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Page 27
"Who perceiveth not that by this right way the Tapers came into the
Church, mysteriously placed with the Gospel upon the altar as an emblem
of the Truer Light?...
"The Funeral Tapers (however thought of by some) are of the same
harmless import. Their meaning is, to show that the departed souls are
not quite put out, but having walked here as the Children of the Light,
are now going to walk before God in the Light of the Living. The sun
never rose to the ancients, no, not so much as a candle was lighted,
but of this signification. '_Vincamus_' was their word, whensoever the
Lights came in; [Greek: ph�s gar t�n Nik�n], etc., for Light (saith
Phavorinus) betokeneth victory. It was to show what trust they put in
the Light, in whom we are more than conquerors. Our meaning is the same
when, at the bringing in of a candle, we use to put ourselves in mind
of the Light of Heaven: which those who list to call superstition do
but 'darken counsel by words without knowledge.' _Job_ xxxviii.
2."--Gregorie's _Works_, 4th ed. p. 110. Lond. 1684.
I believe it is a fact, that in some churches (I hope not many) lamps or
candles are placed on the altar _unlighted_ during divine service. Now I
would not quarrel with persons who have objections to altar lights, &c.,
but I have no patience with that worse than superstition which would place
_unlighted_ candles on the altar,--if they symbolize any thing, it is
damnation, excommunication, misery, and dark woe.
Coming out of a church one time in which unlighted candles were
ostentatiously displayed, I was forcibly reminded of an hieroglyphical of
Quarles--an extinguished taper,--and under it the words, "_Sine lumine
inane_."
"How canst thou be useful to the sight?
What is the taper not endued with light?"
I can hardly refrain from quoting here a beautiful passage from Wordsworth:
"Our ancestors within the still domain
Of vast cathedral, or conventual gloom,
Their vigils kept: when tapers day and night
On the dim altar burn'd continually,
In token that the house was evermore
Watching to God. Religious men were they,
Nor would their reason, tutor'd to aspire
Above this transitory world, allow
That there should pass a moment of the year
When in their land the Almighty's service ceased."
Any communication of interest of the above subject will much oblige
JARLTZBERG.
* * * * *
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.
_Handbell before a Corpse_ (Vol. ii., p. 478.).--It is usual, at the
funeral of any member of the University of Oxford, for the University
marshal and bellman to attend in the character of _mutes_. As the
procession moves along, the latter rings his bell at about half-minute
time. I have witnessed it also when the deceased has been one of the family
of a member of the University, and when he has been a matriculated person.
I have never considered it as anything but _a cast of the bellman's
office_, to add more solemnity to the occasion.
[Hebrew: b].
L---- Rectory. Somerset.
_Sir George Downing_ (Vol. ii., pp. 464. 497.).--It may assist your querist
"ALPHA," to be informed that among the monuments to the family of Pengelly,
in the church of Whitchurch near Tavistock, in the county of Devon, is one
to the memory of Ann, wife of Francis Pengelly, and daughter of Sir George
Downing of East Hatley in the county of Cambridge, who died the 23rd of
November, 1702; with the arms of Pengelly impaling Barry of six argent and
gules, over all a wyvern or--for Downing. {69}
Nicholas Downing of Exeter College, vicar of Kingsteignton, in Devon, who
died in 1666, and was buried there, seems to have been of another family,
as he bore a very different coat of arms.
A Lieut. Downing was buried in Charles church, Plymouth, in 1799, but the
arms on his monument are not the same as either of the above.
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