Again, while it is allowable to assume that the hermit who dwelt apart and in solitude was the precursor of the conventual body—the word monk implies as much—it nevertheless seems certain that, at the time when he first emerges into the clear light of Celtic history he is not, as popular fancy has imagined, a distraught enthusiast seeking refuge and rest from an evil and adulterous generation, but a tried soldier who has learnt in the convent by precept and by practice the art of war, and who goes forth in all the panoply of celestial might to fight singly and alone the enemies of his soul and to bring deliverance to others. No sooner has he achieved his own salvation than he sets about the salvation of his fellow-men. He has little in common with the self-regarding Christian of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_. He is eager to be of use. He becomes a minister to the dwellers amid untrodden ways and in remote corners, it may be as a waywarden, a bridge repairer, or a light keeper, but in any case as the guide, the counsellor, the friend of all. Inevitably his sphere of influence widens out. Soon he has become equally necessary to the pilgrim, the traveller and to those who are round about him. As time goes on his cell and the little sanctuary where he and they have met for worship become hallowed by association, and, when he dies, a successor must be sought to carry on the tradition. The hermitage thus remains as a memorial of its founder long after his name has been forgotten. Or, it may be, the hermit is joined by others like-minded and founds a religious community, a _lan_ whose growth and permanence are promoted by the industry and self-denial of its members. This would seem to have been the normal course of events in Cornwall. In this case the individual founder is often content to leave his work to be carried on by others during his lifetime. He may be a bishop, priest, deacon or layman who determines to undergo the hardships of the wilderness for a season, but who has no intention of devoting his whole life to solitude. Diversities of gifts under the spell of a common impulse give rise to diversities of ministration and of operation. Of the hermits of the Celtic period in Cornwall we have very little historical evidence. Presumptive evidence we have which, if it told against the traditional interpretation of early Christianity, would doubtless be held to possess great value. For example, we have, in the lives of the saints, references to ecclesiastical types and economic conditions which had been obsolete for centuries when some of those lives are held to have assumed their present literary form.