Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/275



But what the saint at the revelation of the Spirit foretold of the two brothers should not be passed over in silence. For to the elder, who had preferred Mammon and gold before his prayers, he predicted that he and his seed should in a little time lose the possession of their inheritance; and to the younger, for the devotion of his soul toward him, predicted he many good things&mdash;that he should in that land be the coadjutor of kings, and that of his race the holiest priests of the Lord should be born. And none of those things which the saint foretold in anywise failed in the event.

And over this church Saint Patrick placed one of his disciples named Asycus, who was both in habit and demeanor a monk, the first bishop. And he, at the advice of the saint, instituted therein a college of monks, the which he governed with the privileges of an abbot. But this man, on a certain time, while he ought to have spoken the truth, backsliding with a slippery tongue, uttered forth a falsehood. And immediately he set himself against his own face, and in the bitterness of his sorrow banished he himself, and, flying from human-kind, remained in solitude, and abided he there seven years beheld of none. And his monks sought him long time; and at the end of the seventh