the Saxon pirates and the incursions of the Picts and Scots, the Church found leisure for the Pelagian controversy, and held the synods at which Germanus and Lupus had come over from Gaul to assist. It illustrates the disturbed state of the country at that very time, if we remember that while Germanus was here there was an incursion of these foreign foes—both Saxons and Picts-and that Germanus, at the request of the people, put himself at the head of their forces, inspired them with courage, and suggested the stratagem which gained them the famous "Alleluia" victory.

We may also bear in mind that at this very time Rome itself was in circumstances not dissimilar from those in which the Britons found themselves. The Roman territory, smaller than that which the unconquered Britons still retained, was surrounded by the Lombards, continually harassed by their incursions, and in danger of being conquered by them; and yet the ecclesiastical life of Rome went on much as usual, and Gregory engaged in political controversy with the Emperor and an ecclesiastical controversy with the Patriarch of Constantinople, administered the business of his See with an unintermittent vigilance, intervened in the affairs of Gaul, and still had leisure to watch over his mission in distant Britain. War may be raging on our frontier, the enemy may be gaining victories and advancing towards us, but the affairs of daily life are not interrupted till the enemy is actually upon us; and the affairs of daily life of ecclesiastics are the moral and spiritual tendance of their people, and the interests of the Church of Christ.

It is not, then, out of the ordinary course of things

that, amidst the break-up of the Empire in Britain, the people should still be discussing theological questions and holding synods about them; or that, while the armed forces of Wales were engaged with the invading Saxons beyond the Severn, St. David and Caradoc should continue to cultivate learning and religion, should be engaged in reorganising the native Church in accordance with the actual political and social changes which were taking place among the people, should be sending forth missionaries to Ireland, and should be willing to enter into communication with Augustine in the interests of religion.

Augustine would represent to them the Church of the West, with which they had always been in full communion and co-operation. Their representatives had been present in the old time at the great Councils of the Western Church, or, if they had not been represented by delegates, they had sent in their acceptance of the decrees of the Councils. There was no reason, so far, why the British should not give a friendly response to an invitation to a conference with the Roman missionary. Rome was to them still, as it had always been, the premier See of Western Christendom, an object of great respect and reverence. Pious Britons

for many generations, while it was possible, had made their pilgrimages to "the threshold of the Apostles" at Rome, and nothing had happened to diminish their reverence for it.

Augustine came to them, through the mediation of Ethelbert, King of Kent, as the Archbishop of the English. Well, the Bishop of Rome had undertaken a good work in essaying to convert the Barbarians

who had assailed Britain, as other tribes of the Barbarians had successfully assailed and established themselves in other portions of the Empire. They could do no other than wish him success in his mission. The Kingdom of Kent was far away from them and their present interests. It had been established in its corner of Britain for one hundred and fifty years. Men in those days accepted the logic of events as we do in these days; friendly communications with the now Christian King of Kent, the powerful Bretwalda, could hardly bring the Welsh any harm, and might bring them good. There was no reason here either why they should not meet Augustine in friendly conference; and so they met him.

Where was the meeting held? There are several claimants for the honour of having been the place of this interesting historical event. Two seem to have plausible claims. One of these is the Apostles' Oak, in the parish of Abberley, at the junction of the two dioceses of Worcester and Hereford, which seems to correspond with the words of Bede, who describes the place of meeting as near to the end of the West Saxons, or Wiccii, and there is an ancient tradition that this was the place; another is Austre Clive or Aust in Gloucestershire, on the Severn, where the old Roman ferry is said to have crossed the river to Chepstow.

Bede gives the narrative of the proceedings in some detail. Gregory "began by brotherly admonitions to persuade them to preserve Catholic unity, and with him to undertake the common labour of preaching the gospel to the nations"; and then he enumerates some of the particulars in which they differed

from the usages of the Roman Church. The principal of these were the time of keeping Easter, the form of the clerical tonsure, some peculiarity in the ordination of bishops, priests, and deacons, a peculiarity in the mode of administering baptism. They had a Liturgy of their own, and a version of the Bible of their own. It is very important to observe that the differences between the two Churches were only such trifling matters as these; in all the great questions of the doctrines of the faith, the organisation and discipline of the Church, they were entirely agreed.

The whole question came up again half a century afterwards, and was fully debated at the Synod of Whitby. Bede reports the speeches on both sides on that occasion at considerable length, and the reader may profitably read the argument as there given.1

The main arguments on one side and on the other were these:The Italians said that their customs were those of the whole Church, and maintained that it was desirable, for the sake of Catholic unity, that the Britons should conform to them. The Britons pleaded that they followed the customs of their spiritual ancestors, which they had received from St. John the Apostle, and they were unwilling to abandon them. It is well to note this belief of the British Church that it derived its descent from St. John; because it is a confirmation of the conclusion at which we arrive from other evidence, that the Church was planted in Britain by Gallic missionaries, the Gallic Church having itself been founded at Vienne and Lyons by Pothinus, Irenæus, and other missionaries, who came from Asia Minor in the middle of the second century.

1 Bede, Eccl. Hist. Book iii. ch. 25.

It is worth while to bestow a little attention upon these special customs in dispute.

The proper time for the observance of the great Easter festival, upon which other great festivals of the Church depended, had been a subject of dispute between the Churches of the East and the West as early as the middle of the second century. When Polycarp the martyr visited Rome about 158 A.D., the two customs came face to face in the different practice of the "Angel of the Church of Smyrna," and of Bishop Anicetus of Rome. It had been the practice of the Asiatics to celebrate the Paschal Supper on the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month, the same day on which the Jews kept the Feast of the Passover; and three days later they kept the Feast of the Resurrection, on whatever day of the week it might happen to fall. Other Churches, having special regard to the fact that the resurrection had taken place on a Sunday, and that the weekly holy day had been altered by the apostles from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's Day on that account, held that the yearly Festival of the Resurrection ought also to be held on a Sunday. The Asiatic or Quartodeciman practice was traced to St. John and St. Philip, that of the Western Churches to St. Peter and St. Paul. Polycarp and Anicetus agreed that in such a matter a difference of practice might be allowed.

The question was revived about twenty years afterwards, when Victor, the Bishop of Rome, endeavoured to induce the Eastern Churches to conform to the Western practice, and threatened with excommunication those who declined to agree. Polycrates, Bishop