am the more pleased with having
Love
made the principal End and Design of these Meetings, as it seems to be most agreeable to the Intent for which they were at first instituted, as we are informed by the learned Dr.
Kennet
, with whose Words I shall conclude my present Paper.
These Wakes, says he, were in Imitation of the ancient
or Love-Feasts; and were first established in England by Pope Gregory the Great, who in an Epistle to Melitus the Abbot gave Order that they should be kept in Sheds or Arbories made up with Branches and Boughs of Trees round the Church.
He adds, That this laudable Custom of Wakes prevailed for many Ages, till the nice Puritans began to exclaim against it as a Remnant of Popery; and by degrees the precise Humour grew so popular, that at an Exeter Assizes the Lord Chief Baron Walter made an Order for the Suppression of all Wakes; but on Bishop Laud's complaining of this innovating Humour, the King commanded the Order to be reversed.
X.