"You'll see the homes of holy men Far west upon the shoreless main-- In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben, Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen The sacred page, despising gain." --M'Gee: _Iona to Ireland_. I.--LIFE OF ST. ENDA OF ARAN. If we accept the authority of the Catalogue of the Three Orders of Irish Saints, those of the fifth century were mainly missionaries; those of the sixth century were cenobites; and the Third Order were for the most part anchorites, or Culdees as they afterwards came to be called. To a certain extent this is true. The Church of the sixth century partook very much of the monastic character; as Skene says, "There was episcopacy in the Church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy."[150] We should be inclined to accept this statement, if the learned writer had inserted one word, and said that it was not _always_ diocesan episcopacy. In Iona, and doubtless in other great monasteries also, there was generally a resident prelate, subject in jurisdiction to the presbyter-abbot; but Venerable Bede says expressly[151] that it was an unusual arrangement--inusitato ordine--and his authority settles the question; it was unusual even in the Celtic Churches. There is no doubt that monastic influence predominated in the Irish Church of the sixth century, and that the head of the monastery was not always, though he certainly was very frequently, a bishop. This arose partly from the ardour of the Celtic character in its efforts to reach perfection, partly from the unsettled state of the country, and to some extent from the influence and example of the great Columba himself. It was by accident he was not consecrated a bishop, and his successors would not pretend to be greater than their holy founder. But the system at least produced one excellent effect--it was under God the means of establishing those wonderful monastic schools so famed in every Christian land.