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St. Columba, also known as St. Columbkill. Over the tomb is the Latin inscription:
"Patricius, Brigid, Columba, Pius," and underneath,
"One tomb three saints contains: below
Doth Patrick, Brigid and Columba show."
Was It the Care of His Guardian Angel?
Sister Martini, of the Order of Charity, one of the most successful teachers of the primary grades in St. John's parochial schools, Altoona, which position she occupies from choice and her love to be with little children, related to the writer a remarkable incident of a case of a sick man, John J. McDermitt or McDermott, by name (that name is variously spelled, McDermitt being an Anglicised form of the French De Armitt, while McDermott is distinctively of Irish origin); who died down in White Township about the year 1867.
Mr. James P. McCans, father of Sister Martini, who lived near St. Augustine, having learned that McDermitt was sick, it was feared unto death, went to see him and finding him in a serious condition rode up to get Father E. J. Burns to prepare him for death. Father Burns told him that he had promised to go to Loretto to assist the pastor, Father T. S. Reynolds, with Forty Hours Devotion, or something of that nature, but to go back and ascertain if the sick man were in immediate danger, when he would go, at all events.
Mr. McCans returned to the bedside of the dying man and, ascertaining that there was immediate danger of death, started back to inform the priest, but the roads being muddy, he was much delayed, and when he got back to St. Augustine Father Burns had started for Loretto, and Mr. McCans, believing that he had too much of a start of him to be overtaken, and knowing that a Benedictine priest, who attended at St. Iawrence [sic] and St. Boniface would be at the latter place that day, he rode as fast as his horse could travel, but before he got to his journey's end, he saw the priest walking towards St. Boniface, called to him to stop and the latter having with him all the requirements for bestowing the Holy Viaticum and anointing the sick man, he at once proceeded to the bedside of the dying man and prepared him for death, and the sick man died soon after wards.
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