The ecclesiastical year began always with _Advent_--the time of preparation for the coming of our Lord into the world, when the old-world yearning of the nations for the promised Redeemer was ever brought prominently by the Church before the Christian people in the words of the liturgy, from the _Ad Te levavi_, “To Thee have I lifted up mine eyes,” of the Introit for the first Sunday, to the _Hodie scietis_, “Know ye to-day that the Lord will come, and will bring you salvation,” of the Christmas Eve. In a fifteenth-century English book of _Instructions for Parish Priests_, it is said that fasting during Advent was counselled, though not ordered by the Church. The Church of Rome kept this practice of preparing strictly for the festival of Christmas, and priests, in the opinion of the writer, ought to follow this example. Lay people were free of any obligation, but those who intended to receive Holy Communion on the Nativity were to be strongly urged to prepare by this salutary fasting. The festival of Christmas was celebrated with the customary three Masses--the first at midnight, preceded by Matins; the second in the early morning; and the third at the usual time of nine or ten. In many places in the time of Christmas, a religious play suitable to the season enlivened the winter evenings, and impressed on the minds of the people the chief incidents in the history of our Lord’s birth. The coming of the Kings on the Epiphany was also a subject lending itself to picturesque illustration, which never failed to delight the simple-minded parish audience of pre-Reformation days. At Great Yarmouth, year after year, the people kept the _Feast of the Star_; and such entries occur in the accounts as “for making a new Star,” “for leading the Star,” “for a new balk-line to the Star, and ryving the same.” Manship, in his _History_ of that town, says that “in the chancel aisles were performed those sacred dramas intended to give the people a living representation of the leading occurrences narrated in Holy Writ, and of the principal events in our Lord’s life.”