place immediately after the conversion of the island to Christianity,
while even still a great number were pagans.

"There was particularly," says St. Patrick, "one blessed Irish girl,
gentle born, most beautiful, already of a marriageable age, whom I
had baptized. After a few days she came back and told me that a
messenger of God had appeared to her, advising her to become a virgin
of Christ, and live united to God. Thanks be to the Almighty! Six
days after, she obtained, with the greatest joy and avidity, what
she wished. The same must be said of all the virgins of God; their
parents--those remaining pagans, no doubt--instead of approving of
it, persecute them, and load them with obloquy; yet their number
increases constantly; and, indeed, of all those that have been
thus born to Christ, _I cannot give the number_, besides those
living in holy widowhood, and keeping continency in the midst of
the world.

"But those girls chiefly suffer most who are bound to service;
they are often subjected to terrors and threats--from pagan
masters surely--yet they persevere. The Lord has given his holy
grace of purity to those servant-girls; the more they are tempted
against chastity, the more able they show themselves to keep it."

Does not this passage, written by St. Patrick, describe precisely
what is now of every-day occurrence wherever the Irish emigrate?
The Celts, therefore, were evidently at the time of their conversion
what they are now; and it has been justly remarked that, of all
nations whose records have been kept in the history of the Catholic
Church, they have been the only ones whose chieftains, princes, even
kings, have shown themselves almost as eager to become, not only