The sacrament of confirmation had been but rarely administered before his time, and he frequently was affected to tears when, instead of children to receive it, there were crowds of gray-haired men and women. {49} The education of the young had been much neglected by many parish priests, whose taste for agricultural pursuits led them to devote more time to the cultivation of farms than to the instruction of their people. One rural gentleman insisted that he could well attend to his flocks of sheep without neglecting his spiritual flock; but the bishop required that his time should be exclusively devoted to his ministry. Many justified their engagement with worldly occupations, or their inattention to their duties, by pointing to the curate, and, loudly affirming his energetic zeal, declared him fully competent to direct the parish, whilst the old man should repose from his labors and enjoy in ease the fruits of his past services in the vineyard of the Lord. The persistent labors of the bishop at length produced that good result ever to be expected from a faithful discharge of duty. Visitations were regularly conducted throughout his diocese, and the long-neglected canons of the church were reestablished, to the great satisfaction of all good priests, as well as with salutary consequences to the people. Not less important in their results were the spiritual retreats which he inaugurated amongst his clergy. The efficient means of preserving and strengthening the spiritual life of the priesthood had been long impossible in the times of persecution; but when this obstacle was removed, his predecessors took no steps to remedy the ill effects of their omission. One thousand priests and almost every prelate in Ireland assembled at Carlow, in 1820, to avail themselves of the advantages of silence and prayer under the direction of the young bishop, who conducted the religious exercises. He had been always known as an austere man to himself, and most conscientiously attentive to even the minor duties of his ecclesiastical state, and the brilliant manner in which he guided his attentive hearers through this retreat deeply impressed them. "These sermons," (he preached three times a day,) writes Rev. Mr. Delany, "were of an extraordinarily impressive character. We never heard anything to equal them before or since. The duties of the ecclesiastical state were never so eloquently or efficiently expounded. His frequent application and exposition of the most intricate texts of Scripture amazed and delighted us; We thought he was inspired. I saw the venerable Archbishop Troy weep like a child, and raise his hands in thanksgiving. At the conclusion of the retreat he wept again, and kissed his coadjutor with more than a brother's affection."