Ecclesiastical Curiosities

That first impressions have no small influence in moulding the opinions of most people can scarcely be denied; and therefore in our estimate of the architectural value of a church the door is an element of some importance. A shabby and undignified entrance raises no expectations of a lofty and solemn interior; and that interior must be emphatically fine, if we are not to read into it some of the meanness of its portal. On the other hand, though the church be but plain and simple--so that it lack not a measure of the dignity which may well accompany simplicity--our thoughts will be raised and fitted to find in it something worthy of its high purpose, if we have been prepared by passing through a noble porch, and beneath a doorway that speaks itself the entrance to no ordinary dwelling.

[Illustration: DOOR AT CROWLE CHURCH.]

In primitive times the approach to a church must have been full of dignity, the worshippers being warned, by successive gates and doors, of the sacredness of the building which they were about to enter. Eusebius gives us a full account of a splendid church built at Tyre by Paulinus, from which we may gather the plan on which such buildings were erected in the primitive ages, when the means were forthcoming, and no opposition from the heathen world prevented.

The whole church at Tyre and its precincts were enclosed within a wall, at the front of which was a stately porch, known as the "great porch," or the "first entrance." Passing through this the worshipper entered the courtyard, or atrium, round which ran a covered portico, or cloister, and in the centre of which was a fountain, or cistern, of water. Opposite the "great porch" was the door into the church itself; at Tyre there were (as in many of our cathedrals) three such doors, a large one in the centre, flanked by smaller ones at some distance along the wall. These opened into a vestibule, or ante-temple, from which admittance was gained into the nave of the church by yet another door or gate.

Each of the spaces formed by these several barriers had its special use. Within the atrium all the worshippers washed their hands as a preparation, both literal and emblematic, for assisting in the sacred mysteries; here, too, penitents under censure for the most flagrant sins remained during the divine offices, and besought the prayers of their brethren as they passed on to those holier courts, from which for a time they were themselves excluded. Within this open courtyard, also, as in a modern churchyard, burials were sometimes permitted. The portico beyond the second entrance was the place for the "hearers," that is for those who were not yet sufficiently instructed in the faith to be allowed to be present except at the reading of the Scriptures and the sermons (these were catechumens in their noviciate and the heathens and Jews), and also for those Christians who were degraded temporarily to the same position as a penance for some sin. Beyond this portico, the nave was still further divided for the separation of different orders of penitents; so that the faithful in possession of all their privileges had quite a number of doors or gates through which to pass before reaching that place, immediately outside the apse, or chancel, which it was their right to occupy.