ns, to participate immediately of the sacred duties.[*] There
are some other questions and replies still more indecent and more
ridiculous.[**] And on the whole it appears that Gregory and his
missionary, if sympathy of manners have any influence, were better
calculated than men of more refined understandings, for making a
progress with the ignorant and barbarous Saxons.

The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity, Gregory enjoined
Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to
destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be
allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it celebrated
in a place which they were accustomed to revere.

[* Bede, lib. i. cap. 27. Spell. Concil. p. 97,
98, 99, &c.]

[** Augustine asks, "Si mulier menstrua
consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam intrare et licet, aut
sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere?" Gregory answers,
"Santae communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus percipere non
debet prohiberi. Si autem ex veneratione magna percipere non
praesumitur, laudanda est." Augustine asks, "Si post
illusionem, quae par somnum solet accidere, vel corpus
Domini quilibet accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra
mysteria celebrare?" Gregory answers this learned question
by many learned distinctions.]

And as the pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on
their offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on
Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighborhood of the
church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments to
which they had been habituated.[*] These political compliances
show that, notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was
not unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind. Augustine was
consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with
authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a badge
of ecclesiastical honor, from Rome.[**] Gregory also advised him not
to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles;[***] and as
Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think himself
entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the
pope informed him that they lay entirely without the bounds of his
jurisdiction.[****]

The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and, much more his embracing
Christianity, begat a connection of his subjects w