Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/34

 he be a man of God." But how shall we know if he be a man of God?" they asked. The hermit said, "If he rise to meet you. If he do not rise, he cannot be like Christ, meek and lowly in heart, and his words should not be regarded." The Bishops went on their way. Augustine did not rise to meet them. He received them sitting, and he asked them to comply with him for the sake of unity on the two points on which they differed most, viz., on the proper time for observing the feast of Easter, and on the mode of conferring baptism. The Bishops would not comply, but stood firm to their old traditions. They continued to use their own ritual, their own liturgy, their own version of the Scriptures. Thus, then, for a while, there were two Churches in Britain—the Celtic or British Church, and that which sprung up from the Roman Mission.

Let us leave the British Church again, and follow the fortunes of S. Augustine's Mission. Was that prosperous? No! It almost failed.

In the year 604 both Gregory and Augustine died. Laurence succeeded Augustine in his work, but that work depended upon the goodwill of the king. It went on smoothly enough as long as Ethelbert lived, but in 616 he died also, and his sort Eadbald succeeded him, and he renounced Christianity. A similar story is told of other kings, in whose districts Christianity had been planted. It seemed for a moment as if England would relapse into heathenism again. Mellitus left London, Justus left Rochester for France, in order to escape from heathen hatred. Laurence, the successor of Augustine, was on the point of doing the same, when a dream is said to have prevented him. His