In the year A.D. 270 Anthony, an Egyptian, the founder of the monastic institution, fixed his abode in the deserts of Egypt and formed monks into organized bodies. "Influenced by these eminent examples [Anthony, Hilarion, et al.] immense multitudes betook themselves to the desert, and innumerable monasteries were fixed in Egypt, Ethiopia, Lybia and Syria. Some of the Egyptian abbots are spoken of as having had five, seven, or even ten thousand monks under their personal direction; and the Thebias, as well as certain spots in Arabia, are reported to have been literally crowded with solitaries. Nearly a hundred thousand of all classes, it is said, were at one time to be found in Egypt.... Although the enthusiasm might be at a lower ebb in one country than in another, it _actually affected the church universal_, so far as the extant materials of ecclesiastical history enables us to trace its rise and progress.... The more rigid and heroic of the Christian anchorets dispensed with all clothing except a rug, or a few palm leaves round the loins. Most of them abstained from the use of water for ablution; nor did they usually wash or change the garments they had once put on; thus _St. Anthony_ [the founder of this order] bequeathed to Athanasius a skin in which his sacred person had been wrapped for half a century. They also allowed their beards and nails to grow, and sometimes became so hirsute, as to be actually mistaken for hyænas or bears." Hist. of Romanism, pp. 88, 89. Reader, what was the condition of the so-called church in A.D. 270 that could make the introduction of such abominations possible? Although many more historical quotations on this point might be added, I will conclude with the two following extracts from Joseph Milner. "We shall, for the present, leave Anthony propagating the monastic dispositions, and extending its influence not only into the next century, but for many ages after, and conclude this view of the state of the _third century_, with expressing our regret that the faith and love of the gospel received toward the close of it a dreadful blow from the encouragement of this unchristian practise." Cen. III, Chap. 20. "Moral, and philosophical, and monastic instructions will not effect for men what is to be expected from evangelical doctrine. And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state _ought to be dated from about the year 270_), we need not wonder that such scenes as Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details took place in the Christian world." Cent. IV, Chap. 1.