IT CHAPTER VII. Modes of Dedicating Churches. has always been customary to have some kind of religious service at the opening of a church. Consecration, as a religious rite, seems to have existed very early in the history of Christianity. Even before the time of Constantine, the great friend and patron of the Church, religious edifices underwent this service. There was then, as there has always been, a felt and recognised distinction between persons, places, and things that were purely secular, and those that were sacred-the human mind itself giving a ready and spontaneous expression to this distinction. In the primitive Church the religious services at the opening of a house of God seem to have been of the simplest and plainest description. The object, of course, was to set apart the edifice with all its belongings to sacred uses, and these alone-to separate it from the common and worldly in life's affairs, and to consecrate it as a fitting sanctuary for the worship and service of Almighty God. Although, perhaps, no direct or positive precept for any such ceremony could be found in the Gospels or New Testament writings, yet the primitive Christians seem to have thought the practice most becoming, and certainly they had striking examples of such services in several passages in the Old Testament Scriptures. In the dedication of the Temple referred to in the eighth chapter of 1st Kings; in the dedication. of the house of David, indicated in the title of the 30th Psalm; and in the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem-the holy city-mentioned in the twenty-seventh verse of the twelfth chapter of Nehemiah,-there were to be found undoubted references to places that had been solemnly set apart by a religious service; whilst in the actions of the Saviour, in twice purifying the Temple, and expelling the ungodly traffickers therefrom, the members of the primitive Church saw in the divine mind, as represented by Christ, a peculiar respect and reverence shown for things and places that were regarded as sacred. In the early Christian centuries the ceremony of consecration would in all probability consist simply of praise, prayer, and the reading and preaching of the Word. But in the middle ages, when the Church had in many respects become corrupt, when ritualism had made such tremendous advances, then, as we find from the Pontificals and other service - books that have come down to us, the ceremonies of consecration were of the most complicated, burdensome, and superstitious description. This was certainly the case in David de Bernham's days, in regard to those churches in Scotland that were dedicated by him. In the Pontifical already referred to, and which he used in the consecration of churches-crosses, candelabra, holy oil, chrism, wine, salt, incense, and other such things, are mentioned as necessaries for the service. The bishop and clergy in their sacerdotal robes had to make certain processions, carrying the relics of some saint around the church, before they came to the door and demanded admission. Psalms were repeated and chanted, both without and within the church. Prayers of various kinds were offered up. A litany was rehearsed. Passages of Scripture were gone over. The Virgin, as well as patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, holy innocents, martyrs, confessors, monks, hermits, and sainted women, were all invoked in the litany, and the words "ora pro nobis "-pray for us-repeatedly used. On the pavement of the church the Greek and Roman alphabets were written with the bishop's staff in the form of a cross. Mass was celebrated, a sermon was preached, and a long, long, tedious, and superstitious service, all in the Latin tongue, was closed with the benediction. We may therefore reasonably infer that in the thirteenth century, on Sundays and festival days, equally unprofitable and burdensome services would be gone through in all the churches and chapels throughout Scotland. As a proof of what has been said, the following passages from the Pontifical itself will be interesting to the learned reader : Hæc sunt quæ ad dedicationem ecclesiæ præparanda sunt: Duodecim cruces pictæ foris et duodecim intus, Crux, candelabra, viginti quatuor cerei, duodecim deforis et duodecim intus, vasa convenientia ad sacrandam et ad deferendam aquam; Duo majores cerei ad candelabra; viginti quatuor clavi quibus cerei infigantur; Oleum sanctum et chrisma, ysopum, sabulum vel cineres, vinum, sal, majora grana incensi; Panni altaris. Deinde hoc ordine consecretur domus Dei. Primitùs, præsul et cæteri ministri ecclesiæ induant se vestimentis sacris cum quibus divinum ministerium adimplere debent. Et dum se induunt, dictis consuetis Psalmis, id est Judica me Deus et, Quam dilecta, Inclina Domine, Memento Domine. Kyrieleison. Christeleison. Kyrieleison. Pater noster. Et ne nos. Salvos fac servos tuos. Mitte nobis, Domine, auxilium de sancto. Domine, exaudi orationem meam. Dominus vobiscum. Oremus. Deinde dicat episcopus hanc Orationem. EUS, qui paternâ majestate ignea claustra DEU dirupisti infernorum, et sanguine tuo populum tibi adquisisti sempiternum; indue nos armis spiritualibus virtutum, et invictâ sanctæ crucis potentiâ, ut contra diabolum pugnaturi te in auxilium habeamus, quatenus tibi hæreditatem de iniquo diaboli spolio adquiramus; et qui in domum Zachæi quondam miseratus descendisti, ad domum quoque hanc sanctificaturi sumus venire dignare; et populos qui ad ejus dedicationem convenerunt, spirituali gaudio munera, Salvator mundi, Domine Jesu Christe, Qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivis et regnas Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. quam |