was so thick that the meal reached the surface, (b) "gruel between two
waters" in which the meal, while it did not rise to the surface, did not
quite fall to the bottom, and (c) "gruel under water" which was so weak
and so badly boiled that he meal easily fell to the bottom. In the case
of penitents the first brand of gruel was prescribed for light offences,
the second kind for sins of ordinary gravity, and the "gruel under
water" for extraordinary crimes (vid. Messrs. Gwynne and Purton on the
Rule of Maelruin, &c.) The most implicit, exact and prompt obedience
was prescribed and observed. An overseer of Mochuda's monastery at
Rahen had occasion to order by name a young monk called Colman to do
something which involved his wading into a river. Instantly a dozen
Colmans plunged into the water. Instances of extraordinary penance
abound, beside which the austerities of Simon Stylites almost pale. The
Irish saints' love of solitude was also a very marked characteristic.
Desert places and solitary islands of the ocean possessed an apparently
wonderful fascination for them. The more inaccessible or forbidding the
island the more it was in request as a penitential retreat. There is
hardly one of the hundred islands around the Irish coast which, one time
or another, did not harbour some saint or solitary upon its rocky bosom.

The testimony of the "Lives" to the saints' love and practice of prayer
is borne out by the evidence of more trustworthy documents. Besides
private prayers, the whole psalter seems to have been recited each day,
in three parts of fifty psalms each. In addition, an immense number of
Pater Nosters was prescribed. The office and prayers were generally
pretty liberally interspersed with genuflexions or prostrations, of
which a certain anchorite performed as many as seven hundred daily.
Another penitential action which accompanied prayer was the
'cros-figul.' This was an extension of the arms in the shape of a
cross; if anyone wants to know how difficult a practice this is let him