Perpent-Stone (Fr. Perpeifjne'), an architectural term, designates a large stone reaching through a wall so as to appear on both sides of it; the same as what is now usually called a bonder, bond-stone, or through, ex- cept that these are often used in rough -walling, while the term perpent- stone appears to have been applied to squared stones, or ashlar; bonders also do not al- ways reach through a wall. The term is still used in some districts; in Gloucestershire, ashlar thick enough to reach entirely through a wall, and show a fair face on both sides, is called Parping ashlar. This name may perhaps also have been sometimes given to a cor- bel. The term Perpent-icall would signify a wall built of perpent ashlar. Also a pier, buttress, or other sup- port projecting from a wall to sustain a beam, roof, etc. In Lincoln Cathedral the dwarf walls separating the chapels in the transepts are also called perpeyn-wall.s, although actually they do not sustain a roof. — Parker,
Perpeyn-wall, Liucohi Ciithedral.
PERPETUA
956 PERPETUAL VIRGINITY
Glossar;/ of Architecture, s. v.; see also 'Walcott, Saa-ed A rclia-i.il(iii>/. s. \-.
Perpetua, St., a Christian martyr who suffered at Carthage, under the persecution of Severus, at the beginning of the 3d century. She was a lady of high raniv, and at the time when she was accused about twenty-two years of age. In her martyrdom she af- forded an illustrious example of Christian fortitude. She was married, and had an infant son ; she was the favorite child of a pagan father, who importuned her to turn from the Christian faitii, and to whom her con- stancy appeared but absurd obstinacy ; ever}' entreaty, every threat was emploj-ed ; she encountered the ter- rors of a crowded court, in which certain conviction awaited her ; she was scourged and imprisoned ; the tenderest feelings of hlial and maternal love were ap- pealed to; but in vain. "God's will must be done," was her language, and she remained immovable. Nor was she less firm in the final scene, when in a crowded amphitheatre, together with Felicitas, she was thrown to a mad or wild cow. By this attack she was stunned ; but the fatal stroke was left, in the spoliariura- — a place where the wounded were despatched — to an un- skilful gladiator, whose trembling hand she herself, with a martyr's courage, guided to her throat. Feli- citas suffered with her. One scene from her life rep- resented in modern art is her farewell to her infant child. There are, however, many incidents in her story which would be most interesting subjects for the artist, that as yet remain without representation. In her pictures a cow stands by her side or near her. She is commemorated in the Roman Catholic Church March 7. See Butler, Lives of the Saints ; Hagenbach, Kirchengesch. der ersten drei Juhrliunderte, ch. xii ; Al- zog, Kirchengesch. i, 139 ; Fox, Book of Martyrs, p. 23 ; Bohringer, Kirchengesch. i, 43; Ruinart, in the Act. Mai'tyr. and the Act. SS. of the Bollandists; Schaff, Church Hist. vol. i ; Jortin, Remarks, i, 352. (J. H. W.)
Perpetual Curate, a title of the incumbent of a church, chapel, or district, which is within the boun- daries of a rectorj' or vicarage.
Perpetual Cure, a form of ecclesiastical benefice which grew out of the abuse of lay impropriation (q. v.), the impropriator appointing a clergyman to discharge the spiritual functions of which he himself was not capable. The substituted clergyman, in or- dinary cases, is appointed bj' the bishop, and called a vicar; the impropriator appoints the clergyman who is called a perpetual curate. The perpetual curate enters on his office without induction or institution, and requires onlj- the bishop's license. Perpetual cures are also created bj' the erection and endowment of a chapel subject to the principal church of a parish. Such cures, however, are not benefices unless endowed out of the fund called Queen Anne's Bounty. Churches so endowed are, by 2 and 3 Vict. c. 49, recognised as benefices. The district churches which have been erected under several recent acts are made perpetual cures, and their incumbents are corporations.
Perpetual "Virginity of Marv the mother of Christ is a doctrine lield by some branches of the Christian Church. As the being who was conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary was of divine origin, and as her virginity had been maintained for the purpose of that miraculous conception, it is thought to be unreasonable and irreverent to imagine that chil- dren conceived in sin were afterwards teinints of that sacred tabernacle. The Church fathers were the first to affirm that the mother of Jesus the Christ was not only a virgin at the time he was born but ever after- wards, and this belief was not called in question in the first ages. A denial of the virginit}' of the Blessed Vir- gin Mary at the time of her conception had indeed been made by the Corinthians and Ebionites, who, in the 1st and 2d centuries, asserted that Jesus was the son of Jo- seph and Marj' by natural generation ; but no doubt of