fathers a language of gesture more powerful and
expressive than that of words. The Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, Ezechiel,
and others, nay Christ himself, spoke by action as well by the tongue.
God appointed in the old law innumerable ceremonies: Christ in the new
law of spirit and truth instituted sacred rites, or sanctified those
which previously existed: the early church imitated His blessed
example: and they have been faithfully preserved as a precious
inheritance till the present time. The very objection, that some of
them were borrowed from Jews or Pagans, is a proof of their primitive
antiquity: Christ or the church removed from them all profaneness or
superstition, and then adopted and sanctified them. (See Wiseman's
Letters to Poynder). If all parties unite in approbation of the
illumination of the cupola of S. Peter's, and of the fireworks of S.
Angelo, considered as outward demonstrations of the exultation of the
church at the resurrection of her Divine Spouse; we shall ever admire
also the expressions of christian feeling exhibited in the interior
of her temples, whether they consist in ceremonies or words; and on
this day emulating the transports of joy of the fervent and eloquent
pilgrim to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai, when shall unite our voices with
those of the angelic spirits in singing, _Alleluja_; "because Jesus
Christ, our Lord, who was delivered up for our sins, rose again for
our justification". Rome. IV, 24, 25.[139]

[Footnote 111: Anciently in some churches, as Thomassin has shewn (de
dierum Festorum celebratione lib. 2. c. 14), fire used to be struck
from a flint to light the church-lamps etc. every day and particularly
on Saturday, and the new fire was blessed; on holy Saturday however
this ceremony was performed with great solemnity; and in the 11th
century it was restricted to that day alone. At Rome in holy week
this practice was not originally confined to holy Saturday, but was
observed on the three days before caster: for the first _Ordo Romanus_
directs, that on holy _thursday_ fire should be struck from a flint
outside the church, and blessed. Amalarius also (4e Ordine Antiph.)
testifies that on good _friday_ "new fire was enkindled and reserved
till the nocturnal office". Leo IV however (A.D. 847) appears to have
first ordered that on Easter Eve "the old fire should be put out, and
new fire blessed and distributed among the people" (Homil. de cura
Pastorali). For Pope Zachary, about the year