The Lives of the Saints, Volume 03 (of 16): MarchBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 03 (of 16): March
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
While Chad was praying by a fountain near his cell, a hart, with
quivering limbs and panting breath, leaped into the cooling stream.
Pitying its distress, the saint covered him with boughs, then placing
a rope round its neck, he let it graze in the forest. Wulfade came up,
heated in the chase, and asked where the beast had gone. The saint
replied, "Am I keeper of the hart? Yet, through the ministry of the
hart I have become the guide of thy salvation. The hart bathing in the
fountain foreshoweth to thee the laver of baptism, as the text says: As
the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,
O God."
Many other things did the saint set forth about the ministry of dumb
animals to the faithful. The dove from the ark told that the waters
were dried up.
The young prince replied, "The things you tell me would be more likely
to work faith in me if the hart you have taught to wander in the
forest with the rope round its neck were to appear in answer to your
prayers." The saint prostrated himself in prayer, and lo! the hart
burst from the thicket. The saint exclaimed, "All things are possible
to him that believeth. Hear then, and believe the faith of Christ."
The saint instructed him, and baptized him. The next day he received
the Eucharist, and went home, and told his brother Rufine that he had
become a Christian. The other said, "I have long wished for baptism; I
will seek holy Chad." The brothers set out together. Rufine espying the
hart with the cord round its neck, gave hot chase; the animal made for
the saint's cell, and leaped into the fountain as before. Rufine saw a
venerable man praying near. He said, "Art thou, my lord, father Chad,
guide of my brother Wulfade to salvation?" He answered, "I am." The
prince earnestly desiring baptism, Chad baptized him, Wulfade holding
him at the font, after the manner taught by holy Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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