It is somewhat difficult to obtain any exact information as to the time when Matins were said or sung in the English parochial churches. That the service was begun at an early hour we must suppose, even if we had not the authority of Sir Thomas More for the fact. To conclude from the case of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, just quoted, it may be judged that the hour for Matins was at 6 or 7 in the morning, and that High Mass would commence at 9 or 10. An interval between was thus left, during which the parishioners would have time to return home and break their fast. If the occupation of two hours or so on a Sunday morning, and another service in the afternoon, may appear somewhat excessive to our modern notions, we must bear in mind that it was in those days clearly understood and accepted as a first principle of religion that the meaning of the Sunday rest and freedom from work was, in the first place, that the Christian, who was occupied all the rest of the week mainly in temporal affairs, might have time to attend to the things of his soul. His chief duty on the Sunday was, as one of the Synodical Constitutions puts it, “to hear divine service and Holy Mass, to pray and to listen to the voice of the priest instructing him in his belief and duty.” The parochial, or High Mass, as the chief sung Mass was called, was preceded on each Sunday by the public and solemn blessing of the holy water. For this ceremony the priest, who was about to celebrate the Mass, came to the entrance of the chancel, accompanied by the deacon and subdeacon--if there were any such ministers; if not, by the clerks and servers carrying the platter of salt and the manual, and by the _aquæbajularius_ holding the vat of water to be blessed. From the earliest times of English Christianity the people had been taught to use this water and salt mingled together with the Church’s prayers, that by it they might be reminded of the purity of heart necessary to all God’s servants, and that, by virtue of the power of God invoked in the prayers upon the water, His providence might watch over them and defend them from all danger of body and soul. Pope St. Gregory the Great had told St. Mellitus to bid our first apostle, St. Augustine, make use of the old pagan temples, having first caused “holy water (to) be blessed and sprinkled all over” them. [Illustration: HOLY WATER VAT AND SPRINKLER] In the same way the English people were taught to make use of the water thus solemnly blessed on the Sunday in their midst. As far back as the days of Archbishop Theodore, as appears in Thorpe’s _Ancient Laws_, it was written: “Let the people sprinkle their houses with hallowed water as often as they wish.” And in the porch of each parochial church a small niche contained some of the consecrated water, with which those coming to God’s house signed themselves, the while whispering a prayer that they may be accepted as pure in the sight of the Most High.