Boy (Tj!?, ye'led, one born, Joel iii, 3 ; Zech. viii, 5 ; elsewhere usually "child;" "it'3, na'ar, a youth, Gen. x,xv, 27; elsewhere "lad," "young man," etc. See Child.
Boy Bishop, "the principal person in an extraor- dinary sacred frolic of the Middle Ages, and down to the period of the Reformation. On St. Nicholas's day, the 6th of December, the boys forming the choir in cathedral churches elected one of their number to the honor of bishop, and robes and episcopal symbols were provided for him, while the other boys, assuming the dress of priests, took possession of the church, and went through all the ecclesiastical ceremonies but that of mass. This strantre reversal of power lasted till Inno- cents' day, the. 28th of the same month. In Sarum, on the eve of that day, the boy went through a splen- did caricature of processions, chantings, and other fes-
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tive ceremonies. Dean Colet, in his statutes for St. 1 1845 he was compelled to abandon itinerancy. He Paul's School London, ordains that the boys should | then studied law, and was admitted to the bar of New come to St. Paul's Church and hear the ' divide' bish- Jersey; but as soon as his health would justify it he op's sermons and each of them present him with a pen- j returned to the ministry, laboring in a city minion in ny By a proclamation ofHenryVIII, 1542, this show Philadelphia from 1854 to 1856, when a haamorrhage was abolished ; but it was revived under Mary, and in j compelled him again to silence. He then became ed- 1556 the boy bishops still maintained some popularity, itor of a newspaper in Elk county, Pa., and was very The similar scenes in France were yet more extrava- useful in planting the Church in that region. When cant and often indecent. The Council of Paris, in the rebellion broke out in 1861, he enlisted a company 1212' interdicted the pastime, and the theological fac- ' and entered the army as captain. He served through ultyof the same city, in 1414, make loud complaints of the campaign in Virginia with great distinction, and the' continuance of the diversion. In Scotland similar rose to the rank of major. At the terrible battle of saturnalia also prevailed, as Scott has described in his Chattanooga, Oct. 29, 1863, his regiment held a post Abbot, connected with 'those jocular personages, the ; which was considered the key of the field against 6000 pope of fools, the boy bishop, and the abbot of unrea- [ of the enemy, and he was shot through the head.— Bon.' This custom is supposed to have given rise to j Christian Advocate, Dec, 1864.
the ceremony of the Montem at Eton. Bishop Hall, in J Boyle. Robert, one of the most eminent philoso- liis Triumphs of Rome, says, 'What merry work it was | phers and Christians of modern times, was the seventh here in the days of our holy fathers (and I know not I son and fourteenth child of.the " Great Earl of Cork," whether, in some places, it may not be so still), that j and was born at his father's seat, Lismore Castle, in upon St. Nicholas, St. Catharine, St. Clement, and j the province of Munster, Ireland, January 26, 1626. Holy Innocents' day, children were wont to be arrayed I After studying for four years at Eton, and subsequent- in chimers, rochet's, surplices, to counterfeit bishops j ly at Geneva, he travelled over various parts of the and priests, and to be led, with songs and dances, from | Continent, and finally settled in England, and devoted house to house, blessing the people, who stood grinning himself to science, especially to natural philosophy and in the way to expect tliat ridiculous benediction. Yea, 1 to chemistry. After the accession of Charles II, in t'.iat boys in that holy sport were wont to sing masses, 1 1660, he was urged to enter the Church, but he de
and to climb into the pulpit to preach (no doubt learn- edly and edifyintrly) to the simple auditory." — Eadie, Ec'cles. Cyclopaedia, s. v. See Mysteries.
Boyd, Robert, a Scotch divine, was born in 1578, and studied at the University of Edinburgh. Passing over to France, he was made professor at the Protestant Seminary of Montauban, and in 1608 professor at San
clined on the ground that he had no divine call to the ministry. He was one of the first members of the Royal Society, but he declined the office of provost of Eton College. "In 1666 his name appears as attest- ing the miraculous cures (as they were called by many) of Valentine Greatraks, an Irishman, who, by a sort of animal magnetism, made his own hands the
Returning to Scotland, he became professor of to«lium of giving many patients almost instantaneous
theology at Glasgow 1615, and died in 1627. He wrote la Epist. ad K]>hes. Prwlectiones (London, 1652, fol.). — Allibone, Dictionary of Authors, r, 231 ; Darling, Cyclo- paedia Bibliographica, i, 403.
Boyd, Zachary, a Scotch divine, was born early in the 17th century, studied theology, was appointed minister of the Barony parish, and professor in Glas- gow College in 1623. He distinguished himself as an opponent both of Prelacy and Independency. During Cromwell's invasion of 1650, when the ministers, mag- istrates, and other officials fled in consternation from Glasgow, Boyd alone had the courage to continue at his post, and preaching as usual, to use the words of Baillie, "he railed at Cromwell and his men to their very faces in the High Church, who," adds the his- torian, "took it all in very good humor." Boyd pos- sessed some poetical gifts, and being desirous to em- ploy them in the service of the Church, he had pre- pared a metrical version of the whole Book of Psalms, which was examined by order of the General Assem- bly, and found unfit for publication. Notwithstanding this great disappointment, Mr. Boyd persevered in ren- dering the whole Bible into a sort of metrical version, a copy of which, in manuscript, is deposited in the li- brary of Glasgow College. It is a great curiosity in its way, full of grotesque images and rhymes. Mr. Boyd wrote many devotional works, among them The /,,.</ Battle of the Soul in Death, in Eir/M Conferences ( 1629, 2 vol-). During the troubles in Scotland in the 17th century Mr. Boyd went over to France, where, having been appointed professor in one of the colleges, ded for sixteen years. He died in 1654, leaving some valuable bequests to the College, of Glasgow, with which he was long connected. — Jamieson, Cyclop. ofRelig Biography, b. v.