Such appears to have been the intention of the First Book of Edward VI. The expedient of performing the Communion Service up to a certain point only, on Wednesdays and Fridays, was manifestly adopted from the ancient Church of Alexandria, where, as Socrates has recorded, exactly this usage prevailed on those days. In the Second Book of Edward VI. (revised, be it remembered, in part by members of the same Committee of Divines as the First was, and professing the same doctrine),[13] the provision for the compulsory attendance of each household in turn was laid aside, probably as being found impracticable. And now at length the step was taken, to which sound principles of action had in reality pointed all along; and it was ordained that, if the people, appealed to as they had been, and would continue still to be, persisted on any given Sunday in excommunicating themselves, they should even be permitted to do so. The great unreality of a Communion, which was no Communion according to the Ordinance of Christ, should be done away. The minister should still be ready on all Sundays and holydays at the altar; but it would be left, awfully left, for the people to say whether Christ's ordinance should have place, or whether its continuity should be violated, and its benefits so far forfeited. [13] See 'Principles of Divine Service,' Introd. to Part II., p. 123-129. Mr. Perry ('Declaration on Kneeling') arrives at the same conclusion. And who will deny that such a course was, though a choice of evils, the right one? What had the other practice done, but lull the Church of God into a fatal satisfaction with a state of things as widely different from primitive Eucharist and primitive Christianity, as any one thing can well be from another? And if those other sad results have followed, which we behold before our eyes, let not the blame be laid on the age which has inherited, but on the ages which had accumulated and transmitted, such an inveterate habit of neglect to receive the Holy Communion. Be it remembered, too, that (as has been well pointed out of late) the period of the Great Rebellion caused an entire suspension of the Church's proper rites. "The Sacrament was laid aside, in those distracting times, in many parishes in the kingdom, for near twenty years." (Bishop Patrick.) "This solemn part of religion was almost quite forgotten; the Remembrance of Christ's Death was soon lost among Christians." (Archbishop Tillotson.) "The Sacrament was laid aside, in Cromwell's days, in most parishes in the nation. In many churches there was no _speaking_ of the Sacrament for fifteen or sixteen years; till it was feared the Lord's Supper would come to be ranked among those superstitious ceremonies that must be abolished." (Dr. Durell.) These testimonies considered, the real wonder would be if there had _not_ been found very great difficulty in bringing back, at the time of the Restoration, the primitive habit of Weekly Celebration. And