Yet Augustine saith that 'no Scripture hath taught us to pray towards the east' [He, however, says also, 'Though I find not a thing on record in Scripture, yet I receive it as proceeding from the apostles if the Universal Church embrace it'] [Footnote 616] (Durandus V, ii, 57).
[Footnote 616: This section is in several places corrupt: for example—from Damascenus the quotation in the sixth head belongs properly to the seventh.
Our readers may perhaps be reminded of the anecdote of the good Earl of Derby (who, if the Reformed Church in England should ever have a calendar of her own, will assuredly be one of its martyrs), when on the scaffold. The church of Bolton was in sight: and the Earl requested that he might be allowed to kneel on the western side of the block, so that the last object on which his eyes were fixed might be God's house. His executioners showed their poor malice to the last, by denying him this wish.]
S. Isidore has a curious passage about orientation. A place, he says, designed so as to face the east was called templum, from contemplating. Of which there were four parts; the front facing the east, the back the west, the right hand the south, and the left hand the north: whence also when they builded temples, they took their east at the equinox, so that lines drawn from east to west would make the sections of the sky on the right and left hands equal, in order that he who prayed might look at the direct east (Orig. XV, iv).
APPENDIX C
ON THE DESIGN OF THE ANALOGIUM, AMBO OR ROOD LOFT, AND THE READING OF THE GOSPEL FROM IT
1. We have noted afore, that the priest, in the celebration of Mass, when it is not High Mass, himself readeth the gospel. But when a bishop or priest celebrateth High Mass with the highest solemnity, then, in some churches, as at Rome, the deacon having kissed the [{180}] right hand of the bishop, taketh the book of the gospel from the altar, and giveth it to the sub-deacon to bear, and asketh and receiveth the bishop's or priest's blessing. But in other churches, he first asketh for the blessing before he taketh the book. The benediction having been bestowed, the deacon proceedeth along the south side [Footnote 617] of the choir to the rood loft, and before him goeth the sub-deacon with the volume of the gospel, and before him the incense-bearer with incense; and before him the torch-bearer with lighted tapers, and before him in some churches the banner of the cross: and thus they ascend the rood loft. And the deacon readeth the gospel: the which being finished, they return to the priest or bishop together. Which things we will more particularly go through. It is also to be noted, that in some churches, the deacon, when about to go to the rood loft, beginneth the antiphon which followeth benedictus in the nocturns, and while he is going thither, it is taken up, and finished by the chorus, to set forth charity: and it is sung without instruments, to denote that God commandeth us to have love alone. And now is the figure changed: for the deacon, who before represented S. John Baptist, now setteth forth S. John Evangelist: because 'the law and the prophets were until John: [Footnote 618] and after him the kingdom of heaven is preached.'
[Footnote 617: As is well known, double staircases to rood lofts appear to have been almost as common in England as single ones: and there are sometimes, especially in Norfolk churches, two corresponding rood turrets.]
[Footnote 618: 2 S. Luke xvi, 16.]
2. And the word evangelium meaneth good tidings; from
, well, and