But, even in our days, we are furnished with an ocular demonstration of what men could scarcely bring themselves to believe, or at least would term an exaggeration, did not standing proof remain. God inspired his children with the thought of erecting more substantial structures, of building walls of stone and roofing them in with tiles and metal; and the island was literally covered, not with Gothic castles or luxurious palaces and sumptuous edifices, but with large and commodious buildings and churches, wherein the religious life of the inmates might be carried on with greater comfort and seclusion from the world. At the time of the Reformation all those asylums of perfection and asceticism were of course profaned, converted to vile or slavish uses, many altogether destroyed to the very foundations; a greater number were allowed to decay gradually and become heaps of ruins. And what happened when the English Government, unable any longer to resist public opinion, was compelled to consent that a survey be made of the poor and comparatively few remains still in existence, in order to manifest a show of interest for the past history of the island; when commissioners were appointed to publish lists and diagrams of the former dwellings of the "saints," which the "zeal" of the "reformers" had battered down without mercy? To the astonishment of all, it was proved by the ruins still in existence that the greater portion of the island had been once occupied by monasteries and convents of every description. And Prof. O'Curry has stated his conviction, based on local traditions and geographical and topographical names, that a great number of these can be traced back to Patrick and his first companions. It is clear enough, then, that, from the beginning, the Irish were not only "priest-ridden," but also very attached to "monkish superstitions." Yet we could not form a complete idea of that attachment were we to limit ourselves to an enumeration of the buildings actually erected, supposing such an enumeration possible at this time. For we know, by many facts related in Irish hagiology, that a great number of those who devoted themselves to a life of penance and austerity, did not dwell even in the humble structures of the first monks, but, deeming themselves unworthy of the society of their brethren, or condemned by a severe but just "friend of their soul," as the confessor was then called, hid themselves in mountain-caves, in the recesses of woods or forests, or banished themselves to crags ever beaten by the waves of the sea. Yes, there was a time when those dreadful solitudes of the Hebrides, which frighten the modern tourist in his summer explorations, teemed with Christian life, and every rock, cave, and sand-bar had its inhabitant, and that inhabitant an Irish monk.