Some Confessions of St. Patrick

But after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. 

More and more did the love of God, 

and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved

so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, 

and in the night a like number; 

besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain

and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain,

and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, 

because, as I now see, 

the Spirit was burning in me at that time.

[from the Confessions of St. Patrick]