Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/187

 doctrine shall reign for ever and ever."  Nor let it seem strange or incredible that if the Lord inspired or even permitted the magicians should thus foretell the arrival and the several acts of Saint Patrick, since the soothsayer Balaam and the King Nabuchodonosor plainly prophesied the coming of Christ, and since the devils that bore testimony to the Son of God.  But when they said that he should from his table sing forth wickedness, evidently doth it appear that he who never stood on the truth, but who from the beginning was a liar and the father of lies, did in his blasphemy utter these things through their mouths.

But the chief King of Ireland, named Leogaire, the son of Neyll, recollecting the prophecy, gave command unto his subjects that as soon as Patrick should land they should forthwith expel him from the country. And the saint, being then in the harbor called Innbherslan, went alone out of the ship, and immediately the people, infidel and dog-like in their manners, excited a very fierce dog to bite him even unto death. But the dog, being at the sight of the man of God entirely stiffened like a stone, stood fixed and without motion, plainly showing that the worshippers of stones were like unto the gods which they worshipped. The which, when a certain man named Dichu, who was powerful of strength, gigantic of stature, and savage of mind, beheld, he brandished his sword to destroy the