their faces on the ground and wept bitterly. Finten then asked, “Whom did he leave as his successor?” “Baithene, his disciple,” they replied. And we all cried out, “It is meet and right.” Columb said to Finten, “What wilt thou do now, Finten?” He answered, “With God’s permission, I will sail over to Baithene, that wise and holy man; and if he receive me, I will take him as my abbot.”’[295] Baithene enjoyed the abbacy, however, for two years only, and died in the year 599, on the same day of the year as Saint Columba, on which day his festival was likewise held.[296] [Sidenote: A.D. 599-605. Laisren, son of Feradhach.] His successor was Laisren, son of Feradhach, who was also a descendant of Conall Gulban, and had been superior of Durrow during Columba’s life. It was in his time that the discussion commenced between the Roman and the Irish Church regarding the proper time for keeping Easter. The mission of Columbanus to Gaul in the year 590, and that of Augustine to Britain in 597, had now brought the Roman Church in contact with the British and Irish Churches, and this—the most salient point of difference between them—became at once the subject of a contest for the enforcement of uniformity on the one part, and the maintenance of their ancient customs, to which the Celtic mind clings with peculiar tenacity, on the other. Augustine, on his death in 604, was succeeded by one of his companions, named Laurentius; and this prelate, Bede tells us, ‘did not only attend to the charge of the new church that was gathered from the English people, but also regarded with pastoral solicitude the old natives of Britain, and likewise the people of the Scots who inhabit the island of Ireland adjacent to Britain. For observing that the practice and sentiments of the Scots in their own country, and also those of the Britons in Britain itself, were contrary to church order in many things, particularly because they used not to celebrate the solemnity of Easter at the proper time, but supposed, as we have shown above, that the day to be observed in commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection was included in the week from the fourteenth to the twentieth day of the moon, he, in conjunction with his fellow-bishops, wrote them a letter of exhortation, beseeching and entreating them to keep the bond of peace and Catholic observances with that church of Christ which is extended all over the world. The beginning of his letter is here given: “To our lords and most dear brethren the bishops or abbots throughout all Scotia (or Ireland), Laurentius, Mellitus and Justus, bishops, the servants of the servants of God. When the Apostolic See, according to her practice in all the world, stationed us in these western parts to preach to the pagan nations here, and so it came to pass that we entered into this island which is called Britain, before we were acquainted with it, supposing that they walked in the ways of the universal church, we felt a very