had
succeeded so far as to get an outline of the saint's life, and to
find mention of several works which treated of this topic. There were
Montalembert's "Monks of the West," and Dr. O'Donovan's "Annals of the
Four Masters," the works of Monseigneur Moran and Father Colgan, the
Tripartite Life, and a certain "magnificent quarto" by Miss Cusack. All
these and many more he had hoped to find in the different libraries of
the city. But great had been his surprise, on visiting the libraries,
to find that the books he wanted were invariably out. It was a little
startling, at first, to come upon this footprint in the sand; but a
little reflection set the feeling at rest. The subject was an odd one
to him, to be sure, but there were thousands of people in the city who
might very naturally be concerned in it, particularly at this time, when
Saint Patrick's Day was approaching. None the less the fact remained
that the books he wanted--scattered through two or three libraries--were
always out.
As he stepped out from the Free Library into the street, it occurred
to him to go to a Catholic bookstore near at hand to look for what he
wanted.
It was a large, showy shop, with Virgins and crucifixes and altar
candelabra's in the windows, and pictures of bleeding hearts. He went in
and stood at the counter. A rosy-faced servant-girl, with a shy, pleased
expression, was making choice of a rosary. A young priest, a few steps
away, was looking at an image of Saint Joseph.
The salesman left the servant-girl to her hesitating choice, and turned
to Mr. Martin.
"What have you," asked Mr. Martin, with a slightly conscious tone, "upon
the life of Saint Patrick?"
The priest turned and looked; but the salesman, with an unmoved
countenance, went to the shelves and selected two volumes and laid
them in silence on the counter. One was the "Life and Legends of Saint
Patrick" with a picture in gilt of Brian Boru on the cover. The other
was "Saint Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland," by William Bullen Morris,
Priest of the Oratory. They were both green-covered.
Early in the evening Mr. Martin settled down by his study fire to his
new purchases. First he took up the "Life and Legends." He read the
saint's own Confession, and the Letter to Co-roticus, and looked through
the translation of the Tripartite Life, with its queer mixture of Latin
and English: "Prima feria venit Patricius ad Talleriam, where the regal
assembly was, to Cairpre, the son of Niall." "Interrogat autem Patricius
qua causa venit Conall, and Conall related the reason to Patrick."
He glanced over the miracles and wonders of which this book was full.
But before very long he laid it aside and took up the Life by William
Bullen Morris, Priest of the Oratory, and decided that he must depend
upon that for his preparation.
It was late at night. It was full time to stop reading; but it laid
strong hold of his imagination,--this strange, intense, and humorous
figure, looming up all new to him from the mists of the past. He read
the book to the end; he read how the good Saint Bridget foretold the
apostle's death; how two provinces contended for his remains, and how a
light shone over his burial-place after he was laid to rest.
It was very late when Mr. Martin finished the book and laid it down.
Thus it happens that the Rev. Dr. Parsons and the Rev. Mr. Martin are
both preparing themselves at the same time on the life of Saint Patrick,
from this one brief book by William Bullen Morris, Priest of the
Oratory.