CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS. IV. — S. SAMSON. 93 



and holds the government of it a year and a half.* He then goes 

 to Ireland with some eminent and learned men of that country, 

 who had visited him on their homeward journej'- from Rome ; and, 

 after spending a short time there, preaching the way of eternal 

 life to all who came near him, he returns to his own monaster}?" on 

 the island. Findmg there his father and his uncle excelling in 

 devotion all the other brethren, he sends the latter to take the 

 management of a monastic .institution in Ireland, and departs 

 with the former and two other companions to a wide desert on 

 the shores of the river Severn. Leaving his fellow travellers 

 there in a castle which they had discovered, he goes further into 

 the wilderness, and dwells in a secret cave which had an opening 

 towards the east ; and there he lives a life of great abstinence, 

 holding intercourse with angels, and every Lord's day visiting the 

 three brothers whom he had left in the castle. " At the time 

 that I was in Britain," says the old writer, "the place was held 

 in great reverence, and an oratory was built on the spot Avhere 

 holy Samson was wont to say mass and hold communion with 

 Christ every Sabbath day." We are next told, that at the request 

 of a synod, Samson became Abbot of a monastery founded by 

 S. Germanus, and that whilst he held that office he was conse- 

 crated Bishop hj S. Dubricius. In harmony with a practice of 

 the Celtic Church, he seems to have been raised to the episcopate 

 more on account of his distinguished merits than with a view to 

 his exercising episcopa,! functions in any particular place. Shortly 

 afterwards it is revealed to him that God has predestined him to 

 depart from his own country, and to become a mighty pillar of 

 the Church in a land beyond the sea. The Galilean martyrology, 

 however, informs us that the immediate cause of his migration 

 was to escape from a savage Saxon tyrant Avho had invaded his 

 neighbourhood,t whilst other authorities state that he Avas driven 

 away by a pestilence.:|: Bidding farewell to his weeping relatives 



* His Life in the Book of Llandafi: says three years and a half. 



f Samson, Saxonem tyrannidem fugieus, versus minorem Britanniam, ttt 

 tutius Chiisto serviret, pedein retraxit. 



Martyr : Gallic 28 Nov : quoted by Alford, Annates, vol. ii, p. 68. 



I Surius, in his "^ie de Saint Sampson," says that a strange plague — 

 " etrange Contagion" — having swept oS the greater part of his flock, and the 

 war with the Saxons having exterminated the rest with fire and sword, he 

 fled to Brittany, in obedience to a divine command. 



