Page:The most ancient lives of Saint Patrick - O'Leary.djvu/351

 who judge according to outward show esteemed this man most miserable and unfortunate. But the saint pronounced the opinion of men to differ from the righteousness of Him who searcheth the reins and the heart, whose judgments are a deep abyss; and he declared that he saw the soul of that rich man plunged by the demons into hell; but the spirit of the poor man, whose life was accounted as foolishness, and his end without honor, was reckoned among the children of God, and his lot of blessedness was among the saints. "Truly," said he, "the sons of men are vain, and their judgments are false in the weight; but the just God loveth justice, and his countenance beholdeth righteousness; and in the balance of his righteousness weigheth he the pleasures and the riches of this evil man, and the sins of this poor man, haply whereby he hath merited the wrath and the misfortunes which he bore; and the one from his honor and his glory he adjudged unto present torment; and the other, which had atoned in the furnace of poverty and of affliction, mercifully sent he unto the heavenly joys." Nor did the saint behold this of these men only, but often of many others did he behold and relate such things. Thus what the word of truth had before told of the rich man clothed in purple and the poor man covered with sores did this friend of truth declare himself to have beheld of other.

And in Lesser Britain lived a venerable man, named Vinvaloeus, who was even from his infancy renowned for