The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 167

The Acts of Saint Patrick while returning from Rome.

But the miracles which Saint Patrick wrought, when going to Rome, or returning thence, or after he had returned, are beyond our ability to relate either one by one or all together. For wheresoever he remained through the night, or made any abiding, left he behind him the proofs of his sanctity, in the healing of some diseased person; inasmuch as churches and oratories which were builded in those places and entitled after his name are yet to be seen; and which even to this day are redolent of his holiness, and impart the benefit of his miracles to many who sought the same with the desert of faith. And in his return he some time abided in his own country of Britain, and founded there many monasteries, and rebuilded many others which had been destroyed of the heathens; and he filled them with convents of holy monks who assented unto that form of religion which he thereto appointed; many events also, prosperous and adverse, which were to happen unto Britain, did he prophesy in the spirit; and especially he foresaw and foretold the holiness of the blessed David, who was then in his mother's womb. For there were many country places and towns, the inhabitants whereof rudely drove away the saint while journeying, lest he should abide the night among them; and these and their posterity could never prosper or become rich therein, but strangers and aliens always possessed of them the wealth and the dominion. But the groves into which the saint was by those wicked ones driven to pass the night, and which before produced but few and fruitless copses, were seen, by the blessing of such a holy guest, to thicken and to flourish with so great abundance of trees that in no future time could they be entirely destroyed. And in the rivers, where the deceivers, fraudful both in heart and word, had shown unto the saint a deep abyss instead of a safe ford, passed he over safely, having first blessed the passage, and changed the abyss into a ford; and the ford which before was pervious unto all changed he unto a deep abyss.