york00orns

s. Wilfrid's karlv history.
the Psalter was apparently an important part of their
worship ; but the chief and principal service was undoubtedly
the celebration on the Lord's day, and on
great festivals, of the Sacred Mysteries of the
Eucharist, as Adamnan designates that Holy Sacrament.
"To use the language of Columbanus, the
Columban Church ' received nought but the doctrine
of the evangelists and apostles ; ' and as we learn
from Adamnan, the foundation of Columba's preaching,
and his great instrument in the conversion of the
heathen was the Word of God." The intercourse of
the Irish Church and its daughter the Columban
Church, with the Church of Rome had long been interrupted
; and when a claim of authority was made on
the part of the latter with reference to matters of faith
and practice, the former " opposed the custom of their
fathers, for which tliey claimed the sanction of the
second general council, held in the year 381."^
Finan died [a. d. 661, Feb. 10], and was succeeded
by Colman. His orders, like Finan's, were
derived from a Scotic source. He had not long
occupied the episcopal chair before the questions
respecting the proper time for observing Easter, and
about the tonsure, which Finan's influence had been
powerful enough to put on one side for a time,
were again revived. And here a great and commanding
figure comes into view, destined for forty long
years to occupy the chief place in the ecclesiastical
history of the Church in Northumbria, nay, we may
almost say, in England. It is the figure of Wilfrid,
who, with varying fortunes, filled the episcopal chair
'
Skene's " Celtic Scotland," ii. p. ic^.