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- ST. PATRICK'S DAY.I

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ST. PATRICK'S DAY. I Our fellow-subjects the Irish devoted Saturday last to thecommeinoi a tion of their tutelarSaint. It is the custom with them on St. Patrick's Eve to assemble for vespers in the churches of their faith, where they listen to exordia from their pastors, and to panygyrics on their canonised patron, whose memory keeps as green in their hearts as the turf of their native country. However large a mixture of legend may have entered into the history of ST. PATRICK, as it is popularly told, there c&.n tie no question that his wisdom and his life- Work were far and away greater than any in the age in which he lived. fourteen hundred years have not dimmed the lustre of his reputation, a fact which i3 of itself sum- cient proof of the pure material of which that deputation was built. Sc. PATIIICK became great because he was good, pre-eminently great because pre-eminently good. The poet Was right who sang :— Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust- and what was the man whose name is as indissolubly connected with the sevententh of March as St. DA vm's is with the first, or Our Lady's with the twenty-fifth of the same inonth, is a question too large for anything like exhaustive discussion within the limits or the space at our command. We will, how- ever, glance at one or two of the principal points of interest in connection with the subject. First, then, as to who the man was. The honour of having given birth to him is respectively claimed by England, Scotland, France, and Wales; each of those countries showing a very fair case as long as the others remain unheard. Some say St. PATRICK was a Welshman. Dr. OWEN PITGHK, in his Cambrian Bio- j(rupluj, assigns to AberHyehwr, in Pem- brokeshire, the honour of the Saint's birth- place. He is calieu PADHIG, the sou or or MAKNWYN, the Lord of Gvvyr. It was the glory of the Lmperor THEODOSIU*, ways this author," in con- junction with CYSTKNIN LLYDA W, suruamed 'The Blus.sed,' to have tirsL founded the Cullege of IUtyd, which was regulated by a mall from Pome; and l'AMHi, »°n of MAWKX, was the principal of it before he wag carried away a captive by the Irish- man." There is a deal that is satisfactory but, unfortunately, little that is conclusive in a.U this. That the Saint visited Wales and stayed there for some time is pretty generally admitted. There are several spots in the Principality which retain his name even to this day. Witness Sarn-badrig, or Patrick's Causeway, in Carnarvonshire, which he once walked over, but which is now submerged by the waters of Carnarvon Bay, where it forms an ugly and a dangerous shoal. And then, was it not from Llan badrig (Patrick's Church) in Mona's Isle, that the good man sailed from. Homewards? So much for the Welsh claim. Next COtnes the Scotch; according to which the Saint was born in Kilpatrick, between Dumbartoll and Glasgow, a view supported by the great hagiologist, ALDA BUTLEB, m his celebrated Lives," where Dr. PUGHE'S story of the abduction by "the Irishman" 18 repeated, with but a trifling variation. Recording to BFTLER the Saint was sold into "lavery and compelled for six months to keep cattle on the mountains of Ireland. Escaping thence by the aid of some kind hearted sailors, he found hia way into Gaul, and subsequently into Italy, where Pope CELESTINE, who died in the year 432, gave him an Apostolical mission for the conversion of the Irish. His footsteps in Scotland are traced in a Variety of directions. Besides Kilpatrick (the Church, or it may be cell, of St. PATRICK), where he was born, we find him at Dal- Patrick (the district or division of Patrick), 111 Lanarkshire," Cragphadrig (Patrick's .Rock), near Inverness, Kirkpatrick at Iron- |ray, in Kirkcudbright, and Kirkpatrick at Fleming in Dumfries, at each of which plaoes, as their name implies, he founded a Church. He ultimately sailed from Port •Patrick," says a Scotch authority, leaving behind him such an odour of sanctity that among the most distinguished amilie8 of the Scottish aristooracy PATRICK haq been a favourite name iown to the present day." He next visited England, preached in Patterdale (Patrick's Dale) in Westmoreland, and, in Durham, founded a Church, to which was given the name of Kirkpatrick. It was from England that he came into Wales, where we find him at Sarn-badrig already referred to. Armed with the Papal mission for the conversion of the Irish people, the Saint landed at Innis—(Welsh ynys, island)—patriok, visited Holmpatrick the County Dublin, touched at the Isle of and founded the church of Kirkpatrick there near the town of Peel, crossed over into Iceland again, and, somewhere in Sabbal- Patrick, now Saul, in the County Down, con- vrted and baptised the Chieftain DICHU on his own threshing floor. Following thence find the Saint at Temple-patriok in Antrim, Croagh—(Welsh craig, rock)—patrick in ayo, Domnach-Padrig (Patrick's house) East Meath, where he founded an t bey, and Dublin, where he built a ^hurch, the site of which is now occupied by e Cathedral of St. Patrick. After forty of marvellous labour, attended with dually marvellous success, St. PATRICK died Down, in Ulster, and was buried there ow e 17th of March, 403. One of the chroniclers states that after the Saint's there was no night for twelve ^ays, an assertion which tempts us Bay something of the miracles attributed to the holy man—although this is ?? age of such shameful unbelief that more fhan a passing reference to them would not e tolerated. Indeed the good Saint himself bought so many that a mere enumeration ^.°uld almost fill all the space we have at our disposal. Probably the one best known of *hem all is that by means of which the soil of '-•"eland was for ever cleared from every fanner of venomous beast and reptile. ^IBADKNEIRA affirms that even the wood of ,he Emerald Island is an all-sufficient anti- te against animal poison, for it is reported °»^\ng's College, Cambridge, that, being built Irish wood, no spider doth ever come near it." The fullest account of the Saint is p be found in a work by JOCELIN, of Urness, a Cistercian monk of the twelfth j^ntury, whose "Life and Acts of St. J^TIIICK was re-published by the Hibernia re88 Company, of Dublin, some eight and forty ago. The anniversary of the good Saint's ^ath having come round, is not the occasion Piost fitting one for reminding some of those ho claim in a special sense to be his °Uowers of the manner in which he won over Ujuan hearts to the cause of right ? He either spoke daggers nor taught dynamite h ar gunpowder, but simply a Gospel of peace aQd goodwill towards men.

BANQUET AT CARDIFF.

LETTER FROM THE RECTOR OF…

RIT[,;.\ LfSM AT THE PONTYPRIDD…

--__-----__-THE NAME "WELSH."

DEATH OF ANOTHER GLAMORGANSHIRE…

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THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. ♦■■■-

DILL WIN" AND DISESrAB! LISHMEXT.i

THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.

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lCURREST AGRICULTURALI ¡TOPICS.…

I NITROOF.N IN ARABLE huon.

....-.--------POULTRY JfOTES.