Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/196

 one of them in a place in Down, where is now erected the church of Saint Patrick, and the other on a neighboring hill surrounded by a marsh of the sea; and he broke asunder the chains wherewith they were bound, and each place is even to this day, from the broken chains, called Dun-daleathglas.

And the Passover was nigh, the festival of the Christians, whereon the Life that died, arising from the dead, became the first-fruits of the resurrection of the dead. Therefore was it near to the heart of the holy prelate to solemnize this solemn day, which the Lord had appointed a day of joyfulness to the dwellers on earth and the dwellers in heaven, on the fair and spacious plain called Breagh, and there, by evangelizing the kingdom of God, and baptizing the people of his conversion, to gather together the elect race unto Christ. And he embarked in a vessel, and arrived in a harbor nigh unto this plain, and, committing the care of the vessel unto his nephew, Saint Lumanus, he there landed, and went to the mansion of a certain venerable man named Sesgnen, therein to pass the night. And he gladly received the saint, hoping that salvation would be brought unto his house by such a guest, nor did his hope fail unto him, for when Patrick preached the word of salvation he and all his household believed and were baptized. And the venerable man had a son, whom the saint purified with the healing water, and, taking the name from the occasion, called