psalms that were sung in the church, as well as the word of God. They remained in this place till the Deacon, raising his voice, said, Outside, hearers and unbelievers! Admission to the inner vestibule was likewise granted to Pagans, Jews, heretics, and schismatics, so that they might listen to the instructions of the ministers of the Gospel, and be converted, if God should vouchsafe to touch their hearts.

5. The Nave.' Several large doors opened between the inner vestibule and the nave. This principal part of the church was called as at present the nave, from the Latin word navis, a ship. It received this name for two reasons: the first, because it was much longer than broad; the second, to remind Christians that the Church is a ship.

Nothing more common in the Fathers than to compare the Church to a ship. Our Lord is the invisible pilot; Peter, its visible pilot; the sacred ministers, its crew; the faithful, its happy passengers. Ever beaten about by the storm, the Church is never sunk beneath the waves nor dashed against the rocks. One must be on board of it to cross the sea of life, to escape the deluge of iniquities that covers the earth, and to arrive safe and sound at the heavenly shore. What admirable meaning in this simple word of our religious language! It is the whole history of man here below: have we ever thought of this?

At the entrance of the nave, near the wall that separates it from the inner vestibule, were the third class of penitents, called prostrati, or the prostrate. After spending three years in the cloister bewailing their sins, and three years in the inner vestibule listening to the word of God, they had still six years of penance to do before being admitted to the public communion. They remained prostrate at the end of the nave, so as to receive the imposition of the Bishop's hands when he passed.

A little way up the nave was the ambo or jubé, from the summit of which the Holy Scripture was read to the people and the word of God preached. Placed in the middle or on one side of the nave, it was large enough to accommodate several readers. Bishops usually preached from the steps of the altar; but St. Chrysostom preferred the ambo. Beyond the ambo were the fourth class of penitents, called consistentes, because they stood upright, or competentes, because they resembled children, says St. Augustine, who press the womb of their mother to be born to the light.

From this spot the nave was divided lengthwise by two parti

1 Navis.

The Church of Saint-Etienne du Mont, Paris, still possesses a most remarkable ambo.

tions, which prevented men and women from seeing each other. Between the partitions was a large space for the movements of the sacred ministers. The men were on the left and the women on the right. By considering Our Lord seated in the tabernacle, which faces the Faithful, the men are then found really on His right. This place, in keeping with their dignity, is still assigned them in a great many churches.'

All, both men and women, remained standing, or on their knees, or seated on the ground with legs across after the manner of the Easterns: there were no benches or chairs for the Faithful. Later on, the religious, who spent a great part of the day in the church, supported themselves, each with a staff, having a cross-bar at the top, and called a crutch. Afterwards, they had seats fastened to the walls. These are now represented by the stalls of canons, who neither sit nor stand, but simply lean. From this, there was only one step to introduce into churches benches and chairs for the Faithful. Yet Spain has kept to the early custom: it has no chairs in its churches.

6. The Choir. This part of the church was so called because it was reserved for the holy ministers leading the chant and prayer. It was separated from the nave by a semicircular railing. Around it were ranged seats of greater or less height according to the dignity of the ecclesiastics: the highest was for the Bishop, so that he might warn, overlook, and guard the flock.

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7. The Sanctuary. The sanctuary was separated from the choir by a railing or balustrade, which had three doors: the one in the middle, larger than the other two, was called the Holy Door. As the sanctuary terminated in a semicircle, this part of the church was called the Apse, that is to say, a rounded end. The curtain at the entrance hid the altar and prevented the holy mysteries from being seen at the time of consecration: it was not drawn aside till afterwards. This was what made St. Chrysostom say, "When you are at the sacrifice, wherein Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is offered up, and you hear the signal given, join together in prayer. When you see the curtain drawn aside, think that Heaven is opened and the angels descend there."

In the sanctuary was the altar. Beside the large altar there was a small one, on which were laid the bread and wine offered by

'If, in the celebration of marriage, this order is reversed, it is that the husband may be at the right of the wife, whose head he is.

It is still general in Italy.

Sometimes called a screen, grate, or lattice.
Bema vel Sanctuarium.

Homil. iii, in Ephes.

the Faithful for the holy sacrifice. This altar has been replaced in our churches by a credence-table: it is here that the cruets are still left. Clerics alone could enter the sanctuary: hence it came to be called the sacred and inaccessible place.

The altar was usually at the east.' Our ancestors in the faith, regarding Our Lord as the True Sun of the world, as the "orient from on high," placed their altars on the East side, and turned in that direction to pray, so as to manifest their faith and their hope.

Under the altar was a subterranean grotto called a crypt, in which lay one or more bodies of martyrs; on the altar were lights; along the sides of the church were mural paintings, pictures, and chapels; finally, the part of the church behind the altar was rounded, so that the shape of our churches is that of a niche: all so many souvenirs of the Catacombs! Sacred souvenirs, if ever there were any y! We have them still daily before our eyes, and perhaps they never say a word to our hearts. May it be so no longer! Ignorance, at all events, will no longer serve us as an excuse.

A word on each of these venerable souvenirs. Let us begin with the crypt. In a great many old churches, there is still to be seen under the principal altar a crypt or subterranean chapel: this is a souvenir of the Catacombs. As a matter of fact, it was in the subterranean chambers of those vast cemeteries that our ancestors in the faith offered up the holy mysteries. When they were allowed to build churches, they preserved as many souvenirs as possible of those times of trial and virtue. To see what our superb basilicas have borrowed from the Catacombs, let us cast a rapid glance at the multitude of little churches now sunk in the bowels of Rome.

1 "Never did the Church," says the Abbé Pascal (letter to M. Didron), "prescribe with severity that temples should be turned towards the East. St. Paulinus, who lived in the fourth century, admits that the most general custom is to turn churches towards the East; but he is so far from discovering in this custom a liturgical rule that he causes at the same time to be built in Tyre a Christian temple which he turns exactly in an opposite directiontowards the West. Hence, therefore, an ordinary custom as much as one pleases; but an invariable rule, never. I am now going to state a fact of very great importance. The most august church in the Catholic world, the cathedral of cathedrals, St. John Lateran's, the type of all the temples of Christianity-towards which of the cardinal points is it turned? Towards the West. The magnificent basilica of St. Peter, the first collegiate church in the world, stretches out its vast naves and its long apse towards the West. The ancient church of St. Clement directs its three apses towards the same point. It would therefore be quite contrary to the spirit of the Church to regard as a constant and absolute rule what was NEVER anything but a matter of pure convenience and option." This is true; but the celebrant who says Mass at the papal altar turns towards the East.

2 Cripta, a cave, a vault, a grave.

Hollowed out of the tufa, they are generally of greater length than breadth at the end, which is rounded and has an arched roof,' is the tomb of a martyr.

This tomb was called an altar, because it was on the table of marble or stone covering it and projecting forward, that the holy sacrifice was offered. It was also called a confession, because the martyr, by dying, had confessed his faith his bones were here to confess it still, and to bear witness to it. In some of these little churches, we still find a marble slab bored through, and placed like a kind of railing before the martyr's tomb: the first model of the balustrades raised in Christian temples before the principal altar, and whose original object becomes evident after seeing the Catacombs. It is clear, as a matter of fact, that this slab was intended to secure the sacred remains gathered in the tomb from the injuries likely to be caused by an over-ardent and inconsiderate zeal, and also to inspire more veneration for the place in which they rested.

At Rome, churches have been built over these subterranean churches the altar of the grotto corresponds to the central point of the intersection of the nave and the cross-aisle. The entrance of the grotto, to which steps lead down, is closed by a grating. Above this grotto and on a level with the floor of the church, there is a second altar, serving for the celebration of Mass. It reminds us by its shape, and even by its position, directly over the subterranean altar or tomb, of its sepulchral origin and its first use. Nearly all the ancient basilicas of Rome, though rebuilt in modern times with more or less splendour and magnificence, present this essential trait of the monuments of primitive worship.

We will here cite but one example. Among the churches of the most ancient period, one of the most remarkable in the eyes of all is the church dedicated to St. Prisca, daughter of a Roman senator, baptised by St. Peter himself. Having been put to death for the faith, her body was laid in a coffin that has the shape of an old altar. This tomb of Prisca was placed in the middle of her own room, in her father's palace, the remains of which are still to be seen on the Aventin Hill. The room, with the tomb that it contained, became thus a kind of little mortuary

'Monumentum arcuatum.

In Italy, the end of it has been that altars bear exclusively the name of confessions. Thus we say the confession of St. Peter, to designate the altar or tomb of the Prince of the Apostles. Sometimes the altar, that is to say, the tomb, is wholly detached, and is placed in the centre of the grotto. Hence have come “Řoman Altars," that is to say, altars moved forward into the sanctuary, and around which one can walk.

temple; and when, later on, the church that still exists was built over it, it formed the subterranean confession thereof.1

Thus, this interesting edifice presents all that was to be found in the Catacombs: a tomb serving as an altar, a subterranean chapel, and a church above-monuments born one of another, and in which the worship of the dead is linked, by a close relationship, to that of the Deity, in the same manner as Christianity is united materially to antiquity by the very erection of this church on the foundations of a Roman palace.'

Religion has so much respect for the customs of days gone by that all her altars are shaped like a tomb, and in these altars we find one or more cavities called tombs, which contain the relics of some Saint: there is no altar without relics. The tomb is generally placed in the middle of the altar: here rests, after consecration, Jesus Christ, immolated for the glory of His Father.

Thus, within the space of a square foot, the Church, our mother, brings together all that is most powerful to touch the heart of GodOur Lord and the Martyrs immolated for His glory! She is like a widow, who, in order to obtain a favour, goes to the prince, and, offering him on one side the bones of her sons and on the other the body of her husband, killed in the service of the State, says to him, "Behold my titles to your favour!" Is there a prince in the world that would refuse the petition of this widow? God would therefore do less than men if He did not hear the Church when she offers Him in our holy mysteries the blood of her Spouse and the remains of her children.

Prayer.

O my God! who art all love, I thank Thee for having been pleased to choose an abode among men. Grant me the grace always to go to church with a deep sentiment of love, like that of a child going to its father's house.

I am resolved to love God above all things, and my neighbour as myself for the love of God; and, in testimony of this love, I will take holy water with great respect.

'See the description of this church in the Trois Rome, t. II.
Raoul Rochette, Tableau des Catacombes.

VOL. IV.

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