Augustine asks, Si post illusionem, quae per somnum solet accidere, vel corpus Domine quilibet accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra mysteria celebrare.
Gregory answers this learned question by many learned distinctions.] The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity Gregory enjoined Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it celebrated in a place which they were accustomed to revere.

And as the Pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on their offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighbourhood of the church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments, to which they had been habituated [x].

These political compliances show, that notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind.

Augustine was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a badge of ecclesiastical honour, from Rome [y].

Gregory also advised him not to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles [z]; and as Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think himself entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the pope informed him, that they lay entirely without the bounds of his jurisdiction [a].
[FN [x] Bede, lib.1.cap.30.