Excerpt from The Life and Writings of Saint Columban: 542? 615 The distinctive characteristics of the Irish monks of old, thej passion for pilgrimage and preaching, the imperious necessity, as Montalembert calls it, of spreading themselves without, of I seeking or carrying knowledge and faith afar, never died out like the grand old faith itself, it is the characteristic of the. Irish race. In our own day hundreds of thousands of the sons and daughters of Erin leave their country to earn their bread' in honest toil abroad; and in every land under heaven, in Asia, Africa and America, in Australia and New Zealand and in the South Sea Islands, we find the Irish priest and monk and bishop converting the heathen or keeping bright the lamp of faith where it has already been lighted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.