Chapter 1

furnace tries the gold, so did the hour of trial draw near to Patrick that he might the more provedly receive the crown of life. For when the illustrious boy had perlustrated three lustres, already attaining his sixteenth year, he was, with many of his-fellow-countrymen, seized by the pirates who were ravaging the borders, and was made captive and carried into Ireland, and was there sold as a slave to a certain pagan prince named Milcho, who reigned in the Northern parts of the island, even at the same age when Joseph is recorded to have been sold in Egypt. . . ."