Now, this kind of religion and heavenly devotion, through the neglect of our teachers, has been so long discontinued among almost all the laity of our province, that those who seem to be most religious among them communicate in the holy mysteries only on the Day of our Lord's birth, the Epiphany, and Easter, whilst there are innumerable boys and girls, of innocent and chaste life, as well as young men and women, old men and old women, who without any scruple {180} or debate are able to communicate in the holy mysteries on every Lord's Day, nay, on all the birthdays of the holy Apostles and martyrs, as you have yourself seen done in the holy Roman and Apostolic Church." It would seem from this that frequent communion was inculcated by the first missionaries to England in the sixth century. Bede tells also how in his day two Anglian priests went on a mission to the heathen Saxons, and, while waiting for the decision of the "satrap," "devoted themselves to prayer and psalm-singing, and daily offered to God the sacrifice of the Saving Victim, having with them sacred vessels and a hallowed table to serve as an altar." [Sidenote: Fasting Communion.] The Sacrament was received in both kinds and fasting, and the priest was forbidden to celebrate after taking any food; some exception to this rule may be inferred from a canon of the Second Council of Macon in 585 enforcing it, and the ecclesiastical historian Socrates (whose History extends from 306 to 439) states that some in Egypt did not receive "as the custom is among Christians," but after a meal. The presence of the Lord in the Eucharist was recognised and adored. [Sidenote: The doctrine of the Sacrifice.] S. Anastasius of Sinai, probably of the sixth century, writes: "After the bloodless sacrifice has been consecrated, the priest lifts up the bread of life, and shows it to all." The Eucharist is continually spoken of as the holy Sacrifice, the offering of the Saving Victim, the Celestial Oblation; and it was offered, as the writings of Gregory the Great show, in special intercession for the dead as well as the living. From the beginning of the fifth century it seems to have been, at least occasionally, {181} reserved in church as well as sent to the sick in their own houses. [Sidenote: The Roman mass.]