_St. Agatha_ performed many miracles. Quintianus, the governor of Catania, smitten with her beauty and extraordinary accomplishments, endeavoured to gain her affections, but was unsuccessful. Consequently his love turned into inveterate hatred, which ended in the fair Agatha being scourged and cast into a loathsome prison. The Pagan ruler commanded her to sacrifice to heathen deities, but she adhered to her Christian principles in spite of his wrath, which found vent in burning her with hot irons and cutting off her breasts. To manifest the displeasure of heaven, the walls of her prison were thrown down by some unseen power, and two of the governor's servants were deprived of life in a mysterious manner when torturing her. Her enemy had intended other and more fearful cruelties, but, in answer to her earnest prayers, death stepped in and relieved her from every trouble. In Catania a church was built and dedicated to St. Agatha, and her sacred veil, which she had often used to conceal her lovely features from the lustful Quintianus, was placed in it, to protect that city from the eruptions of Mount Ætna, and the earthquakes so frequent in Sicily. This valuable relic was long preserved by those who believed in its efficacy. It not only had power over the mountain and internal fires, but it conveyed virtue to everything it touched, similar to that which itself possessed. There were few Catanians who did not obtain, through this veil, sovereign protections from evil.
_St. Patrick_, the apostle and father of the Hibernian Church, and patron or tutelar saint of Ireland, was a Briton by birth, having been born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in the year 377. When about sixteen years of age he was taken prisoner and conveyed to Ireland, where he was sold as a slave. Escaping from his master, he returned to the place of his nativity. When in exile, he saw the evils arising from Paganism, and resolved to do what he could to convert the Irish Pagans to Christianity. In due time he entered into his missionary labours with indefatigable zeal, and proved to be the blessed means of converting the benighted Irish to the true faith. The miracles attributed to him are numerous, the most noted of which is the expulsion of reptiles from the Irish soil. It was he who made the shamrock--the Irish national emblem--so famous.