Another and a stronger fact still, exemplifying the extent to which the Irish have at all times carried their devotion to the supernatural character of the Christian religion, is the extraordinary ardor with which, from the very beginning, they rushed into the high path of perfection, called the way of "evangelical counsels." Nowhere else were such scenes ever witnessed in Christian history. For the great mass of people the common way of life is the practice of the commandments of God; it is only the few who feel themselves called on to enter upon another path, and who experience interiorly the need of being "perfect." In Ireland the case was altogether different from the outset. St. Patrick, notwithstanding his intimate knowledge of the leanings of the race, expresses in his "Confessio" the wonder and delight he experienced when he saw in what manner and in what numbers they begged to be consecrated to God the very first day after their baptism. Yet were they conscious that this very eagerness would excite the greater opposition on the part of their pagan relatives and friends. Thus we read of the fate of Eochad's daughters, and the story of Ethne and Felimia. The whole nation, in fact, appeared suddenly transported with a holy impetuosity, and lifted at once to the height of Christian life. Monasteries and nunneries could not be constructed fast enough, although they contented themselves with the lightest fabrics--wattles being the ordinary materials for walls, and slender laths for roofs. Nor was this an ephemeral ardor, like a fire of stubble or straw, flashing into a momentary blaze, to relapse into deeper gloom. It lasted for several centuries; it was still in full flame at the time of Columba, more than two hundred years after Patrick; it grew into a vast conflagration in the seventh and eighth centuries, when multitudes rushed forth from that burning island of the blest to spread the sacred fire through Europe. How the nation continued to multiply, when so many devoted themselves to a holy celibacy, is only to be explained by the large number of children with which God blessed those who pursued an ordinary life, and who, from what is related in the chronicles of the time, must have been in a minority. Of the first monasteries and convents erected not a single vestige now remains, because of the perishable materials of which they were constructed; yet each of them contained hundreds, nay thousands, of monks or nuns.