holystone

A kind of soft sandstone used with sand for scrubbing or cleaning the decks of ve els. Smyth ( Sailor's Word - Book ) suggests that holystone was "so called from being originally used for Sunday cleaning, or obtained by plundering churchyards of their tombstones, or because the seamen to go on their knees to use it." and impre ive; those of Holy Thursday are marked by pomp and splendor. On Palm Sunday the Pa ion according to St. Matthew is chanted, and palm-branches (or sprigs of willow in their stead) are ble ed and distributed to the people (John xii. 12-15). Tenebre are chanted on Wednesday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday; on Holy Thursday at high-ma two Hosts are consecrated, the oils and chrisms are ble ed, the Host for Friday's ma is carried proce ionally to the reposoir, while the "Pange Lingua" is sung, and, in cathedral churches and religious houses, the Washing of the Feet (John xiii. 4-17) follows. On Good Friday the altar and sanctuary are stripped of their ornaments, the Pa ion according to St. John is chanted, the crucifix is unveiled and ki ed by the clergy, kneeling, while the Improper i a or Reproaches are sung, the consecrated species is brought from the reposoir, and the celebrant says the Ma of the Præsanctified (q. v.); on Holy Saturday there is the ble ing of the fire, the paschal candle, and the baptismal font. holy-wells, s. pl. stone. IMG:content-1229.png:[blocks in formation] Ch. Hist., Ritual, & c .: In Numbers (viii. 7) we read of the preparation of a "water of purifying," and (xix. 9) of a "water of separation," which is "a purification for sin." The custom pa ed with appropriate ceremonies into the early Christian Church. Water is ble ed, or made "holy-water," by any cleric in priest's orders. The service may be consulted in the Rituale Romanum , or in English in Rock's Hierurgia (ch. xiii.). In the Roman Church it is usual to sprinkle the altar and the people with holy-water immediately before the high ma on Sun days, "to remind them that they ought to appear before God with a pure heart, to awaken penitential feelings, and to wash them from venial sins." ( Goschler .) In the Greek Church this observance is confined to the first Sunday of the month. Holy-water is also employed whenever anything is solemnly ble ed. Stoups of it are placed at the entrance of all churches; into them the people dip their fingers, signing themselves with the cro with the right hand, touching first the forehead, then the center of the breast, then the left and right shoulders, saying, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Catholics keep the "troubling of the water" (John v.). Horace ( Od ., iii. 13) and Ovid ( Fast . , v. 300) speak of sacrifices to holy-wells, and Juvenal (vi. 533) mentions the oracular fountain of Jupiter Ammon. When Paganism was yielding to a purer faith, laws were pa ed forbidding the old adoration at fountains, but Tylor says ( Prim . Cult ., ii. 105), "with a varnish of Christianity, and sometimes the substitution of a saint's name, water worship has held its own to our day." St. Winifred's Well, at Holy well, Flints hire, has still many votaries; Ireland and Scotland can show their holy-wells in scores of parishes, and in the latter country some bush adjacent, bedecked with rags testifies to the survival, in a mutilated form, of the rite of sacrifice. Bishop Hall ( Invisible World , bk. ii., § 8), bears witne to a cure wrought upon a cripple by the waters of St. Madern's Well, and the virtues of the "water which sprang forth under the hands of Bernadette at the command of the Virgin Mary" ( La erre : Notre Dame de Lourdes , liv. iii., § vii.) are boldly a erted by that Paris i an journalist, who claims to be one subject among many of its miraculous IMG:content-1230.png:[blocks in formation] homarus profe ing, that 'he did become his man, from that day forth, of life and limb and earthly honor:' and then he received a ki from his lord. Which ceremony was denominated homagium, or manhood, by the feudists, from the stated form of words, devenio vester homo."- Black stone: Comment ., bk. ii., ch. 4. 2. Obeisance; respect paid by external action; deference; respectful regard; court. "Paying ignominious homage to all who po e ed influence in the courts." -Macaulay: Hist. Eng ., ch. ii. 3. Reverential attitude toward the Divine Being; reverence; devoutne . "For sothly he ne shuld have than in all his lif corage to sinne, but yeve his herte and body to the service of Jesu Crist, and thereof do him homage ." -Chaucer: The Per sones Tale . Homage is paid or done to superior endowments; court is paid to the contingent, not the real, superiority of the individual. The Romans did homage to the talent of Virgil, by always rising when he entered the theater; men do homage to the wisdom of another, when they do not venture to contradict his a ertions or call his opinions in question. hom'-age (age as Ig), v. t. & i. [HOMAGE, 8.] A. Transitive: 1. To pay homage or respect to by external actions; to pay reverence to. 2. To subject in token of reverence and fealty. "To her great Neptune homaged all his streams." Cowley. B. In trans.: To pay homage, respect, or rever ence. "To whom Jove sometimes bends, and Neptune kneels, Mars homageth ." Heywood: Love's Mistre , sig. D. 3. hom-age-a-ble (age as Ig), a. [Eng. homage ; -able .] Bound to pay homage. "He of Holland being homage able to none." -Howell, bk. i., § 2, let. 15. hom-ag-er (ag as Ig), s . [Eng. homag(e); -er.] One who pays, or is bound to pay, homage to a superior lord; one who holds a fee of another by homage; a va al. "Those which have been homagers and tributaries unto us of old time." -P. Holland: Livius , p. 975. hăm-al-1-ā-çě-æ, s. pl. [Mod. Lat. homali (um); Lat. fem. pl. adj. suff. -aceœ.] Bot.: Homaliads; an order of epigynous exogens; alliance Cactales. It consists of trees or shrubs with the calyx funnel-shaped, adherent, with from five to fifteen divisions; petals the same number, glands present; stamens in threes or sixes, opposite the petals; styles, three to five; ovary, one-celled, with two, three, or five parietal placente; ovules, many, pendulous; fruit, capsular or berried. From tropical Africa or India; known genera, three; species, thirty or more. ho-măl-1-ădş, s. pl. [Mod. Lat. homali(um); and Eng., .. pl. suff. -ads.] Bot .: The name given by Lindley to the order Homaliaceae (q. v.). ho-măl-1-ŭm, s . [Gr. homalos =even, smooth, equable, consistent; Lat. suff. -ium . Named be cause the stamens are regularly divided into fasci cles of three.] Bot.: The typical genus of the order Homaliacem (q.v.). The roots of some American species of Homalium are astringent, and used as a remedy in blennorrhea.