1. Whilst darkness and desolation were covering the rest of the earth――whilst Huns and Saxons, Goths and Vandals, Moors and Saracens were carrying despair and death into all corners of Europe, Asia and Africa――whilst one by one the bright lights of ancient Christendom――Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage――were being extinguished――Ireland, exempted by a special grace of the Almighty from the universal misery, continued for three centuries to be the unmolested sanctuary of the faith, the asylum of learning, the nursery of saints and missionaries. How wistfully we now look back through all the intervening horrors upon those happy days of the nation’s childhood, when, quite unconscious of the dark future in store for her, she consecrated her virgin heart to the service of God; when churches and monasteries crowned each hill and nestled in each dale; when the air was ever laden with melodious psalmody and the perfume of prayer; when, unable to contain within her generous Celtic breast the fullness of her joy, she sent forth, as a presage of her future apostolic labors, her Columbas to the Isles of the North, her Columbanuses into the heart of Europe, and launched her Brandans upon the western waves to search out new realms for Christ. The exceptional character of Ireland’s position was fully appreciated by the other nations of Europe. She was looked upon as sacred ground, and her people were recognized as enjoying in a very special manner the friendship of our Saviour. I narrate a thrice-told tale. To her sheltering bosom there flocked from all Christendom studious souls thirsty for knowledge, repentant souls longing for seclusion, virtuous souls in quest of refuge and models; and they found knowledge in her schools, discipline in her cloisters, and the humblest peasants in the land could teach them, by precept and example, the path of Christian perfection. For the Irish at their conversion did not put on religion as an outward garment. The Catholic faith sank deep into their souls, and became the center of their private and public life. It absorbed and assimilated all their thoughts and aspirations. For their faith they lived and studied; in it they reposed their individual happiness and their national glory.