That night all the Cubs prayed very hard for a real, proper, hot day for their last in camp. It certainly did not look possible. But Spongey put the matter in a nutshell when he stood in his long night-shirt, one eye shut as usual, and remarked: "I think it'll sunshine to-morrer, 'cos I've prayed very hard it will."
The Cubs had turned in early, to get out of the wet world into their dry, cosy beds. There was plenty of time for a good long story, and they settled down with wriggles of satisfaction and waited for Akela to begin.
The Story of St. Patrick.
Nearly four hundred years after Our Lord had gone up to heaven, and left His disciples and their followers to carry on, a boy was born who was destined to be one of God's greatest Saints, and to bring thousands and thousands of pagans into the Christian Faith. This boy was St. Patrick, called the Apostle of Ireland, because he turned the whole of Ireland Christian. For many hundreds of years after St. Patrick had died, Ireland was like a fruitful garden in which sprang up hundreds of Saints and holy and learned men, who helped to spread the knowledge and love of Christ all over the world. So St. Patrick was truly an Apostle, and, like St. John and St. Andrew and the others, one of the foundation-stones of Christ's great Church.
But though he ended in being so very important, and doing things that made a great difference to the whole world, he began as an ordinary boy—and rather a naughty one, as he tells us himself. We know a great deal about St. Patrick, and we know it is quite true, because when he was over one hundred years old he wrote it all down himself. He called the book his "Confession," and though he told us such a lot about himself, beginning with the adventures of his boyhood, there is one thing he did not put down in the book. Can you guess what? Well, he did not put down how good he was. For, you see, the Saints never thought themselves good, because, instead of comparing themselves with people less good than themselves, as we are all so fond of doing, they kept on comparing themselves with Our Blessed Lord, and of course, that made them seem very, very far from perfect.
When St. Patrick was a boy he did not love God or believe all his Christian teachers told him, nor was he obedient or ready to do his best. One day some fierce pirates raided the land where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him off captive with lots of other boys. Sailing across the sea to Ireland, the pirates sold the boys as slaves.
St. Patrick was bought by a great chief called Milcho, and sent out on to the hill-sides to watch the sheep. Do you think he was lonely and afraid? No. For, when torn away from his home, from the friends who loved him, he had discovered that there is one Friend that you can't be dragged away from, and Who can be with you even in the midst of the tossing green sea, on a pirate ship. For, though Patrick had forgotten God, God had not forgotten Patrick. "The Lord," he says, "showed me my unbelief, and had pity on my youth and ignorance."
So when he trudged out on to the mountain-side, he was not sad and alone, but glad in the knowledge that his unseen Friend was with him.
"Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ above me, Christ beneath me,
Christ in the chariot, Christ in the fort, Christ in the ship."