rehearsals and examination before the bishop; from whence it was called secretum, or secretarium. It was also a general audienceroom, where friends and acquaintances met to exchange their affectionate salutations and inquiries, hence called salutatorium, receptorium, audience chamber, repository. Many are of opinion that this building was also used as a prison-house for the confinement of delinquent clergymen. Others suppose that these ecclesiastical prisons were separate edifices, called decanica; but that there were such places of confinement is undeniable.3

4

There was another class of buildings called pastophoria, but the learned are not agreed respecting the use of them. According to Rosenmüller, they were a kind of guard or watch house. Others suppose them to have been apartments for the accommodation of the clergy. Others, perhaps with greater probability, understand by them small recesses or porticos upon the outer walls of the church. Libraries were, at a very early period, collected and kept in connection with the churches, which were furnished, not merely with the Scriptures in the original and in translations, together with the books necessary for the church service, but with commentaries, homilies, catechisms, and theological works. These libraries were of great importance, and often were very extensive. The libraries of Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople were kept in separate buildings, adjacent to the church. From the libraries of Jerusalem and Cæsarea, both Eusebius and Jerome chiefly derived the materials for their writings. The library of St. Sophia contained 120,000 volumes.

Schools were very early established in connection with the churches. If no building was provided for this purpose, the schools were taught in the baptistery and the vestry. The teachers of these schools always instructed their catechumens privately, and were never allowed to give public instructions. The Sixth General Council of Constantinople directs the presbyters in country towns and villages to have schools to teach all such children as were sent to them, for which they should exact no reward, nor receive any thing, unless the parents of the children thought fit to make them a charitable donation by way of voluntary contribution. From all which it is apparent that the primitive Christians regarded these schools as having an intimate connection with their churches, and essential to the promotion of the same great end.

The bishops and clergy had houses allotted to them adjacent to the church, called οἶκοι βασίλειοι.

Bathing-houses are also mentioned, and public rooms, called ȧvaxaμлτrpia, diversoria, lodging-places, supposed by some to be a kind of inn,—by others they are regarded as a common place of resort for rest and for recreation.

Hospitals for the poor and the sick were also maintained in connection with the churches.

$9. OF TOWERS, BELLS, AND ORGANS.

Towers. These were entirely unknown in the first seven centuries. The term iруos, which occurs in the description of the ancient churches, is used, not in the usual sense of a tower, but as synonymous with the ẞñua or außwv, the sanctuary, or the desk.1 These towers are first mentioned in the time of Charlemagne. A chapel built for him, in the year 873, was provided with two towers for bells. A church of a cloister, of a date still earlier, 837, is also described as having a tower attached to it. The same is true of the cathedral church at Mentz, A. D. 978.3

Authors are not agreed respecting the origin and use of these appendages of the church. The probable opinion is that they were erected on the first introduction of bells, and for the purpose of providing a convenient place for the suspension of them. Such the name implies, and so Du Cange explains the term. They were then belfries, erected not for ornament, but for convenience merely; and often were separate structures totally detached from the church.

The Gothic towers appear from the first to have been erected for ornament. They are the creation of the Middle Ages, when the taste of the age sought to depart as much as possible from the style of the primitive church. For further particulars, see References."

Bells.-Bells were unknown to the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Even if the tintinnabula of the Romans were bells, they were very inconsiderable in comparison with church-bells of later date. These were not in use earlier than the seventh century. The most probable opinion is that which ascribes the first introduction of them to Sabianus, bishop of Rome, who succeeded Gregory the Great in the year 604.7 In the seventh and eighth centuries they were in common use in the churches in France. Near the close of the ninth century, the church of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, was furnished with bells. But they have never received much favour in the East. The Arabs and Turks, especially, have always maintained a settled aversion to them.

In the place of bells, in the East, messengers were sent out to summon the people to worship. In Egypt, a trumpet was blown. The inmates of their cloisters were summoned to prayers by knocking upon their cells with a billet of wood, as is still the custom with the Nestorian Christians. The Greeks had two instruments for this purpose, which they called σήμαντρον and ἁγιοσίδηριον. These are described by Bingham as consisting of boards, or plates of iron, full of holes, which were held in the hand and struck with a mallet.

In the West, on the contrary, the bell was considered as a sacred and indispensable appendage of a church. The following is a specimen of the inscriptions which were frequently written upon the church bell:

:

"Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum,

Defunctos ploro, nimbum [al. pestem] fugo, festaque honoro.”

The custom of consecrating and baptizing bells is a superstition of early date, perhaps as early as the eighth century; that of naming the bells of churches, dates no farther back than the tenth or eleventh century.

When the enormous bells of Moscow, Vienna, Paris, Toulouse, Milan, etc. were cast, is not known. They are probably the production of the Middle Ages. They harmonize well with the vast cathedrals and towers of that period, so distinguished for its massive and imposing structures.

The tolling of bells at the decease of a person, and at funerals, was originally an expedient of a superstitious age, to frighten away demons that were supposed to be hovering around to prey upon the spirit of the dead or dying man. This superstition was widely extended during the dark ages. Bells were often rung with violence, also, during a tempest, to frighten away demons, and avert the storms which they were supposed to raise.

The following extract, from the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, is inserted as descriptive of these superstitions :

"In regard to the superstitious use of bells, we shall probably find the ringing of them at funerals to have originated in the darkest ages, but with a different view from that in which they are now employed. . . . . Reasoning from the customs of the ancients, that have been transmitted to us in innumerable superstitions, which extensive analogies only enable us to recognise, we may, partly, connect the ringing of bells for persons in the agonies of death, with

the virtue supposed to reside in the sound of brass. It was to avert the influence of demons. But if the superstitions of our ancestors did not originate in this imaginary virtue, while they preserved the practice, it is certain that they believed the mere noise had the same effect; and as, according to their ideas, evil spirits were always hovering around to make a prey of departing souls, the tolling of bells struck them with terror. We may trace the practice of tolling bells at funerals to the like source. This has been practised from times of great antiquity; the bells being muffled for the sake of greater solemnity, in the same way as we see drums muffled in military funerals. Possibly it was also with the view of averting the influence of evil spirits, as the soul was not believed to pass immediately to the regions of light or darkness. The efficacy of bells, and other noises, in putting demons to flight, is recorded among the ancients; and from them was more widely extended during the more barbarous ages. . . . . In Italy, during great tempests, the women assembled, ringing bells and beating cymbals, in the noise of which, the learned Moresin observes, they confided more than in the efficacy of fasting and prayer. On St. John's day, the bells were violently rung, and other superstitions practised, to put devils to flight, and avert the effects of storms which they were supposed to raise in the air.

"We are, therefore, entitled to conclude that the ringing of bells for persons in the agonies of death, at funerals, and to dispel tempests, has originally had relation to one common object, the expulsion of demons. Here, also, we may seek the consecration or exorcising of bells, practised in the Roman Catholic churches, and, perhaps, the cause of naming them after particular saints. In the Council of Cologne, it is said, 'Let bells be blessed, as the trumpets of the church militant, by which the people are assembled to hear the word of God; the clergy to announce his mercy by day, and his truth in their nocturnal vigils; that by their sound the faithful may be invited to prayers, and that the spirit of devotion in them may be increased. The fathers have also maintained that demons, affrighted by the sound of bells calling Christians to prayers, would flee away; and when they fled, the persons of the faithful would be secure; that the destruction of lightnings and whirlwinds would be averted, and the spirits of the storm defeated.' All these things were promoted by consecration; and a credulous bishop narrates several miracles displayed by consecrated bells, which, without much difficulty, we can trace to natural causes.

Durand, the author of the Rituals of the Roman Church, says, 'For expiring persons, bells must be tolled, that people may put up their prayers. This must be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man; for a clergyman as many times as he had orders; and at the conclusion, a peal of all the bells must be given, to distinguish the quality of the persons for whom the people are to offer up their prayers.

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Organs." The organ constituted no part of the furniture of the ancient churches. The first instance on record of its use in the church, occurred in the time of Charlemagne, in the eighth century, who received one as a present from Constantine, which was set up in the church at Aix-la-Chapelle. The musicians of this city and of Mentz, learned to play on the organ in Italy, from which it appears that they were already known in that country. We have authentic accounts of the manufacture of this instrument in Germany, as early as the tenth century.13 England, about the same time, distinguished herself by the manufacture of organs of colossal dimensions.

The Greek church has never favoured the use of the organ in the churches, and has generally restricted it to the theatre and musical concerts. Even in the Western church the organ was not received with universal favour. "Our church," says Thomas Aquinas, (A. D. 1250,) "does not use musical instruments, as harps and psalteries, in the praise of God, lest she should seem to Judaize." From which some have erroneously supposed that the organ was not used in any churches previous to this time.

The use of the organ in religious worship was not regarded with favour by the reformers generally. Luther, from his great fondness for music, favoured the continuance of the organ. It is accordingly in use in almost all the Lutheran churches to this day. Calvin strictly opposed it, as a theatrical instrument unsuited to the devotional ends of sacred music. The opposition of Erasmus to organs is well known. The Puritans also regarded them with special aversion as instruments of sacred music. The kirk of Scotland, to this day, totally excludes them from the church. A few years since an organ was presented to a certain church in Scotland, which gave rise to spirited controversy; a volume was published against this innovation, and the offensive instrument was removed by the authority of the synod.