(1) He
continued fasting forty days and nights, on the summit of the mountain
Eli, that is Cruachan-Aichle;(2) and preferred three petitions to God
for the Irish, that had embraced the faith. The Scots say, the first
was, that he would receive every repenting sinner, even at the latest
extremity of life; the second, that they should never be exterminated
by barbarians; and the third, that as Ireland(3) will be overflowed with
water, seven years before the coming of our Lord to judge the quick
and the dead, the crimes of the people might be washed away through
his intercession, and their souls purified at the last day. He gave the
people his benediction from the upper part of the mountain, and going
up higher, that he might pray for them; and that if it pleased God,
he might see the effects of his labours, there appeared to him an
innumerable flock of birds of many coulours, signifying the number of
holy persons of both sexes of the Irish nation, who should come to him
as their apostle at the day of judgment, to be presented before the
tribunal of Christ. After a life spent in the active exertion of good
to mankind, St. Patrick, in a healthy old age, passed from this world to
the Lord, and changing this life for a better, with the saints and elect
of God he rejoices for evermore.
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