I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul's desire. - Saint Patrick

57. For which reason I should make return for all that he returns me. But what should I say, or what should I promise to my Lord, for I, alone, can do nothing unless he himself vouchsafe it to me. But let him search my heart and [my] nature, for I crave enough for it, even too much, and I am ready for him to grant me that I drink of his chalice, as he has granted to others who love him.

There is a tradition relating to the proceedings of St. Patrick in this place, which deserves to be noticed, as an example of the way in which Roman Catholic miracles come into existence. One of his biographers states, that when he arrived at the top of the mountain he was surrounded by vast numbers of birds; other writers, improving on this simple fact, transformed the birds into demons, and described him as driving them into the sea at the foot of the mountain. Another, again, perhaps believing reptiles and demons to belong to the same genus, adds, that all the venomous reptiles were collected there from every part of Ireland, and “in the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”[56] This is firmly believed by the peasantry at the present day; and it is from such lying wonders they derive their ideas of the character and acts of St. Patrick.

How bitterly they despise me! just see how your sheep are torn apart and despoiled, and by those gangsters I have named, bound to the last man by the inimical mind of Coroticus. Far away from the love of God is the man who betrays my Christians into the hands of the Scotti and Picts. "Ravenous wolves" have gulped down the Lord's own flock, which was flourishing in Ireland and tended with utmost care.