Page 146 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

RE DING LESSONS. 145
thusiasm her example excited, that the religious or­ der which she instituted, spread its branches through every part of the country. Taking the veil herself at a very early age, when, as we are told, she was clothed in the white garment, and the white veil placed upon her head, she was immediately llowed, in this step, by seven or eight young maidens, who, attaching themselves to her rtunes, rmed, at the rst, her small religious community. r be pure sanc­ tity of this virgin's li , and the supernatural gifts at­
tributed to her, spread the me she had acquired mo1:e widely every day, and crowds of young women and widows applied r admission into her institu­ tion. At rst she contented herself with unding establishments r her llowers in the respective dis­ tricts of which they were natives; and in this task e bishops of the di erent diocesses appear to have concurred with and assisted her. But the increasing numbe of those who required her own immediate superintendence, rendered it necessary to rm some one great establishment, over which she should her­ self preside; and the people of Leinster, who claimed to be peculiarly entitled to her presence, om the il­ lustrious mily to which she belonged having been natives of their province, sent a deputation to her, to
1 entreat that she would x among them her residence. To this request the saint assented; and a habitation was immediately provided r herself and her sister nuns, which rmed the commencement both of her great monasfery, and of the town or city of Kildare. The name of Kildara, or cell of the oak, was given to the monastery, om a very high oak-tree which grew near the spot, and of which the trunk was still remaining in the twel h century; no one daring, as
1 we are told by Giraldus, to touch jt with a kni , 13