performance of all those parts of a prose liturgy which mass was the creation of God ; while the latter speaks
are permitted to be sung or recited in a musical tone, of it as the already existing materials out of which he
In a wider sense, it is used to denote those forms of formed the world, or even as itself the cause and author
sacred music in which prose (e. g. passages of Scrip- of all things. Most interpreters, who have been igno-
tare) is sung in simple harmonies. See Music. rant of geological phenomena, have at once decided that
Chantry (old French chanterie, from chanter, to the chaos ofwhich Moses speaks was the form in which
CHAPEL
20»
CHAPIN
mstter wb fint created. Some have eren declared thftt there cannot have been any each interval as we have spoken of (Prot Stoart, in Bib, Rq)o$. No. xxi, Jan. 1836). Bat, on the other liand, the world gives mtiinatlons, in the rocks which compose its crust, of Tirioiis and long-continued changes both of condition and of inhabitants. Hence we conclude : (1) that the world baa existed daring some long period before the Mosaic record of creation in six days ; (2) that daring that period it was the abode of animals differing in or- ganization and structure from those now found on its sur&ce ; and (3) tliat it has been exposed to various convulsions and reorganizations, more or less generaL A favorite mode of explaining the Mosaic account, a few years back, was to take tiie six days of creation for unlimited periods, during which the changes we are speaking of took place. This ground has, how- ever, been almost completely abandoned, both because the account, so understood, does not agree with the physical phenomena, and because such an interprets^ tion Is, to say the least, hardly admissible on exegeti- cal principles. The first sentence of the inspired rec- ord may liierefore be regarded as the majestic declara- tion of a fiict, which the world had lost sight of, but which it deeply concerned men to know. What oc- curred subsequently, untU the earth was to be ftimisli- ed for the abode of man, is to be gathered, not from the written word, but from the memorials, engraven on the tablets of the world itself. The succeeding verse of the Mosaic account then relates to a state of chaos, or conAisioQ, into which the world was thrown immedi- ately before the last reorganization of it Nor is such a chaos opposed to geological phenomena, which plain- ly tell of * critical periods' and of 'revolutions of or- ganic life* (Phillips's Geology, in Cab. Cyclop, ii, 264). Whether the chaos of which we are now speaking was aniversal, or was confined to those regions which formed the cradle of the human race, is a distinct qoestion. The latter supposition has beien adopted by Dr. Pye Smith, in his lectures On the RelaHon between the k^ 8cripture$ and some Part» of Geological Science, To these lectures, as well as to the articles by Prof. Hitchcock, in the Biblieal Sepontoty (Nos. 17, 18, 20, and 22), and to various papers which have appeared at diflferent times in the Christian Obterver, the reader is referred for a friUer discussion of this and kindred questions" (Kitto, Cychp. s. v.). The difficulty ad- vanoed by some that geology (q. v.) gives no intima- tion of any such total break in the chain of organized beings as is implied in a chaotic condition of the globe just prior to man's introduction upon it, is hardly con- sistent with ^nth ; fbr although the roclcy tablets of the earth's crust do indeed exhibit a continued series of organized life, yet they also record great changes of species, and even wholesale demolitions of imperfect ofders, not now extant, while they contain few, if any, specimens identifiable with those that inhabit tiie pres- ent surface of our planet. See also Hitchcock's JUHg- im of Geology (Boston, 1856). See Creation.
Chapel (ttJ^JJPt »wWaaft', hofy place), a general name for a tanctuary (as it is elsewhere rendered) or place of worship, occurs in Amos vii, 18, where Bethel is called "the king's chapel" by one of the idol priests, because there the kings of Israel paid idolatrous wor- ship to the golden calves. In 1 Mace, i, 47, the Greek wQtd is f i?wXf lov, and in 2 Mace, x, 2 ; xi, 3, rifuvoe ; both used in a similar sense.
Chapel (Lat. capeUa, a little cloak or hood). The kings of France are said to have preserved a piece of the cloak of St. Martin in a little church, and to have taken it with them to the field of battle. The tent or church containing this capeila hence received its name. The term was afterward applied to all small churches, ^ especially to the side rooms or chapels added to the ^ usles of a church, and which were separately ded- icated, usually to the service of some saint. Before II.— O
the Beformatkm nearly all castles, manin^honsee, conrt- houses, aqd religious or charitable establishments had such chapels. These had not the right of sepulture, nor of sacramental services.
The term chapel was also sometimes applied to the sets of vessels or the vestments necessary for the cel- ebration of the church services. It is also sometimes applied to a choir of singers ; also to a printer's work- house, or a body of printers, because printing in Eng- land was first carried on in a chapel of Westminster Abbey.