Note 248 — LETTER IV.

A similar legend is told of St. Raymond, a Spanish saint, who lived in the thirteenth century. He was confessor to Don James, King of Aragon. In the words of Mrs. Jameson (Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 421), ‘the latter’ (the King) ‘had but one fault; he was attached to a certain beauty of his court from whom Raymond in vain endeavoured to detach him. When the King summoned his confessor to attend him to Majorca, the saint refused unless the lady were left; the King affected to yield, but soon after their arrival in Majorca, Raymond discovered that the lady was also there in the disguise of a page; he remonstrated; the King grew angry; Raymond intimated his resolution to withdraw to Spain; the King forbad any vessel to leave the port, and made it death to any person to convey him from the island. The result is thus gravely related: St. Raymond, full of confidence in God, said to his companion, “An earthly King has deprived us of the means of escape, but a heavenly King will supply them!” Then walking up to a rock which projected into the sea, he spread his cloak on the waters, and setting his staff upright and tying one corner to it for a sail, he made the sign of the cross, and boldly embarked in this new kind of vessel. He was wafted over the surface of the ocean with such rapidity that in six hours he reached Barcelona. This stupendous miracle might perhaps have been doubted, if five hundred credible witnesses had not seen the saint land on the quay at Barcelona, take up his cloak, which was not even wetted by the waves, throw it round him, and retire modestly to his cell; more like an humble penitent than one in whose favour Heaven had so wonderfully wrought.’