CHAPTER 111 
Missionaries of Christianity and Culture 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA ;— 
AMERICA? 
’ : \HE conversion of England as we have seen 
was due to the Irish missionaries. The con- 
version of Scotland was an earlier task per- 
formed by the same agents with like success. What 
was accomplished, from Lindisfarne for western, 
central and northern England had been achieved 
for Scotland in very similar fashion from the mother 
house of Iona. These two nations occupied only the 
sister island however, separated from Ireland by a 
narrow sea or straits and only comparatively little 
of the missionary spirit that sends men to long dis- 
tances from home was needed for the workers in 
these regions. But the spirit of the Irish mission. 
aries led them to wander ever so much farther afield 
than this. They went over to the continent not only 
to France and Italy as well as to the not distant 
coasts of the North Sea, but they also went up along 
the Baltic and to the end of the Mediterranean and 
made foundations near old Carthage in Africa as 
well as in Asia Minor. They ventured greatly dar- 
ing up to Iceland and there is even definite question, 
which some answer in the afhirmative, as to whether 
they did not go all the way across the Atlantic to 
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