ON THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT AND DECORATIONS OF A CHURCH.
The churches of this country were anciently so constructed as to display,
in their internal arrangement, certain appendages designed with
architectonic skill, and adapted purposely for the celebration of mass and
other religious offices.
At the Reformation, when the ritual was changed and many of the
formularies of the church of Rome were discarded, some of such appendages
were destroyed; whilst others, though suffered to exist, more or less in a
mutilated condition, were no longer appropriated to the particular uses
for which they had been originally designed.
On entering a church through the porch on the north or south side, or at
the west end, we sometimes perceive on the right hand side of the door, at
a convenient height from the ground, often beneath a niche, and partly
projecting from the wall, a stone basin: this was the _stoup_, or
receptacle for holy water, called also the _aspersorium_, into which each
individual dipped his finger and crossed himself when passing the
threshold of the sacred edifice. The custom of aspersion at the church
door appears to have been derived from an ancient usage of the heathens,
amongst whom, according to Sozomen[154-*], the priest was accustomed to
sprinkle such as entered into a temple with moist branches of olive.
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