Is it possible to maintain or restore purity while living in a society where "vulgarity and corruption have penetrated schools and even kindergartens, where the concepts of permissiveness, sexual freedom and irresponsibility are firmly embedded in consciousness"? How exactly to do this? For answers to these and other questions, the author of the book, Fr. Andrei (Ovchinnikov) suggests turning to the experience of the ancient ascetics of the Church - hermits and monks who inhabited the Egyptian desert in the 4th - 6th centuries.