Wedding Ceremonies

The nsage by which the priest, joinj'ng the hands of the man and woman eriter tlieir conseut to the marriage, with such words as "Et ego vos conJango, " etc, laid the ends of his stole npon the hands so joined is ancient, but was not uuiversally followed. It is ornered in some early Roman sacerdotalia, but disappeared from the Roman ritual at or before the revisión of Paul V. It was, however, retained in the local oooks of maiiy continental dioceses. At Liege the hands were bound together with the ends of the stole, and the practice was very possibly the same elsewhere, though I caunot at this moment give another instance of this particular detail. But it would seem that the usage was not followed in England. I am aot aware of any trace of it in any aneient EugJish service book. Indeed the ceremony with which it is connected is absent from most Euglish books, probably because in the Euglish forms of the service the joining of hands took place at the time when the man and woman gave their troth to one another. The iater joining of their hands by the priest after the delivery of the ring was introduced into England in 1549. It is a ceremony analogous to but distinct from that with which the action with the stole is sometimes conjoined. Henee it would appear that the use of that action in the marriage service of the Church of England is of the nature of innovation rather than of restoration, and that the innovation is founded on a