Within comparatively recent years the discovery has been made that it is possible to treat the Bible, for critical purposes, as though it were an ordinary item of national literature, while maintaining a fitting reverence for it as the inspired Word; and that by so doing a flood of sidelight is cast upon it which illuminates the obscurity of some of its most difficult passages.

So, to compare lesser things with greater, it is possible and advisable to discard all feeling of ecclesiasticism (so to term it) when speaking of ecclesiastical antiquities. The science of ecclesiology is of comparatively recent growth, and it has hitherto suffered much at the hands of those who have approached it not so much to learn the plain lessons it teaches, as to force it to declare the existence or non-existence in early or {viii} mediaeval times of certain rites and observances. While we should treat ancient churches and their furniture with respect—a respect which should not be denied to the despised, though often quaint and interesting, high pews and west galleries—as being edifices or instruments formed for the use of the worshippers of God, yet for antiquarian purposes they should be examined and dissected in exactly the same spirit as that in which we investigate the temples of ancient Greece, or the stone weapons of prehistoric man. In this spirit the author of the present book has worked.

Ecclesiology, besides its sentimental connection with ecclesiasticism, possesses many features which render it the most popular branch of the great all-embracing science of archaeology. The objects with which it is concerned appeal strongly to the senses; the finest works of the architect, the limner, the silversmith, the engraver, the embroiderer, the illuminator, and the musician, come within its scope; they are accessible to all who live within reach of an ancient church or a moderately good museum, and the pleasant excursions and companionships with which its votaries are favoured invest its pursuit with the happiest associations. Above all, it lacks that terrible obstacle which lies at the threshold of almost every other subject of serious archaeological study—the necessity of attaining perfection in at least {ix} one foreign language. No one can form more than the merest dilettante acquaintance with the antiquities of India, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, or any other country, without mastering the language in which the records of the country are written; but the merest smattering of mediaeval dog-Latin is quite sufficient to open the door to high (not, perhaps, the highest) attainments in ecclesiology.

These manifold attractions have resulted in hampering the study of ecclesiology with a serious drawback, which is wanting in nearly all the other branches of archaeology. The investigation of the marvellous antiquities of the four countries just mentioned—or, indeed, of almost any other country—can be undertaken by a student with the certainty that if he applies himself to it sufficiently to master the many difficulties which will, no doubt, present themselves, he will be in a position to break ground as yet untouched; his knowledge will enable him to make original discoveries of his own. But it is far otherwise in ecclesiology. So easily understood are the facts of the subject (ex............