by John Healy

“ History furnishes us with numberless examples in which some particular way of cutting the hair, some peculiarity in dress, some simple ornament, the wearing of one particular colour or of some flower, has been adopted as the distinguishing mark of a religious or political party and has been at once raised to an importance that it would not otherwise possess. ”

“ In the case of the Irish abbots it, no doubt, must often have happened that the tribal instincts would prove stronger than the ecclesiastical, and that a married abbot would be chosen in preference to one of another family. ”

“ On the other hand, there was still in his day much resemblance between the Welsh and the Irish; and he tells us that in the Welsh Church there was to be found a married clergy, for he says, 'The sons after the decease of their fathers succeed to the ecclesiastical benefices not by election, but by hereditary right, possessing and polluting the sanctuary of God.' He also tells us that the same habit was followed in Brittany—a place where Celtic influence continued until a very late date. ”

“ Easter is always held on the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month. As the Jewish months follow the moon, the feast necessarily comes each year at a different period, and in order to calculate this time correctly a computation is made of the number of years after which the moons will come on exactly the same days as before. This term of years is called a 'cycle.' If in any year Easter falls say on the last day of March, it will again fall on that day when the number of years in the cycle have gone by. ”

“ It has given zealous men an opportunity of displaying their zeal, it has compelled time-servers and waverers to declare themselves, it has shown the strength of the party, and for these reasons has been clung to with the greatest devotion. ”

“ Independence of Rome. Method of computing Easter. Tonsure. Ordinal. Toleration of Married Clergy. Public instead of Auricular Confession. Ritual and Liturgy. ↑ Bede, Eccl. Hist., iii. 25. ↑ Bede, Eccl. Hist., iv. 2. ↑ Haddan and Stubbs Councils and Eccl. Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. ii. p. 328. Some MSS. omit the word ejus, put in brackets above, and the cardinal builds greatly on this. To any ordinary person, 'a man and wife' and 'a man and his wife' would mean the same thing. ”