What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion!

The Psaltery contained the psalms; the Lectionary (thirteenth century) contained the lessons of the first and second nocturn; the Book of Homilies, the homilies of the Fathers; the Legendary (before the thirteenth century), the lives of the saints read on their feast days.

It appears also from the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Austin, and others, that the Christians of their days drew several kinds of presages from persons sneezing at critical times; from meeting a cat, a dog, or an ill-looking (squinting) woman, a maiden, one blind of an eye, or a cripple; on being caught by the cloak on stepping out of a door, or from a sudden catch in one's joint or limb.

One reason for assigning the Homilies to the middle of the second century is presented by the phenomena of the quotations from the Gospels which correspond generally to those that are found in writings of this date, and especially, as has been frequently noticed, to those which we meet with in Justin.

"These," said he, "added to the week-day servicesmakeexactly one hundred and fifty-six sermons, discourses, and homilies for the year."

The homilies from the Fathers are well chosen, and suitable for the greatest prayer and for the greatest prayerbook the world has ever known.

The Universethat Great Book, as it has been calledis to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting schoolboys.

The first Abbot Aelfric was famous for his learning, and his Homilies in Latin and English are of much value to students of Anglo-Saxon.

If he talked learnedly, discussed old cosmogonies, worked out subtle theories of divinity, and chopped logic; if he spiced up big homilies with Plato and Virgil, or wandered into the domain of Hebrew roots and Greek iambics, his congregation would put him down as insane, and would be driven crazy themselves.

In other words, it is possible to read three hundred and fifteen pages of the Homilies with five breaks and come to no quotation from the Old Testament at all, or three hundred and fifteen pages with only two breaks and come to none outside the Pentateuch.

At Payne's tavern, in Fairview, the poor fellow had to undergo an examination from the landlord, and listen to a homily about truth-telling; so little do slave-holders seem aware that stealing and lying are constituent parts of their own system.

"Fourth Part of the Homily against Wilful Rebellion, p. 518.

"These, again, being continued over a space of time, comprising, as the reverend gentleman tells us, no less than thirty-four years, give us a grand total of five thousand three hundred and four sermons, discourses, or homilies during this unhappy man's life.