Church land

“ The land now belongs to the Church, and there are not many people on the mountain besides the two thousand monks scattered about in the different monasteries which occupy every point where a flat spur or buttress offers a foothold. ”

“ Great was the revolution wrought in church planning by the determination that the laity, clergy, and celebrant should all alike face East. To the Catholic believer nothing was of more mystic import than the orientation of the church. He prayed toward the East, toward the Holy Land where his Lord lived and died and was buried; he looked forward to the dawn of that day when He should come from the East to judge the quick and dead.
"Our life lies eastward ”

“ Another school is soon to be formed in this neighborhood. This “Pine Mountain” field is about 20 × 60 miles, and the little church which the A.M.A. built during the past few [248] months is the only framed “church house” in the whole region. Think of it, O Christian friends, you who hold the Lord’s money in trust, 1,200 square miles, with cabin homes scattered along every “cove” and fertile valley, left, to this year of our Lord 1888, with only one suitable place of worship!
In building this new church, the people themselves have strained every nerve and made large personal sacrifices. ”

“ Churches had then grown large and magnificent; they were divided into three parts, the porch, the nave, and the sanctuary. In the nave stood the pulpit—preaching at that time being considered the invitation, or preparation for the church, whose duty was worship. It was divided from the sanctuary by a lattice work, or screen, behind which was often a veil before the holy table, which answered to the Holy of Holies of the temple, and within it none but the priests entered. ”

“ When a congregation flocks to the church, blocks up the way to the confessional and crowds around the altar rail, all know that there is spiritual power in that mission; when homes are Christian, when father, mother and children kneel together in prayer, when the sanctuary of the house is sacredly guarded like the sanctuary of the church, a race of Christian people is preserved. From such Christian homes come forth Christian men and women—come forth priests for the altar, brothers and sisters for the schools. ”

“ About the mission grounds was a stone wall, stout and fairly high, which had assured protection when orgies of indulgence in rum had made the natives brutal. The clergy must survive if souls are to be saved. Within the wall stood the church, the school, and a rambling rectory, all made beautiful by age and the artistry of tropical nature. ”

“ The Churches here are very fine dressd out with more ornaments even than those in Europe, and all parts of their religion is carried on with more shew; their processions in particular are very extrordinary, every day one or other of the parishes go in solemn order with all the insignia of their church, altar, host etc. through their parish, begging for what they can get and praying in all form at every Corner of a street. ”

“ The departing sunlight gilds the forests into gold, and sparkles on the cross high up on the village church, whose portals stand invitingly open bidding me enter. One of the attractions and beauties of the Catholic Church in Europe is that its sanctuaries are never closed; one may wander in at any and all times and be at rest and peace as long as one wishes it. ”

“ The sanctuary becomes a stage, and strive how he may to think of higher things, the ordinary mortal cannot banish the thought that some hundreds, perhaps thousands, of eyes are bent upon his every movement; the Catholic sanctuary with its myriads of burning tapers, its fragrant incense, its glory of colour in flowers and vestments, compels attention—every line of the church converges towards the tabernacle, the priest. ”

“ They are driven to set pillar against pillar in the same temple, while we can set city against city across the plains of the world. While for us a church rises from its foundations as naturally as a flower springs from a flower-bed, they have to bless the soil and curse the stones that stand on it. ”

“ Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day, is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays,—hardly long enough for an airing,—and then filled with a bustling congregation,—a church where the priest is the least part, where you do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be heard. ”

“ The churchyard of our parish lies in a deep hollow, and a little river half encircles it. In the midst of it stands the church beneath whose shadow the parish has garnered its dead for centuries. There the generations have lain down to sleep, their hearts reconciled one to another, and the beadle has drawn the coverlet of green over them. ”

“ To come out of the sloping High Street past the ancient city Cross, through the narrow passage-way into the precincts, and to pass down that great avenue of secular limes across the Close to the great porch of the Cathedral, is to come by an incomparable approach to perhaps the most noble and most venerable church left to us in England. ”

“ All the churches are round, with thatched roofs; their summits are perfect cones; the outside is surrounded by a number of wooden pillars, which are nothing else than the trunks of the cedar-tree, and are placed to support the edifice, about eight feet of the roof projecting beyond the wall of the church, which forms an agreeable walk, or colonade, around it in hot weather, or in rain. The inside of the church is in several divisions, according as is prescribed by the law of Moses. ”

“ It may depend a little upon what the Baptists do, who are to build near us. I, for one, think we had better wait and see how high the Baptist spire is before we run ours up. The church is everything that could be desired inside. There is the nave, with its lofty and beautiful arched ceiling; there are the side aisles, and two elegant rows of stone pillars, stained so as to be a perfect imitation of stucco; there is the apse, with its stained glass and exquisite lines; and there is an organ-loft over the front entrance, with a rose window. ”

“ But what is this white conventicle-looking edifice which crowns its heights? Surely it is the refuge of some Mormon congregation—the temple, perchance, of some pagan fanaticism? Nay verily, good sirs,—assuage your indignation, for this is a Church of your own communion, a sort of Chapel of Ease to the parish of St. John. The architect was “abroad” when this building was designed; for one less becoming the outward character of a Church it is impossible to conceive. It is dedicated to St. Paul, and was opened for divine worship in 1830. ”

“ One might ramble a long time over the cobble stones of its steep narrow streets, and about the ruined ramparts draped with green pellitory and the spurred valerian's purple flowers, with a mind held in continual tension by the picturesque. At every angle there is a fresh surprise. The monolithic church, made by excavating the calcareous rock, which crops out and forms a kind of table near the top of the crescent-shaped hill, is said to have been mainly the work of monks in the ninth century. ”

“ The church is the waymark, for the walls of the old court are low, and it is only when the wind favours the sight of them, by causing the branches of near trees to bend beneath its sway, that even the church-tower can be discerned among the young green foliage of the spring. ”

“ In the midst of half-dilapidated, old-fashioned farm-houses, you could always distinguish the priest's dwelling, with a flower-garden in front, and the little chapel or church surmounted by a cross,—both being generally neat, clean, fresh-painted, and forming a strange contrast with the neglect and slovenliness around. ”

“ As the lords or thanes of the various vills, following the example of their kings, accepted [Pg 45] Christianity, their people followed their example. In the open places of the tuns and vills, where the folk-moots were held, Christianity was preached and the cross set up. That, probably, was the origin of most of the village and market crosses. Then, in the course of time, in some cases, a church was built on a part of the old sacred open spaces. You cannot help noticing to-day how in many towns the chief church is by the market-place, and in the villages by the village green. ”

“ Nearly all the Christian denominations have their home missionary boards or societies whose functions it is to help sustain gospel work in needy places and to organize and cherish churches on the frontier and in destitute places. The frontier lines are not so extensive as they once were, but the desolate places are almost as numerous as ever, and they are in the very heart of our most highly developed civilization. In fact, they lie all about our churches, often almost within the sound of the church-bell. ”

“ And the petition was granted, for on the third day the great Archangel Michael appeared to the Bishop and told him that the portent of the returning arrow was intended to show that he wished to have a sanctuary consecrated in that cave to the glory of God, and in honour of the angels. So immediately the Bishop came forth, and, gathering all the people to him, led them, with prayers and chants, into the heart of the hills to the mysterious cavern, and entering in, they found it hollowed out and disposed in the form of a church, with all things ready, so that the Bishop at once said Mass there ”

“ The worship of the sanctuary is a living subject of discussion and practice in the Presbyterian Churches of the world at large, and, within late years, in that of the Canadian Dominion. Many earnest minds are approaching the study of the subject from various standpoints, each worthy of attentive consideration. One regards it from the dogmatic position of scriptural precedent, or from the larger one of Christian principle; the aesthetic mind comes to it with visions of order and beauty; the practical, with his view of the Church's needs in mission fields and in mixed congregations. ”

“ The situation of a church is always chosen near running water, for the convenience of their purifications and ablutions, in which they strictly observe the Levitical law. They are always placed on the top of some beautiful round hill, which is surrounded entirely with rows of the oxycedrus, or Virgin cedar, which grows here in great beauty and perfection, and is called Arz. Nothing adds so much to the beauty of the country as these churches, and the plantations about them. ”

“ The old church has no other grace than they give it, as it stands staring white on the border of the village green, and sends out over the valleys and uplands the wild, plangent summons of its Sabbath bell. ”

“ The traditional village and open country church was a one-room structure erected for the sole purpose of providing a place for worship. This amply met the needs of a pioneer time when social activities were largely carried on in the homes. In a very large number of communities this is still the only type of church building to be found. ”

“ These also are of masonry, and are so similar in design to the ancient marble thrones that one is tempted to speculate that the original usage of sanctuary was for the offender to fly to and occupy the actual throne of the bishop or archbishop.
As has been said, in the Early Christian churches both the altar and the seats of the bishop and his clergy were usually at the west end of the church to the west of the High altar, so that the clergy faced towards the east, while the congregation faced towards the west. But early examples occur of churches with the modern orientation. ”

“ Hence a parish-church, in the stillness of the country, is a visible centre of a community of the living and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred the nearest concerns of both.
As, then, both in cities and villages, the dead are deposited in close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition of an epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the nations of antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human mind; upon departed worth—upon personal or social sorrow and admiration—upon religion, individual and social—upon time, and upon eternity. ”

“ And speaking of the influence of what our churches should be, in the beauty of their proportions, and in the expression of the sacred purposes which they embody, and the feelings of reverence and harmony with God and man which they suggest, he fitly says—"We fear there are very few country churches in our land that exert this kind of spell,—a spell [55] which grows out of making stone, and brick, and timber, obey the will of the living soul, and express a religious sentiment. ”

“ AND now I desire you to imagine the worshipers gathered one morning in the little church at South Plains. The winter over and gone; the time of the singing of birds and of sweet-scented flowers had come. The marvel of the annual resurrection from the grave of winter was being lived over again in nature. But within the sanctuary it seemed more than resurrection, almost creation. Was it the same church at all? ”

“ Is the church itself small and diminutive, it must swell and increase until its huge form can be seen like a great mountain away in the distance. The handful of corn planted must produce the wavy field, rich for the harvest. The stone cut out of the mountain must roll on and roll on until it fills the earth. The church of Christ has an interesting work to perform, and in that work there must be progress. ”

“ A Picturesque Church—Some Reflections upon Church Music—Bob Parker in the Choir—Our Undertaker—A Gloomy Man—Our Experience with the Hot-Air Furnaces—A Series of Accidents—Mr. Collamer's Vocalism—An Extraordinary Mistake.
There are but few old villages in the United States that contain ancient churches so picturesque in situation and in appearance as that which stands in the centre of our town, the most conspicuous of its buildings. The churchyard is filled with graves, for the people still cling to that kindly usage which places the sacred dust of the departed in holy ground. ”

“ When the eleventh century actually arrived, Christians again bestirred themselves, and the various cities and provinces vied with each other in their enthusiastic devotion to church-building, as if to make up for lost time. ”