The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick/The Life and Acts of St. Patrick/Chapter 27

Of the Miraculous Voyage of the Leper.

When the blessed Patrick, speeding his journey toward Ireland; was about to embark with his disciples at a British port, a certain leper standing on the shore met the holy man, beseeching in the name of the Lord Jesus that he would carry him over in his ship. The man of God, abounding with the bowels of compassion, listened to the prayers of the poor leper; but the sailors and the others that were of the ship forbade him, saying that the vessel was already enough loaded, and that he would be to them all at once an encumbrance and a horror. Then the saint, confiding in the power of the divine mercy, cast into the sea an altar of stone that had been consecrated and given to him by the Pope, and on which he had been wont to celebrate the holy mysteries, and caused the leper to sit thereon. But the pen trembles to relate what, through the divine power, happened. The stone thus loaded was borne upon the waters, guided by Him, the head-stone of the corner, and, diverse from its nature, floating along with the ship, held therewith an equal course, and at the same moment touched at the same shore. All, then, having happily landed, and the altar being found with its freight, the voice of praise and thanksgiving filled the lips of the holy prelate, and he reproved his disciples and the sailors for their unbelief and hardness of heart, endeavoring to soften their stony hearts into hearts of flesh, even to the exercising the works of charity.