We have an interesting opportunity of realizing the true feeling of leading personages of Alcuin’s time in this matter of the Presence in the Eucharist, just where we might not have expected to find it, namely, in the controversy on the use of images, of which we must now see something. The Holy Eucharist is used as an illustration in this controversy. The Synod of Constantinople, which decided that the images of the Saviour must be destroyed, declared that the Eucharist is the only true image of the Saviour; meaning that the union of the divine grace with the earthly elements represents that union of Godhead and manhood in His Person which images failed to convey, inasmuch as images of the Lord could only set forth His humanity. The objection was raised by the opposition Council of Nicaea that none of the Fathers had applied the term _imago_ to that which is His Body and His Blood; but otherwise they did not raise objection to the force of the comparison. If the modern Roman doctrine had been held by either side in the controversy, it must have shown itself in a declaration that a comparison was impossible, on the ground that the consecrated elements actually are, by a change of substance, that which an image can never be, namely, the very Body and Blood of Christ. The controversialists of the time would certainly have brought out, in one form or another, this vital point, if they had held it or even had only heard of it. The controversy about images is so entirely a part of general Church History, that our mention of it must be only in relation to the part which Alcuin played in it. In the year 754 a Council at Constantinople had decreed the abolition of images, and this decree was carried out with terrible cruelty towards those who defended the images. In the year 787 a Council was held at Nicaea to re-establish the use of images of the Saviour and the Blessed Virgin, of angels and of saints, whether in painting or in mosaic or in any other suitable material, as objects of reverence, not as objects of that worship which is due to God alone. This decision restored peace between the East, which had previously condemned images, and the West, which had retained their use. The Pope, Adrian, sent the decrees to Karl, no doubt expecting that he would accept them. It was never quite safe to expect that Karl would do what he was expected to do.