under all these symbols (not childish at all, but most grand, to the
man who knows the grand place of which they are told), there is set
forth the victory of a good and beneficent man over evil, whether of
matter or of spirit. It matters much to him that that cell, that
bell, that image are tokens that if not St. Patrick, some one else,
at least, did live and worship on that mountain top, in remote
primaeval times, in a place in which we would not, perhaps could not,
endure life a week. It matters much to him that the man who so dwelt
there, gained such a power over the minds of the heathen round him,
that five millions of their Christian descendants worship him, and
God on account of him, at this day.

St. Ita, again. It matters little that she did not--because she
could not--perform the miracles imputed to her. It matters little
whether she had or not--as I do not believe her to have had--a
regularly organized convent of nuns in Ireland during the sixth
century. It matters little if the story which follows is a mere
invention of the nuns in some after-century, in order to make a good
title for the lands which they held--a trick but too common in those
days. But it matters much that she should have been such a person,
that such a story as this, when told of her, should have gained
belief:- How the tribes of Hy-Connell, hearing of her great holiness,
came to her with their chiefs, and offered her all the land about her
cell. But she, not wishing to be entangled with earthly cares,
accepted but four acres round her cell, for a garden of herbs for her
and her nuns. And the simple wild Irish were sad and angry, and
said, 'If thou wilt not take it alive, thou shalt take it when thou
art dead. So they chose her then and there for their patroness, and
she blessed them with many blessings, which are fulfilled unto this
day; and when she migrated to the Lord they gave her all the land,