It is not our business here to tell how the Irish were converted to Christianity; for this has been already related in our Histories of Ireland. Whether St. Patrick was born in Gaul or in Scotland, we know at any rate that he brought with him to Ireland, to aid him in his great work, a number of young Gauls and Britons whom he had ordained as priests. But soon after his arrival he began to ordain natives also, whom he had converted; so that the hard work of travelling through the country, and preaching to the people, was for some time in the beginning done by foreigners and Irishmen. But as time went on the missionaries were chiefly native-born. St. Patrick loved the Irish people; and he was continually praying that God would bestow favours on them. And his prayers were answered; for, after the Apostolic times, there never were more devoted or more successful missionaries than those who preached the Gospel in Ireland, and there never were people who received the Faith more readily than the Irish, or who practised it after their conversion with more piety and earnestness. An old Irish writer who lived about twelve hundred years ago tells us that the saints of Ireland who lived, and worked, and died before his time were of “Three Orders.” “The First Order of Catholic saints”--says this writer--“were MOST HOLY: shining like the sun.” They were 350 in number, all bishops, beginning with St. Patrick. For more than thirty years they were led by their great master, with all his fiery and tireless energy; and the preachers of this order continued for a little more than a century. They devoted themselves entirely to the home mission--the conversion of the Irish people--which gave them quite enough to do. “The Second Order was of Catholic Priests”--continues the old writer--“numbering 300, of whom a few were bishops. These were VERY HOLY, and they shone like the moon.” They lasted for a little more than half a century. The priests of this Second Order were chiefly monastic clergy--that is to say, monks--and during their continuance monasteries were founded everywhere through Ireland. Though there were monks and monasteries here from the time of St. Patrick, they began to spread much more rapidly after the foundation of the great monastery of Clonard in Meath, by St. Finnen or Finnian--one of the Second Order of saints--about the year 527. It was the monks belonging to this Order, and their successors, who preached the Gospel in foreign lands with such amazing success, as will be told in Chapter VII.