100 of Ephah, pt., 3 ins. sol. This Cotyla contains just 10 ozs. avoirdupois of rain water; Omer, 100; Ephah, 1,000; Chomer or Homer, 10,000. Bayeux as a token of her appreciation of the effective assistance which its bishop, Odo, rendered her husband at the battle of Hastings. Some antiquarians contend that it was Scriptural Measures of Length.- not the work of Queen Matilda (the wife of The measures of length used in the Scriptures, the Conqueror), who died in 1083, but of the with their English equivalents, are as follows: Empress Matilda (the daughter of Henry I.), The great Cubit was 21.888 ins.-1.824 ft., who died in 1167. The tapestry contains, beand the less 18 ins. A span, the longer a side the figures of 505 quadrupeds, birds, cubit 10.944 ins.=.912 ft. A span, the less sphinxes, etc., the figures of 623 men, 202 1-3 of a cubit-7.296 ins.=.608 ft. A horses, 55 dogs, 37 buildings, 41 ships and hand's breadth=1-6 of a cubit=3.684 ins.= boats, and 49 trees — in all, 1,512 figures. It .304 ft. A finger's breadth=1.24 of a cubit is divided into 72 distinct compartments, each =.912 ins.=.076 ft. A fathom=4 cubits= representing one particular historical occur7.296 ft. Ezekiel's Reed=6 cubits=10.944 rence, and bearing an explanatory Latin infeet. The mile=4,000 cubits=7,296 ft. The scription. A tree is usually chosen to divide Stadium, 1-10 of their mile=400 cubits=the principal events from each other. This 729.6 ft. The Parasang, 3 of their miles= pictorial history for so it may be called12,000 cubits, or 4 English miles and 580 ft. gives an exact and minute portraiture of the 33.164 miles was a day's journey some say manners and customs of the times; and it has 24 miles; and 3,500 ft. a Sabbath day's jour- been remarked that the arms and habits of the ney; some authorities say 3,648 ft. Normans are identical with those of the Danes as they appear in the earlier formative periods of the English people. Theosophy. The name "theosophy" is from the Greek word theosophia, divine wisdom. The object of theosophical study is professedly Amen is a Hebrew word signifying "Yes," to understand the nature of divine things. It" Truly." In Jewish synagogues the amen differs from both philosophy and theology in is pronounced by the congregation at the conthat all reasoning processes are excluded as im-clusion of the benediction. Among the early perfect, and claims to derive its knowledge from Christians the prayer offered by the presbyter direct communication with God. It does not was concluded by the word amen, uttered by accept the truths of recorded revelation as im- the congregation. Justin Martyr is the earliest mutable, but as subject to modification by later of the fathers who alludes to the use of the redirect and personal revelations. It is really sponse. According to Tertullian, none but the but another name for mysticism, although the faithful were permitted to join in the response. latter name implies much more; and the direct A somewhat noisy and irreverent practice preand immediate knowledge or intuition of God vailed in the celebration of the Lord's Supper to which the Mystics laid claim was, in fact, until the sixth century, after which it was disthe foundation of that intimate union with continued. "Upon the reception both of the God, and consequent abstraction from outer bread and of the wine, each person uttered a things, which they make the basis of their loud amen,' and at the close of the consemoral and ascetical system. The theosophic cration by the priest, all joined in shouting system dates from a very high antiquity. Since a loud amen.' The same custom was obthe Christian era we may class among theoso- served at baptism, when the sponsors and witphists such sects as Neoplatonists, the Hesy-nesses responded vehemently. In the Greek chasts of the Greek Church, and in later times the disciples of Paracelsus, Thalhauser, Böhme, and Swedenborg. Bayeux Tapestry, The, is a web of canvas or linen cloth upon which is embroidered, in woolen threads of various colors, a representation of the invasion and conquest of England by the Normans. The canvas is 214 feet long by 20 inches broad, and is preserved in the public library at Bayeux. Tradition asserts that it is the work of Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, and it is believed that if she did not actually stitch the whole of it with her own hands, she at least took part in it, and directed the execution of it by her maids, and afterwards presented it to the Cathedral of Church the amen was pronounced after the name of each person of the Trinity; and at the close of the baptismal formula the people responded. At the conclusion of prayer it signifies (according to the English Church Catechism) so be it; after the repetition of the creed, so it is. Shintuism is the prevailing religion of Japan. Its characteristics are the absence of an ethical and doctrinal code, of idol worship, of priestcraft, and of any teachings concerning a future state. It requires pre-eminently purity of heart and general temperance. The principal divinity is the sun-goddess Amaterasu, whose descendant and vice-regent on earth is the Mikado, who is therefore wor shiped as a demigod. Their temples are singularly devoid of ecclesiastical paraphernalia. A metal mirror generally stands on the altar as a symbol of purity. The spirit of the enshrined deity is supposed to be in a case, which is exposed to view only on the day of the deity's annual festival. The worship consists merely in washing the face in a font, striking a bell, throwing a few cash into the money box, and praying silently for a few seconds. In addition to the chief deity, there are a legion of canonized heroes and benefactors who are worshiped. Many Japanese temples are magnificent specimens of architecture in wood, and are remarkable for their vast tent-like roofs and their exquisite woodcarving. fire or had been blown up with gunpowder. These ruins stand on a prodigious mound, the whole of which is itself in ruins, channeled by the weather, and strewed with fragments of black stone, sandstone, and marble. Taken in connection with the ancient tradition that the Tower of Babel was rent and overthrown by fire from heaven, this is a curious circumstance. Sunday. The name of the first day of the week is derived from the Saxon Sunnan daeg, or day of the sun; in the Roman calendar, dies Solis. We have no definite information as to when the observance of the first day of the week was substituted by the Christians for that of the seventh day, the ancient Jewish Sabbath. It undoubtedly arose among the Arundel Marbles are a collection of an- earliest practices of the Christian Church, and cient sculptures consisting of 37 statues, 128 was regarded as the fittest day to be held as busts, and 250 inscribed stones, which were sacred, because, in the words of one of the found on the island of Paros about 1610. Fathers, "It is the first day in which God They were collected by Mr. W. Pefty, pur- changed darkness and matter, and made the chased by Lord Arundel, and given by his world; and on the same day, also, Jesus grandson, Henry Howard-afterward Duke Christ, our Saviour, rose from the dead." of Norfolk. to the University of Oxford in Various additional reasons, taken from the 1667. These sculptures contain inscriptions Old Testament, were advanced by others of in the Greek tongue. In their perfect state the early Fathers in support of the observance they evidently contained a chronological table of this day. The first law, either ecclesiastical of the principal events of Grecian history from or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of the time of Cecrops, 1582 B. C., to the archon- | Sunday is known to have been ordained, is an ship of Diognetus, 264 B. C. The chronicle of the last ninety years of this period, however, is lost, and the portion still extant is much corroded and defaced. Babel, Tower of. The distinction of being a remnant of the Tower of Babel has been claimed for three different masses, but the majority of opinions are in favor of the Birs Nimrud in Babylonia, the ruins of this temple appearing to more nearly correspond with the conceived notion of that structure. It is of an oblong form, the total circumference being 762 yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and it is not more than 50 or 60 feet high; but on the western side it rises in a conical figure to the elevation of 198 feet; and on its summit is a solid pile of brick 37 feet high by 28 in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its height. The fire-burnt bricks of which it is built have inscriptions on them; and so excellent is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that it is nearly impossible to extract a whole brick. The other parts of the summit of the hill are occupied by immense fragments of brickwork of no determinate figure, tumbled together, and converted into solid, vitrified masses, as if they had undergone the action of the fiercest edict of Constantine, A. D. 321, forbidding all work but necessary husbandry on the "venerable Sunday." In the Theodosian Code it is enjoined that "on the Sunday, rightfully designated by our ancestors as the Lord's Day, all lawsuits and public business shall cease." Since the ninth century, Sunday has been a thoroughly established institution of the Christian Church as a day of rest and religious exercises, and one exempt from any occupations of a purely secular character, except such as were absolutely necessary. Peri. According to the mythical lore of the East, a Peri is a being begotten by fallen spirits, which spends its life in all imaginary delights; it is immortal, but is forever excluded from the joys of Paradise. They take an intermediate place between angels and demons, and are either male or female; when the latter, they are of surpassing beauty. One of the finest compliments to be paid to a Persian lady is to speak of her as Perizadeh (born of a Peri; Greek, Parisatis). They belong to the great family of genii, or jin, a belief in whom is enjoined in the Koran, and for whose conversion, as well as for that of man, Mohammed was sent. Peter-Pence, the name given to a tribute offered to the Roman pontiff in reverence to the memory of St. Peter, whose successor the pope is believed by Roman Catholics to be. | vocal statue of Memnon, on the plain of Thebes, The first idea of an annual tribute appears to was originally sixty feet high, and is of a have come from England. It is ascribed by coarse, hard gritstone or breccia. The peculiar some to Ina (A. D. 721), King of the West characteristic of this statue was its giving out Saxons, who went as a pilgrim to Rome, and at various times a sound resembling the breakthere founded a hospice for Anglo-Saxon pil-ing of a harp string or a metallic ring. Congrims, to be maintained by an annual contri- siderable difference of opinion has prevailed as bution from England; by others, to Offa and to the reason of this sound, which has been Ethelwulf, at least in the sense of their having extended it to the entire Saxon territory. The tribute consisted in the payment of a silver penny by every family possessing land or cattle of the yearly value of thirty pence, and it was collected during the five weeks between St. Peter's and St. Paul's day, and August 1. Since the total annexation of the Papal states to the kingdom of Italy the tribute has been largely increased in France, Belgium, England, and Ireland. heard in modern times, it being ascribed to the artifice of the priests, who struck the sonorous stone of which the statue is composed, the passage of light draughts of air through the cracks, or the sudden expansion of aqueous particles under the influence of the sun's rays. This remarkable quality of the statue is first mentioned by Strabo, who visited it in company with Ælius Gallus, about 18 B. C.; and upwards of 100 inscriptions of Greek and Roman visitors, incised upon its legs, record the visits of ancient travelers to witness the phenomenon, from the ninth year of Nero, A. D. 63, to the reign of the Emperor Severus, when it became silent. Public Schools. The origin of the public school system of America dates back to the time of the settlement of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the very beginning of their history these colonists made provision for the Colossus of Rhodes. - The gigantic establishment of schools in every town, and Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of Apollo, so parents were required to send their children to placed as to bestride the entrance to the harthem or educate them otherwise. At first bor. It is said to have been commenced by these schools were not entirely free; that is, Chares of Lindus, a famous pupil of Lysippus, those who could pay were required to do so; and was completed by Laches. It was formed but the evil of separating the children into of metal which was cast in separate pieces, a paupers and rate-payers in time became appar-process which lasted for twelve years, and was ent, and shortly after the colonies became finished in 280 B. C. The Colossus was over states the school taxes were increased and the 100 feet high, and its thumb was so large that schools were made free. The example of a man could not clasp it with his arms. It these colonists was quickly followed by other cost 300 talents, and sixty years after its erecNew England colonies; but in other sections tion it was thrown down by an earthquake. of the country schools were either private or When, after lying on the ground for centuries, parochial for many years, except in cases it was removed, the metal that composed it where a free school was established and sup- loaded 900 camels. The Colossus of Rhodes ported by private beneficence. When the vast ranks as one of the Seven Wonders of the territories west of the Allegheny mountains World. came into the possession of the United States, every sixteenth section in each Congressional township was set aside by the government as a nucleus of a public school fund; later, this was increased to two sections for the benefit of the newer states. The Southern states were the last to embrace the free school system in its entirety, having done so only since the close of the civil war. Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Kansas, Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, California, Arizona, Wyoming, and Washington Territory have compulsory educational laws. The average age up to which school attendance is required is, in the United States, fourteen and one half years, which is older than that in any other country. Sanhedrim, as the supreme national tribunal of the Jews was called, was established at the time of the Maccabees, and was the court before which Christ was tried for high treason against the Roman Emperor. It was presided over by the Nasi (Prince), at whose side was the Ab-Beth-Din (Father of the Tribunal). Its members, of which there were seventy-one, belonged to the different classes of society; there were priests, elders- that is, men of age and experience-scribes, or doctors of law, and others exalted by eminent learning, which was the sole condition for admission. The limits of its jurisdiction are not clearly known, but it is believed that the supreme decision over life or death was exclusively in its hands. The regulation of the sacred times and seasons was vested in it. It fixed the beginnings of the new moons; in tercalated the years when necessary; watched over the purity of the priestly families by carefully examining the pedigrees of those priests born out of Palestine, so that none born from a suspicious or ill-famed mother should be admitted to the sacred service. The mode of procedure was extremely complicated; and such was the caution of the court, especially in matters of life and death, that capital punishment was pronounced in the rarest instances only. The Nasi had the supreme direction of the court, and convoked it when necessary. He sat at the head, and at his right hand was the seat of the Ab-Beth-Din; the rest of the seventy-one took their places, according to their dignity, in front of them, in the form of a semicircle, so that they could be seen by both the chief officers. The meeting place of the court was, on ordinary occasions, in a hall at the southeast corner of the Temple, but on extraordinary occasions it met in the house of the high priest. It met daily, with the exception of Sabbaths and feast days. After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the Sanhedrim, after many emigrations, was finally established at Babylon. Host. In conformity with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, the consecrated bread of Eucharist is called the Host. In the Latin Church it is a thin circular disk of unleavened bread, made of the finest flour, and generally bearing some emblematic device. In the Greek and other Oriental churches, as well as in the various Protestant communities, the Eucharist is celebrated in leavened bread, only differing from ordinary bread in being of finer quality. Schoolmen and Scholastics are the terms applied to the class of learned theologians and philosophers who flourished in Europe, mainly in France and England, during the middle ages. They were largely given to hairsplitting logic and endless argumentations and speculations on points of the most unimportant and often silly nature. Still, in their number were included men of great learning and ability, as Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, and Albertus Magnus, with whom this system of philosophical theological scholasticism culminated in the fourteenth century. Johannes Erigena Scotus was not strictly a scholastic; he lived in the ninth century, in the preparatory period of scholasticism. Colosseum, The.- The Flavian amphitheater at Rome, known as the Colosseum, was begun by the Emperor Vespasian, and was finished by the Emperor Titus, A. D. 80. It covers about five acres of ground, and contained seats for 87,000 persons and standing room for 15,000 more. It was in the form of an oval, the longer diameter being 612 feet and the shorter diameter 515 feet, and the height of the walls from 160 to 180 feet. The arena where the gladiators fought and the deadly conflicts with wild beasts took place was 281 by 178 feet. The exterior consists of three rows of columns, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, and above, a row of Corinthian pilasters. Between the columns there are arches which form open galleries throughout the whole building, and between each alternate pilaster of the upper tier there is a window. There were four tiers or stories of seats, corresponding to the four external stories. The first of these is supposed to have contained twenty-four rows of seats, and the second sixteen. These were separated by a lofty wall from the third story, which is supposed to have contained the populace. Statues, sculptures, figures of chariots, metal shields, and other embellishments adorned the niches and salient points. On the occasion of the dedication of the Colosseum by Titus, 5,000 wild beasts were slain in the arena, the games having lasted for nearly 100 days. There were means by which, when the combats were ended, the immense arena could be filled with water for the exhibition of seafights. During the various persecutions of the early Christians many of these were thrown to the wild beasts in this amphitheater. One of the first of these was St. Ignatius, who was torn to pieces by lions. In the sixth century, when Christianity gained the ascendancy, the Church put an end to the use of the Colosseum. It still stood entire in the eighth century, but subsequently large quantities of the marble was used in the construction of public and private buildings. It was consecrated as a monument to the martyrs who had suffered within its walls by Pope Benedict XIV., who erected crosses and oratorios within it, and so put an end to the process of destruction. Parsees, the followers of the ancient Persian religion as reformed by Zerdusht, or Zoroaster, as he is commonly called. According to Zerdusht there are two intellects, as there are two lives - one mental and one bodily; and, again, there must be distinguished an earthly and a future life. There are two abodes for the departed Heaven and Hell. Between the two there is the Bridge of the Gatherer, or Judge, which the souls of the pious alone can pass. There will be a general resurrection, which is to precede the last judgment, to foretell which Sosiosh, the son of Zerdusht, spiritually begotten, will be sent by Ahuramazdao. The world, which by that time will be utterly steeped in wretchedness, darkness, and sin, will then be renewed. Death, bears the most palpable traces of Jewish influence. The outward reverence in which the Koran is held throughout Mohammedanism is exceedingly great. It is never held below the girdle, never touched without previous purification; and an injunction to that effect is generally found on the cover. It is consulted on weighty matters; sentences from it are inscribed on banners, doors, etc. Great lavishness is also displayed upon the material and the binding of the sacred volume. The copies for the wealthy are sometimes written in gold, and the covers blaze with gold and precious stones. Nothing, also, is more hateful in the eyes of a Moslem than to see the book in the hands of. an unbeliever. the arch fiend of Creation, will be slain, and form the bulk of the book, which throughout life will be everlasting and holy. The Parsees do not eat anything cooked by a person of another religion. Marriages can only be contracted with persons of their own caste and creed. Their dead are not buried, but exposed on an iron grating in the Dokhma, or Tower of Silence, to the fowls of the air, to the dew and to the sun, until the flesh has disappeared, and the bleaching bones fall through into a pit beneath, from which they are afterward removed to a subterranean cavern. The temples and altars must forever be fed with the holy fire, brought down, according to tradition, from heaven, and the sullying of whose flame is punishable with death. The priests themselves approach it only with a half-mask over their faces, lest their breath should defile it, and never touch it with their hands, but with holy instruments. The fires are of five kinds; but, however great the awe felt by Parsees with respect to fire and light, they never consider these as anything but emblems of Divinity. There are also five kinds of "sacrifice," which term, however, is rather to be understood in the sense of a sacred action. Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedan religion. According to that belief a copy of it, in a book bound in white silk, jewels, and gold, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, in the blissful and mysterious night of Al-Khadr, in the month of Ramadan. Portions of it were, during a space of twenty-three years, communicated to Mohammed, both at Mecca and Medina, either by Gabriel in human shape, "with the sound of bells," or through inspirations from the Holy Ghost in the Prophet's breast," or by God himself, "veiled and unveiled, in waking or in the dreams of night." Mohammed dictated his inspirations to a scribe, not, indeed, in broken verses, but in finished chapters, and from this copy the followers of the Prophet procured other copies. The chief doctrine laid down in the Koran is the unity of God and the existence of one true religion with changeable ceremonies. When mankind turned from it at different times, God sent prophets to lead them back to truth; Moses, Christ, and Mohammed being the most distinguished. Both punishments for the sinner and rewards for the pious are depicted with great diffuseness, and exemplified chiefly by stories taken from the Bible, the Apocryphal writings, and the Midrash. Special laws and directions, admonitions to moral and divine virtues, more particularly to a complete and unconditional resignation to God's will, legends principally relating to the patriarchs, and almost without exception borrowed from the Jewish writings, Palace of the Cæsars. The palace of Augustus, built upon the site of the houses of Cicero and Catiline, was the beginning of the magnificent pile of buildings known as the Palace of the Cæsars, and each succeeding Emperor altered and improved it. Tiberius enlarged it, and Caligula brought it down to the verge of the Forum, connecting it with the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which he converted into a vestibule for the imperial abode. Nero added to it his "Golden House,' which extended from the Palatine to the Cælian Hill, and even reached as far as the Esquiline. This latter portion was afterward used by Titus for his famous baths. The ruins of the palace extend over the three hills of Rome, and cover an area of 1,500 feet in length and 1,300 feet in width. The Golden House, as can be imagined from its name, was a building of extraordinary magnificence. It was surrounded by a triple portico a mile in length, and supported by a thousand columns; and within this lay an immense lake, whose banks were bordered by great buildings, each representing a little city, about which lay green pastures and groves, where sported "all animals, both tame and wild.” The ceilings of the banqueting rooms were fretted into ivory coffers made to turn, that flowers might be showered down upon the guests, and also furnished with pipes for discharging perfumes. The principal banqueting room was round, and by a perpetual motion, day and night, was made to revolve after the manner of the universe. The interior walls of the palace were covered with gold and precious stones, and adorned with the finest paintings that the world afforded. In the vestibule stood a statue of Nero, 120 feet in height. Chinese Burial Customs.- Immediately upon the decease of a person in China a priest is called, whose prayers are supposed to free the departed spirit from the necessity of |