_The Saint titheth Hibernia and the Dwellers therein._
Then at the Paschal tide, his accustomed devotions being finished, he
went round the whole island with a holy multitude of his sons whom he
had brought forth unto Christ; and everywhere teaching the way of the
Lord, he converted to, or confirmed in, the faith the dwellers therein.
And all the islanders, unto whom had come even the knowledge of his
name, for this so strange and wondrous miracle surrendered themselves
to him and to his doctrine, as to an angel of light, and devoutly they
obeyed him for their peculiar apostle. Then this most excellent
husbandman, seeing the hardness of the Lord's field to be softened, and
the thorns, the thistles, and the tares rooted forth, labored to
fertilize it so much the more abundantly with the increase of
profitable seed, that it produced good fruit not only to the increase
of thirty or sixty, but even of an hundred-fold. Therefore he caused
the whole island to be divided with a measuring line, and all the
inhabitants, both male and female, to be tithed; and every tenth head,
as well of human kind as of cattle, commanded he to be set apart for
the portion of the Lord. And making all the men monks, and the women
nuns, he builded many monasteries, and assigned unto them for their
support the tithe of the land and of the cattle. Wherefore in a short
space so it was that no desert spot, nor even any corner of the island,
nor any place therein, however remote, was unfilled with perfect monks
and nuns; so that Hibernia was become rightly distinguished by the
especial name of the Island of Saints. And these lived according to
the rule of Saint Patrick, with a contempt of the world, a desire of
heaven, a holy mortification of the flesh, and an abandonment of all
pleasure; equalling the Egyptian monks in their merit and in their
number, so that with their conversation and example they edified far
distant countries. And in the days of Saint Patrick, and for many ages
of his successors, no one was advanced unto the episcopal degree or the
cure of souls, unless by the revelation of the divine Spirit or by some
other evident sign he was proved worthy thereof.