The General Assembly of Scotland, in 1600, ruled that no minister should unite in matrimony any male under fourteen and any female under twelve years of age. The regulation was not always obeyed. In 1659, for example, Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, in her eleventh year, was married to Walter Scott, of Highchester, and his age was fourteen. As late as the 1st June, 1859, was married, at 15, St. James’ Square, Edinburgh, a girl in her eleventh year. The official inspector, when he saw the return, suspected an error, but, on investigation, found it was correct.
Young men and maidens may congratulate themselves on living in these later times, when they may not be united in wedlock before they are old enough to think and act for themselves.
The Passing Bell.
he passing bell, or soul bell, rang whilst persons were passing from this life to that beyond, and it was rung that all who heard it might address prayers to heaven and the saints for the soul then being separated from the mortal body. One of the earliest accounts of the use of bells in England is connected with this bell. Bede, in speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, says that a sister in a distant monastery thought that she heard in her sleep the well-known sound of the passing bell. She no sooner heard it than she called all the sisters from their rest into the church, where they prayed and sang a requiem. To show how persistently the custom was maintained, we may quote from the “Advertisements for due Order,” passed in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: “Item, that when anye Christian body is in passing, that the bell be tolled, and that the curate be speciallie called for to comforte the sicke person; and, after the time of his passinge, to ringe no more, but one shorte peale, and one before the buriall, and another shorte peale after the buriall.” In ancient days, the bell rang at the hour of passing, whether it happened to be night or day. In the churchwardens’ accounts for the parish of Wolchurch, 1526, appears the following regulation:
| “Item. | The clerke to have for tollynge of the passynge belle for manne, womanne, or childes, if it be in the day | iiijd. | |
| Item. | If it be in the night, for the same | viijd.” |
Shakespeare’s universal observation led him to make use of the melancholy meaning of the death bell. He says, in the second part of King Henry IV.: