"Chancel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... skirmishes with various success: but, on the whole, the advantage had been with the garrison. Several officers of note had been carried prisoners into the city; and two French banners, torn after hard fighting from the besiegers, had been hung as trophies in the chancel of the Cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned into a blockade. But before the hope of reducing the town by main force was relinquished, it was determined to make a great effort. The point selected for assault was an outwork called ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the chancel are of porcelain, all pictured over with figures of almost life size, very elegantly wrought and dressed in the fanciful costumes of two centuries ago. The design was a history of something or somebody, but none ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wishing her had to pay for it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just making ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease my legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and over again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along—movin' along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may see the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... of voices among the people in the pews: they were in a sacred edifice without being exactly at church, and they might talk; now and then a muffled, nervous laugh escaped. A delicate scent of flowers from the masses in the chancel mixed with the light and the prevailing silence. There was a soft, continuous rustle of drapery as the ladies advanced up the thickly carpeted aisles on the arms of the young ushers and compressed themselves into ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... extent, are all that remains of the great abbey. St Mary's church, with a beautifully carved roof, was erected in the earlier part of the 15th century, and contains the tomb of Mary Tudor, queen of Louis XII. of France. St James's church is also a fine Perpendicular building, with a modern chancel, and without a tower. All these splendid structures, fronting one of the main streets in succession, form, even without the abbey church, a remarkable memorial of the wealth of the foundation. Behind them lie picturesque gardens which contain the ruins, the plan ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Rann to take his place among them as principal bass, and return to his desk after the singing was over. The pulpit and desk, grey and old as the pews, stood on one side of the arch leading into the chancel, which also had its grey square pews for Mr. Donnithorne's family and servants. Yet I assure you these grey pews, with the buff-washed walls, gave a very pleasing tone to this shabby interior, and agreed extremely well with the ruddy faces and bright waistcoats. And there were liberal touches ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... a cavalier of Albert I, during the sojourn of that prince at Strasburg, consumed all the timberwork and threatened even the pillars and walls. However the damage was promptly repaired. In 1302 a bloody conflict between two citizens of the town, which took place in the very chancel of the church, required again a ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... of us making merry at a friend's house in a country village, when the sexton of the parish church entered the room in a sort of surprize, and told us, "that as he was digging a grave in the chancel, a little blow of his pickax opened a decayed coffin, in which there were several written papers." Our curiosity was immediately raised, so that we went to the place where the sexton had been at work, and found ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... in the south and east that reflect the Norman movement is very large. All the large ones were conventual. Parish churches of the period are generally small and aisleless—the most of them being single oblong chambers, with an eastern chancel, sometimes with an eastern apse, and occasionally with a western tower.[12] Towards the close of the period, the ornament became very elaborate, especially in the arched heads of doorways. A common feature was the arcade running round the walls below the windows, either in the exterior, interior, ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... public exercises. For each saint's day, also, they have them ready for the generations yet unborn to say. They can tell you, also, when you shall kneel, when you shall stand, when you should abide in your seats, when you should go up into the chancel, and what you should do when you come there. All which the apostles came short of, as not being able to compose so profound a manner; and that for this reason included in this scripture, because the fear of God tied them to pray ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... him, and one for which he was wholly unprepared. As he drew near the chancel, he looked down an opening on the right, which seemed purposely preserved by the guard. Why were those tapers burning in the side chapel? What was within it? He looked again, and beheld two uncovered biers. On one ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the Allertons for three hundred years, and the recumbent effigy, in stone, of the founder of the family's fortunes, with his two wives in ruffs and stiff martingales, was to be seen in the chancel of the parish church. It was the work of an Italian sculptor, lured to England in company of the craftsmen who made the lady-chapel of Westminster Abbey; and the renaissance delicacy of its work was very grateful in the homely English church. And for three hundred years the Allertons had ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... collegiate, a screen between the nave and chancel was so called, which had on the top of it a large projection, whereon were placed certain images, especially those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... mighty outer gate well barred and fast, The poor old friars stirred their poor old bones, And pattering swiftly on the damp cold stones, They through the solitary chancel passed. The chancel walls looked black and dim and vast, And rendered, ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Pancras the Roman boy-martyr. When the site, about halfway between St. Martin's and St. Augustine's, was excavated in 1901, it was found to possess a nave about 47 feet long by 26 feet wide, with an apsidal chancel nearly the same width and depth separated from the nave by four Roman columns, and Mr. W.H. St. John Hope, of the Society of Antiquaries, who carried out the operations with Canon Routledge, has suggested ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... journeying to The Hague and to Salisbury, and as preaching at the Savoy Chapel. It must have solaced his latter days to reflect that he had survived to welcome the Restoration. He died, from what is reasonably surmised to have been typhus fever, on the 16th of August, 1661, and lies buried in the chancel of the church to which he last ministered, at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... wilderness, and the communion service was his gift. More than once had he knelt to receive the sacred elements from the trembling hands of the worthy rector and listen to Mrs. Burton's effusive "Amen!" on his left ere she parted with the cup that was then passed to his bearded lips. At the chancel rail all good Christians knelt in common and meekly bowed their heads, but when Mrs. Burton came up to headquarters with a rail of her own, the General couldn't stand it, and said so to worthy Lambert, who remonstrated with ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... and her boy, as they knelt together by a bench near the chancel steps, attracted the attention of the old Rector. He had seen them before, and had many times exchanged a kindly greeting with Mary and complimented Lucy on her 'lilies and roses,' and asked in a jocose way for ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... point in a dark corner grew clearer and clearer till she saw (what at another time she could not have discerned at all) a face—a gargoyle I think they call it—at the end of the arch next to the narrowing of the nave into the chancel, and in the shadow of that contraction. The face was beautiful in feature (the next to it was a grinning monkey), but it was not the features that were the most striking part. There was a half-open mouth, not in any way distorted out ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Church of S. Michael accommodates thirty horses, and the north aisle thirteen; the south is considered more select, and is boarded off for the decani, in the shape of officers' chargers. The north side of the chancel gives room for six horses, and the south side for a row of saddle-blocks. It had been an oversight on the part of the original architect of the church that no place was prepared for the daily hay; a fault which the military restorers have remedied by improvising a lady-chapel, where ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... she had nothing else to look at. The church, indeed, afforded her some food for reflection, purely, I regret to state, of a practical and mundane character. It was a large and handsome building, with a particularly fine old tower, that was sadly out of repair; but the chancel was a modern and barn-like structure of brick and plaster, which ought, of course, to be entirely swept away, and a new and more appropriate one built in its stead. The chancel belonged, as most chancels do, to the lay rector, and the lay rector was ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... length that their search was quite fruitless, the gentlemen of the bridal train reluctantly gave up the ring for lost, and the whole party filed into the chancel to enter their names in the register, that lay for this purpose ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... stepped aside, the sailor closed the door gently behind him, and advanced up the nave till he stood at the chancel-step. The parson looked up from the private little prayer which, after so many for the parish, he quite fairly took for himself; rose to his feet, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... great white sepulchre—so quiet, save only when the organ peals and the choir cries aloud the Salve Regina or the Kyrie eleison. Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone than that pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the heart of his birthplace in the chancel of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... player," especially detested in Stratford-on-Avon (see notes); he had made money somehow in the city, and had returned to spend it in his native town, but he had never taken office, and had never been "one of them." And at the end he was to be buried in the Chancel, the select spot for nobles and prelates and "great men." Verily the tongues of the gossips of Stratford would wag on April 25, 1616. The authorship of the doggerel lines on his tomb has been attributed to various people. Probably they were a part of the ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... dark strait of barren land with the ocean on one side and on the other the great water; the ruined chapel with its broken chancel and broken cross, and, near at hand, the place of tombs with its bones of ancient mighty men; athwart all shines the moon, and over all the chill wind with flakes of foam sings shrilly. Zigzag paths ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... remaining as adjuncts to most cathedral churches, though the conventual buildings of a domestic nature, with which the cloisters formerly also communicated, have generally been destroyed. Mere parochial churches have commonly a tower at the west end, a nave with lateral aisles, and a chancel. Some churches have transepts; and small side chapels or additional aisles have been annexed to many, erected at the costs of individuals, to serve for burial and as chantries. The smallest class of churches ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... Fade the Autumn's altar-lights; Down the great earth's glimmering chancel Glide the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink, and was drugged and crimped as they were. I hadn't thought of that. A poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down for me, and," he added, suppressing a laugh, "will be buried, deeply lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on, the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream, and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what they thought ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the sacristan in the church, for it was the hour of matins, and between them they set what we had brought in the ambry which was built in the chancel wall. I do not know if Selred told the man why they were to be kept there. Then came Offa's two chaplains, and the bell rang for the service; and it was good to kneel and take part therein, while outside ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... its brief inscription has become well nigh illegible through the weathering of the elements, and the grave has become indistinguishable from the mouldering mounds on every side around it. But beneath the funeral hatchment of his father, on the chancel walls of Melton-Mowbray Church, is a marble shield charged with a cross enguled and a wyvern volant; and a record of the untimely death of the hope and last scion of the house on the banks ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... In its chancel are paintings of the four evangelists done by the Reverend Mr. Oertel. He was also a wood-carver and a musician, and was from Nuremberg in Germany which, I suppose, explains why he was always called Master by his wife. They lived for a good while on Gay (N) Street. Mr. Corcoran bought several ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Their victim not appearing in the cathedral at the hour when they expected him, the two conspirators ran to the palace of the Medici and induced him to accompany them. Giuliano then took his place in the chancel of the Cathedral, and as the officiating priest raised the Host—the sign agreed upon—Bernardo stabbed the unsuspecting Giuliano in the breast with a short sword; Giuliano stepped backwards and fell ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... transept was not in sight, but I could hear Pierre busy at his task of polishing the oaken floor, by skating over it with brushes fastened to his feet. Jean was bustling in and out of the sacristy, and about the high altar in the chancel. There was a faint scent yet of the incense which had been burned at the mass celebrated before the cure's departure, enough to make the air heavy and to deepen the drowsiness and languor which were stealing over me. I leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes, with a pleasant ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... righteous Lord of all Consigns to thee the castle-wall, When, many a year, Closed in the chancel-vaults, are eyes Rainy or sunny at the sighs ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... prisms which reflect the rainbow tints. The galleries are richly paneled in relief work. The organ and choir gallery is spacious and rich beyond the power of words to depict. The platform—corresponding to the chancel of an Episcopal church—is a mosaic work, with richly carved seats following the sweep of its curve, with a lamp stand of the rennaissance period on either end, bearing six richly wrought oxidized silver lamps, eight feet in height. The great organ comes from Detroit. ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... shaft of sunshine pierced the rosy glass windows and fell upon the hieratic figure of the bearded Christ, which glowed supernally. In the chancel the Psalms had died away and the only sound was that of sandals shuffling over marble floors. The man turned the lock. It was a return to the world as if one had ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... he appeared in the chancel, that Mrs. Morris was in her accustomed place, and Ruth and her father in theirs, and that Leonard was not yet reported back nor looked for; but exactly as he began to read, "'Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us, in sundry places, to acknowledge ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... walked down the aisle in his uniform in the most dignified manner, and led the congregation in the responses in an audible voice. By the plan an organ and choir are shown in the gallery as well as one in the chancel, but the dates 1859 and 1862 explain that in 1862 there was a new organ, and the old one removed, and the gallery done away with. It was in this gallery my services commenced as organ blower, and the only one I can now remember as singing in the choir at that early date was John Butts, ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... sunburned from his cruise, stood before the chancel with the only daughter of the blue blooded St. Clairs. His face was clear and honest and his voice firm. This was life and not romance. The lid of the sepulcher had closed and he had slipped from under ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Queen Anne; the pavement too was damp and mossy; and there were green patches down the white walls where the rains had got in. So the handful of people that came to church were glad enough to get the other side of the screen in the chancel, where at least the pew floors were boarded over, and the panelling of oak-work kept ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... stained windows rays of sunshine fall In softened glory on the chancel floor; While I, a pilgrim from across the sea, stand with bare head ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... abbey church, in such a way that the north aisle should be cut off by a wall and included in the new church. The north aisle of the abbey church thus became the south aisle of the parish church, the new building its nave, and the north end of the transept of the abbey church the parish chancel, the Norman apsidal chantry attached to the transept made a fitting eastern termination to the chancel. A chantry of the Confraternity of St. George, built on the north side of the new church, took the place of a north ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... finally ordered; and Stephen stood arrayed therein before the altar-rails in the gray old church at Crosber, a far more grotesque and outrageous figure to contemplate than any knight templar, or bearded cavalier of the days of the first English James, whose effigies were to be seen in the chancel. Mrs. Tadman stood a little way behind him, in a merino gown, and a new bonnet, extorted somehow from the reluctant Stephen. She was full of smiles and cordial greetings for the bride, who did not even see her. Neither did Ellen Carley see the awkward figure of her bridegroom. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Within the chancel stood the Dean of Westminster, and behind him were gathered the cathedral clergy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the scarlet and white surpliced choir, filling ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... being buried without so much as an inscription) was called Mr John Kyrle. He effected many good works, partly by raising contributions from other benevolent persons. He died in the year 1724, aged 90, and lies interred in the chancel of the church of ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... enclosure of the altar, the priest in his white stole, and the choir boys in their snowy surplices. The waxen candles looked like stars against the white hangings of the chancel; and above the altar, a sweet-faced Madonna looked down with sad eyes upon the man and woman kneeling before her. Through the parti-colored windows, crossed with broad bands of red, the branches of the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... her feet; and when she stepped through the chancel-door on the church pavement, it seemed to her as if the old figures on the tombs—those portraits of old preachers and preachers' wives, with stiff ruffs and long black dresses, fixed their eyes on her ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... we have positive testimony that Thomas rebuilt the whole church; on the other, the walls of the crypt, as they existed up to the time of Roger's choir, are a part of the Saxon church. Their masonry is Saxon, and they mark the lines of a chancel far too narrow to have been that of Thomas, even if we suppose that his choir was necessarily small, from the want of funds at his command, and the ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... a rule, in the stage in which such ideas are possible or even desirable. I have seen him conduct a children's service, and then he is in high content, surrounded by clean and well-brushed infants, and smiling girls. He sits in a chair on the chancel steps, in a paternal attitude, and leads them in a little meditation on the childhood of the Mother of Christ. Whenever he describes a scene out of the Bible, and he is fond of doing this, it always sounds as if he were describing a stained-glass window; his favourite qualities are meekness, submissiveness, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he had beene hard at hand, drew out his sword, and ran upon them, having none to second him but another man, so that, oppressed by the number of his enemies, he was beaten downe and slaine. In the meantime, Sir James being come, the English that were in the chancel kept off the Scots, and having the advantage of the strait and narrow entrie, defended themselves manfully. But Sir James encouraging his men, not so much by words as by deeds and good example, and having slain ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... been then that Burton saw, though he says now he didn't. He won't own up to having seen him. We had hidden ourselves behind the mourners in the chancel and he swears that he didn't see anybody but Antigone, and that he only saw her because, in spite of her efforts to hide too, she stood out so; she was so tall, so white and golden. Her head was bowed with—well, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the initials of the old gentleman's name, and the verse from the library window. The Duchess had brought with her some lovely roses, which she strewed upon the grave, and after they had stood by it for some time they strolled into the ruined chancel of the old abbey. There the Duchess sat down on a fallen pillar, while her husband lay at her feet smoking a cigarette and looking up at her beautiful eyes. Suddenly he threw his cigarette away, took hold of her hand, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... the chancel tall; The darkened, roof rose high, aloof On pillars lofty, light, and small: The keystone that locked, each ribbed aisle Was a fleur-de-lis, or a quatre-feuille; The corbels were carved grotesque and grim; ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the seventeenth century and earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during the sieges of the castle. The maimed church—for the chancel has never been rebuilt—is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... apparently an addition made to the Lady's Chapel long after the church had been originally built. When we were shut up we were enabled to survey the interior at our leisure. The whole was completely bare to the pavement until you came to the chancel part, near to which the altar had been, where the wooden screens and seats still remained, in a sad dilapidated state; but they must have once been very handsome, for the carving, where it was perfect, was very beautiful. A small ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Abingdon, and restored to the monks the meadow he had reft from them. His terror was not satisfied by the restitution of his plunder, and he returned to set about the restoration of the ruined churches within and without the walls of Oxford. The tower of St. Michael, the doorway of St. Ebbe, the chancel arch of Holywell, the crypt and chancel of St. Peter's-in-the-East, are fragments of the work done by Robert and his house. But the great monument of the devotion of the D'Oillys rose beneath the walls of their castle. Robert, a nephew of the first castellan, had ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... tone is bluish green with mosaic walls and floor and a wooden ceiling decorated in tempera with cufic inscriptions. It is scantily lighted with small windows, giving a rather sombre effect. The best mosaics are in the chancel ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various
... rival inns, which are very primitive in their arrangement, the entrance hall forming the kitchen, as in many old Breton houses. A second frowning old gateway leads to the single street, which, passing between two rows of antique gabled houses, and under the chancel of the little parish church, conducts one to the almost interminable flight of stone steps leading to the gateway of the monastery. Upon ringing the bell a polite lay brother opens the iron-studded door, and we are admitted into a solemn, vaulted hall, with another stone staircase opposite. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... yield, and the little church in the afternoon was crowded in every corner. The older women—their heads covered with dark-coloured handkerchiefs, occupied the left side of the aisle, the men crowded in on the right and at the back under the organ loft. Round about the chancel rail and steps the bevy of girls in gayest Sunday dresses looked like a garden of giant animated flowers. When the sexton went the round with the collecting-bag tied to the end of a long pole, he had the greatest difficulty in making his way through the maze of many-hued ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... associated with rather lowly duties. We have seen an example in Stewart. Another is Chamberlain. Hence surnames drawn from this class are susceptible of very varied interpretation. A Chancellor was originally a man in charge of a chancel, or grating, Lat. cancelli. In Mid. English it is usually glossed scriba, while it is now limited to very high judicial or political office. Bailey, as we have seen (Chapter IV), has also a wide range of meanings, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... extensive in its buildings as that of San Jose, but the houses are generally in better repair. They are constructed of adobes; the church was open, and, entering the interior, I found the walls hung with coarse paintings and engravings of the saints, etc., etc. The chancel decorated with numerous images, and symbolical ornaments used by the priests in their worship. Gold-paper, and tinsel, in barbaric taste, are plastered without stint upon nearly every object that meets the eye, so that, when on festive occasions the church is lighted, it must ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... Hungerford succeeding his father, was advanced to the title of Earl of Huntingdon by King Henry the Eighth, in 1529. He died the 24th of March, 1543, and lies buried in the chancel of Stoke Pogeys. Edward, his second son, was a warrior with King Henry the Eighth, and during the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Mary, 1555, declared his testament, appointing his body to be buried at Stoke Pogeys, and directing his executors to build a chapel of stone, with an altar ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... utilitarian of to-day would sweep away, as being serious hindrances to wheeled traffic, the two picturesque fifteenth-century erections which stand in this market-place; these, High Cross and Low Cross, one at the east end, in front of the Moot Hall, the other at the west, facing the chancel of the church, remain, to the delight of the archaeologist, as instances of the fashion in which our forefathers built gathering places in the very ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Architectonic Ecclesiology (ask for this paper at your club), and every window was brim full of new stained glass, and every inch of floor-space was new encaustic tiles. And, what was more, there was a new mosaic over the chancel-arch—a modest and wobbly little arch in itself, that seemed afflicted with its position, and to want to get away into a quiet corner and meditate. Sally said so, and added so should she, if ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... intimate of them all. The Senator was for once turned to good account: was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfort of the humble. That was all. And I fancy that the shade of the grim old robber, lurking somewhere in the softly coloured gloom of the chancel, was not altogether averse to the farce in which his ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... its sunshine and its shadows. Many still survive to tell of an impressive, and gloomy pageant. On the 4th September, 1819, previous to their transfer to the chancel of the Anglican Cathedral, were exposed in state in the Chateau, the mortal remains of the late Governor-General, His Grace Charles Gordon Lennox, Duke of Richmond, Lennox and Aubigny, who, on the 28th August, 1819, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... chamberlain, Roscelin. The original building had the simple nave with its apse beyond, that we shall see on the other side of the town of St. Julien. There is a further disappointment in store when you find the incongruous windows inserted in the chancel and the aisles that were added later on to the original nave. To understand what has happened you must go to the outside of the east end, and there you will see how the old round Norman apse was cut off, and a squared end was stuck on instead with a large pointed window, and how a new outside ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... praying. She will not look up again.... She would not turn her eyes just now, though her own sister stood so close! They were lifted to the lights in the chancel and to the dark window." Then, as it seemed, with sudden inconsequence, she added: "Forgive me, sir! You have been kind to me, and it is so many ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... churches, altars, distinct from that in the chancel, were founded by wealthy and influential individuals, at which masses might be sung for the repose of the dead; the portion thus set apart, which was generally the east end of one of the aisles, was then denominated a chantry: in it the tomb of the founder was generally placed, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... not without a memorial of this myth, for Mr. Baring-Gould tells us that "there is an ancient pictorial representation of our friend the Sabbath-breaker in Gyffyn Church, near Conway. The roof of the chancel is divided into compartments, in four of which are the evangelistic symbols, rudely, yet effectively painted. Besides these symbols is delineated in each compartment an orb of heaven. The sun, the moon, and two stars, are placed at the feet of the Angel, the Bull, the Lion, and the Eagle. ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... to their desires. As the lights from the belfry of Old North Church revealed to Paul Revere the route the British were to take against them in the memorable beginnings at Lexington and Concord, so the light from the Great Book above its chancel rail would direct them the ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... gropes (his eyes are wide) Along the altar rail. The tide Of war has cast him brokenly Upon the shore of life. I see A girl in costly furs, who cries Against her muff; I see her rise And hurry out. Two tourists pause Beside the grated chancel doors, To wonder and to speculate; To stoop and read ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... in the second volume, when speaking of the Cathedral of Torcello it seems not unlikely, that as we study either the science of sound, or the practice of the early Christians, we may see reason to place the pulpit generally at the extremity of the apse or chancel; an arrangement entirely destructive of the beauty of a Gothic church, as seen in existing examples, and requiring modifications of its design in other parts with which we should be unwise at present to embarrass ourselves; besides, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... in her hair. On her breast, set in a ring of gold make like a twisted lotus stalk, she wore the strange Jewel of Seven Stars which held words to command the God of all the worlds. At the marriage the sunlight streaming through the chancel windows fell on it, and it seemed to glow ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... was instinctively putting out feelers toward the storied lands of the Old World, and in his Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem he transformed the rude church of the Moravian sisters to a cathedral with "glimmering tapers," swinging censers, chancel, altar, cowls, and "dim mysterious aisle." After his visit to Europe Longfellow returned deeply imbued with the spirit of romance. It was his mission to refine our national taste by opening to American readers, in their own ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... however, of sound as uttered by the voice, the human voice being unique among instruments in that it combined the characteristics of all other sounds. Intoning, therefore, was to him a matter of psychic importance, and it was one summer evening, intoning, in the chancel, that he noticed suddenly certain very curious results. The faces of two individuals in the congregation underwent a charming and singular change, a change which he would not describe more particularly at the moment, since Spinrobin should ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, four-score years before, the little Warren, meanly clad ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bordered with limes, leading from the highway through the graveyard where, beneath a twilight of shade, many generations of the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Along the venerable aisles of the nave and in the transept, are effigies and memorial tablets disclosed in the dim religious light. The chancel is disproportionately spacious and has high stained-glass windows at the sides and end. In front of the altar, beneath slabs of gray stone, are the graves of Shakespeare and his family. The widow, who survived him seven years, lies nearest the wall, and on the other side Susanna and her husband, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... December, 1795, the most distinguished persons of the place, the dignitaries of the church, and civil and military officers, assembled in the metropolitan cathedral. In the presence of this august assemblage, a small vault was opened above the chancel, in the principal wall on the right side of the high altar. Within were found the fragments of a leaden coffin, a number of bones, and a quantity of mould, evidently the remains of a human body. These were carefully collected and put into a case of gilded lead, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... the shops were about to begin, he found himself at the door of the Hymnal Supply Corporation, Limited. The premises as seen from the outside combined the idea of an office with an ecclesiastical appearance. The door was as that of a chancel or vestry; there was a large plate-glass window filled with Bibles and Testaments, all spread open and showing every variety of language in their pages. These were marked, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Ojibway, Irish and so forth. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... existing,' said Elizabeth, 'since Papa has made his great horrid pew in the chancel into open seats.—Do not you remember it, Kate? and how naughty you used to be, when Margaret left off sitting there with us, and there was no one to see what we were about—oh! and there is a great fat Patience on a monument on the wall over our heads, and a very long inscription, recording things ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... old fane To hear the Vesper prayer Rise, with the organ's solemn strain, On incense-laden air; While the last dying smiles of day Athwart the stained glass pour— Flooding with red and golden ray The shrine and chancel floor. ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... potato market-places annexed. The church, which is an ancient one, has an unattractive exterior; but when you enter it, I think you will say it can compete with any church for ancient beauty and ornament. Amongst the tombs in the chancel are those of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, with the effigies of him and his lady, affording a specimen of the costume of the reign of Henry VII.; and Sir Richard Steele, whose remains are discovered by a small, simple ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... said Mr. White, briskly, "that the moonlight is clear enough to let you make out this plan? But I can't get the building to correspond. This is the chancel, I believe; but ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... yards to north of the Round Tower stands "The Cathedral" illustrating almost every phase of ecclesiastical architecture which flourished in Ireland from St. Patrick to the Reformation—Cyclopean, Celtic-Romanesque, Transitional and Pointed. The chancel arch is possibly the most remarkable and beautiful illustration of the Transitional that we have. An extraordinary feature of the church is the wonderful series of Celtic arcades and panels filled with archaic sculptures in relief ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... returned home from a friend's house, where he had been passing the evening. He therefore crossed, as quickly as his corpulence would allow, the deserted little square called "The Cloister," which lies directly behind the chancel of the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the stars had come, two white faces came glimmering from the innermost chancel of the wood's green darkness. They passed close together, still as phantoms among the trees, and when they came out on to the lane they ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... Thomas Owen counted them from his seat in the chancel, for another clergyman was preaching; and, as he counted, bitterness and disappointment took hold of him. The preacher was a "Deputation," sent by one of the large missionary societies to arouse the indifferent to a sense of duty ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... The Romans often erected monuments to illustrious persons whilst living, which were preserved with great veneration after their decease. In this country, according to Sir Henry Chauncy, "Any person may erect a tomb, sepulchre, or monument for the deceased in any church, chancel, chapel, or churchyard, so that it is not to the hindrance of the celebration of divine service; that the defacing of them is punishable at common law, the party that built it being entitled to the action during his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar; and all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits, including scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. This prow was railed off, forming a sort of chancel within. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... 24, 1806. The chapel was named in honor of Queen Caroline, who furnished the books for the altar and pulpit, the plate, and two solid mahogany chairs, which are still in use in St. John's. Within the chancel rail is a curious font of porphyry, taken by Colonel John Tufton Mason at the capture of Senegal from the French in 1758, and presented to the Episcopal Society on 1761. The peculiarly sweet-toned bell which calls the parishioners of St. John's together every Sabbath is, I believe, ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... churches. A royal injunction ordered the removal of the communion table, which for the last half-century or more had in almost every parish church stood in the middle of the nave, back to its pre-Reformation position in the chancel, and secured it from profanation by a rail. The removal implied, and was understood to imply, a recognition of the Real Presence, and a denial of the doctrine which Englishmen generally held about the Lord's Supper. But, strenuous as was the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... carrying Mrs. Dusautoy across the churchyard. This had the effect of making a pause, but Albinia saw the rector, a tall, powerful man, rather supporting than actually carrying, a little fragile form to the low-browed door leading into the chancel on the north side. The church was handsome, though in the late style, and a good deal misused by eighteenth-century taste; and Albinia was full of admiration as Mr. Kendal conducted her along ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... offerings with the niggard hand that is moved by the heart of this generation; unmoved, unwarmed, but boastful of its light—the light of a moonbeam playing on an iceberg! There is the long sweep of the nave, with the open chancel (not separated from the former by the richly carved and fretted screen, which, however beautiful in itself, mars the grand effect of the whole) leading to the altar—we are old-fashioned people, and fear ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... dressed in copes and surplices, came dancing the carmagnole even to the bar of the Convention. The bust of Marat was substituted for the statues of the martyrs of Christianity. A prostitute, seated on a chair of state in the chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, for the first time, those ancient Gothic arches had resounded with the accents of truth. The new unbelief was as intolerant as the old superstition. To show reverence for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sparing her spirits, and recollecting fortitude sufficient to bear her through the approaching scene. St. Aubert had given a particular injunction, that his remains should be interred in the church of the convent of St. Clair, and, in mentioning the north chancel, near the ancient tomb of the Villerois, had pointed out the exact spot, where he wished to be laid. The superior had granted this place for the interment, and thither, therefore, the sad procession ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... trousseau ought to be, and therefore about as satisfactory to a woman of taste as that floral silk costume of the garden-party; he engaged the organist, chose my bridesmaids—girls I detested—and finally assembled the guests. The groom was there at the chancel rail; Mr. Willard, whom he had selected to give me away, was waiting outside in the lobby, clad in his frock-coat, a flower in his button-hole, and his arm ready for the bride to lean on; the minister was behind the rail; the ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... fingers were covered with brown dust. Hastily seizing a broom which stood in the vestry-room, he swept the tobacco down the aisle and into a corner. The curious rattle he hid with the replaced broom, to be investigated later. Then he took his stand in the chancel, where Dr. Whitaker soon joined him, and through the open door the two clergymen watched their flock approach. Most of them were men, cavaliers as finely dressed, if their garments were somewhat faded, as though they were to sit in Westminster Abbey; ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... Easter Sunday, he met the Rev. Samuel Bishop in the vestry. The organist had already gone to his seat behind the chancel. The first preliminary notes of the voluntary—weak and uncertain, because the organ-blower had come late and as yet there was not sufficient wind in the bellows—were beginning to sound through the building. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... any religion will reveal its truth as regards the soul of a belief. We recognize the fact outwardly in the buildings erected to celebrate its worship. Not among the Jews alone was the holy of holies kept veiled, to temper the divine radiance to man's benighted understanding. Nor is the chancel-rail of Christianity the sole survivor of the more exclusive barriers of olden times, even in the Western world. In the Far East, where difficulty of access is deemed indispensable to dignity, the material approaches are still manifold and imposing. Court ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... it in fantastic map-like lines of mingled black and gray, so resembling Runic fret-work, that I had some difficulty in convincing myself that the tracery which it forms,—singularly appropriate to the architecture,—was not the effect of design. The choir and chancel of the edifice, which at the time of my visit were still employed as the parish church of Kirkwall, and had become a "world too wide" for the shrunken congregation, are more modern and ornate than the nave and transepts; and the round arch gives place, in at least their windows, to the pointed one. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... edifice figures, contracts at the top, and the chancel and transepts bubble out into rotundities and projections, in petty domes behind the church in order to accompany the grand dome which ascends above the choir, and which, the work of Brunnelleschi, newer and yet more antique than that of St. Peter, lifts in the air ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... ingenious device, Barton preserved a splendid representation of the twelve apostles in a chancel window. He arrived just at the moment that a drunken glazier had convinced the mob that they were made saints by the Babylonish harlot, and that therefore their similitudes, as popish rags, ought to be destroyed. After in vain endeavouring ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Levison, the head of the Berlin branch of the great European banking firm of Levison, had come over to act the part of father to his orphan niece, and stood near the chancel to give ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... to half a million) to the Queen. As there were no known relatives, the Queen felt able to accept this legacy; but she first increased the legacies to the executors from L100 to L1000 each, made provision for Mr Neild's servants and others who had claims on him, restored the chancel of North Marston Church, Bucks, where he was buried, and inserted a window there ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... present! The necessity of forswearing the practise of head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the spot where the church should be built, a permanent bilian chancel to which a nave could be added when the additional room was required. Twenty-five pounds from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was all the money then in hand to begin with; but very soon more was collected, and when I visited Banting in 1857 there was a lovely little ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... glare of the April sunshine into the cool, dark church was in itself a refreshment and a rest. Save an old woman or two, slowly and wearily moving from station to station and slowly and wearily at each station repeating her form of prayer, the church was deserted; and in the quiet corner near the chancel rail where Pancha knelt, far away from the mumbling old women, there was a perfect quiet, a holy peace. Her prayer was a little simple prayer: only that the good Saint Francis would keep Pepe safe from all harm, and that the contrabando might not be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... remonstrances, off he started. The keys were brought, the doors flung open, the body of the church thoroughly examined, but neither in nave, choir, or chancel could the slightest trace of the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... village of white houses with slate roofs, it contains about two thousand inhabitants, and is situated principally on the southern side of the Dee. At its western end it has an ancient bridge and a modest unpretending church nearly in its centre, in the chancel of which rest the mortal remains of an old bard called Gryffydd Hiraethog. From some of the houses on the southern side there is a noble view—Dinas Bran and its mighty hill forming the principal objects. The view from the northern ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... yet with so much of fear as kept them huddled to-day at the west end under the dark gallery. A space of empty pews divided them from Mrs. Wesley, standing solitary behind her daughter at the chancel step. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that though a truce had been made between Ludwig and Peter, yet the former chancellor of the kingdom did not stand upon the chancel with the other dignitaries of the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 1667, at Hempsted-Marshall House, which he had himself designed, the seat of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of the adjoining church. Portraits of Gerbier were painted by Dobson[2]—the picture was sold for L44 at the sale of Betterton the actor—and by Vandyke. The work by Vandyke also contained portraits of Gerbier's family, and was purchased in Holland by command of Frederick, Prince of Wales, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... In the chancel, upon the gospel side, is a finely-carved tomb, with recumbent figures of an armoured knight and richly-robed lady, whose slippered feet push against the effigy of a particularly alert, sharp-muzzled little ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet |
