When
the service is over it is best not to hurry out of church, but to
linger for further thanksgiving and prayer as occasion serves.
It is an ancient rule or custom of the Church to receive Holy
Communion fasting, giving precedence to the food of the soul over that
of the body. To insist rigidly upon such a rule in any and every set
of circumstances is a piece of unintelligent and unchristian legalism:
but many persons are of opinion that to observe it wherever it is
reasonably possible to do so makes for reality. There is a real value
in the element of asceticism and self-discipline involved in the
effort to rise early and come fasting to church: and the fast may be
interpreted as a kind of outward sacrament of the inward reality of
spiritual preparation--a preparation of the body corresponding to the
preparation of the soul, It is, moreover, an advantage of the early
morning hour that the mind is undistracted by the occupations and
diversions of the day. For all these reasons the early morning
Communion is to be preferred to Communion at a later hour.
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