In ancient Erin they had no such structures as were built in later ages by the Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans--noble piles of buildings with the stately church in the centre, surrounded by beautiful cloisters, dormitories, kitchen, and all other necessary offices. These notions must be entirely removed from the mind, if we wish to get an idea of the primitive Celtic monastery, as it existed in the earliest and best days of our Irish Church. Of course monasteries in the spiritual sense--as moral entities--have always been much the same in every country and in every age of the Church's history. The plan of the spiritual edifice is found in the Gospel, and has been drawn for all time by Christ Himself. The true monk is a man, as his name implies, who whether in the city or in the desert, should always strive to be alone with God. In this sense the prophets Elias and Eliseus under the Old Law, like John the Baptist at the threshold of the New Law, were monks in the most perfect sense of the word. Then, again, the monk whether living alone in the desert, or in community with others, must follow those counsels of perfection, which have been set forth by the teaching and example of the Son of God Himself. That is to say, he must renounce all worldly goods and live in poverty, in chastity, and obedience, when he has a superior. If he has no immediate superior, then he is a hermit, and God Himself, whom he seeks to please in all things, becomes his Superior. These means of perfection have been always deemed essential to the monastic character in the Church of God. One cannot conceive a married monk, nor one in the full enjoyment of his worldly fortune, nor one without a superior, except where he lives altogether alone with God, following His inspirations; and even then the bishop of the locality is always recognised by the Church as the Superior, whom he is bound to obey. With these essential means of perfection were also combined silence, prayer and labour, whether manual or mental. Idleness is unknown to the monastic state; the monk should be always doing something pleasing to God. It may be to pray, or to read, or to work in the fields, or to take his necessary rest, but he must be always doing the work of God. Monasticism in one sense or another always existed, and always will exist in the Church. It flourished amongst the first Christian communities at Jerusalem, who had only one heart and one soul, who sold their lands and houses, and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles to feed the poor. It existed in the catacombs during the persecutions, and took more definite shape in the deserts of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia.