RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Holy Fire
Holy Roman Empire
Stuttgart, 1884; G. Brune, Hist, de I'ordre hospitaller du S. Esprit, Paris, 1892; C. de Smedt, L'Ordre hospitaller du Saint-Esprit, in Revue des questions historiques, lix (1893), 216 sqq.; Helyot, Ordres monastiques, i., xlvi., ii 195-221; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, ii. 31-33; KL, ii. 1832-33.
On II.: J. B. Pitra, Vie du Pere Libermann, Paris, 1882; W. Holmes, Der ehrwurdige Diener Gottes F. M. P. Libermann, Munster, 1894; Helyot, ut sup.', ii. 308-309; Heimbucher, ut sup., iii. 477 sqq., 515-516, 520, 551-552, 575; KL, v. 218-227; Currier, Religious Orders, pp. 525-529.
On III.: Ersch and Gruber, Encyklopadie, lvi. 263-285 (contains list of the older literature); Helyot, Germ, ed., viii 471 sqq.; KL, v. 218; L. H. Martin, Hist, de la France, ix. 473-475, 17 vols., Paris, 1855-60.
HOLY GHOST AND US SOCIETY: A sect founded in 1893 by the Rev. Frank W. Sandford, having central headquarters at Durham, Me. The immediate neighborhood is named Shiloh, where a vast frame building houses the community. The front towers are used as watch- and prayer-towers; and dormitories, Bible-school rooms, a dining-room, etc., occupy the remainder of the structure. The founder of the sect was born in 1862 in Bowdoin, Me., was educated at Bates College and Cobb Divinity School, Lewiston, Me. He was pastor of Free Baptist churches in Great Falls, N. H., and Topsham, Me., having but moderate success in these fields. In 1893, at a convention of his denomination held at Ocean Beach, Me., Sandford announced that he had received certain divine revelations, the chief purport of which was that he was commanded to preach the Gospel to all the world before the " coming of the end." The structure at Shiloh was projected by reason of an alleged vision commanding him to " arise and build." He preached absolute community of goods, requiring those who should form the community to turn in all their earthly possessions. Of the business he took entire charge, every legal title being in his own name.
The local community numbers about 300, though it was at first larger. Of these the majority are women and children. Proselyting stations have been established at various points, but have not flourished. Camp-meetings are held on the coast islands of Maine every summer, and bands of the sect, led by Sandford, have made tours of the world on vessels owned by the community. Several actions, civil and criminal, have been undertaken against Sandford by the local authorities, for cruelty, disregard to health laws, and other causes.
The beliefs of the sect are strongly chiliastic. A great catastrophe of fire, falling mountains, and other cosmic judgments soon to destroy the earth and its inhabitants comprise much of the preaching. Sandford claims to be Elijah, preaching in preparation for this judgment. There is insistence on baptism by immersion as prerequisite to salvation, and no prior baptism is accepted as valid. The Apocalypse, Daniel, and the judgment pictures in the Synoptic Gospels are interpreted literally. Great emotional excitement pervades the meetings. Miraculous healings are affirmed, credence in which has not been shaken with the community by an epidemic of smallpox, including several fatal cases, that prevailed there in 1903. The sect is apparently waning. W. C. Stiles.
HOLY OFFICE, CONGREGATION OF THE: The
department of the papal government which is charged with the direction of the Inquisition (q.v.). It was established by Paul III. in 1542, and has among its officers twelve cardinals, a commissary, and a number of theologians and canonists who act in an advisory capacity. The pope is ex officio prefect of the congregation, and on solemn occasions he may preside in person.
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE : The designation of the German-Italian empire established by Otto I., the Saxon king, who was crowned in Rome by Pope John XII. Feb. 2, 962. The " Holy Roman Empire " was at the best an ideal rather than an accomplished fact. The Roman em- Origin pire, by reason of its almost worldand wide dominion and its tendency under Name. the better rulers to promote universal peace and well-being, had made a great and lasting impression upon the Teutonic peoples, and it was natural that, when the seat of empire had been transferred to the East and when at last the empire had lost its grip upon the great and rapidly developing West, the first western ruler whose dominion seemed to justify imperial pretensions should seek to revive the title of Emperor of the Romans. At the close of the eighth century the authority of the Eastern Empire in Italy had reached the vanishing-point. The Frankish predecessors of Charlemagne from Clovis onward had professed the Catholic faith and had cooperated with the bishops of Rome in extending the dominion of the papal church so as to be conterminous with Frankish conquest as the most effective means of civilizing barbarian peoples and reconciling them to Frankish rule. The Lombards held a large part of Italy and imperilled the autonomy of the Church and its authority over what was claimed as the donation of Constantine or the patrimony of Peter (see Papal States). Charlemagne (q.v.) protected the Roman See against Lombard aggression, received the imperial crown at the hands of the pope, and completed with the Roman See an offensive and defensive alliance; and, while he committed himself to the protection of the Roman Catholic Church and the promotion of its interests throughout his vast domain to the exclusion of all other forms of religion, he entertained no thought of surrendering any part of his monarchical authority, and to the last legislated as freely in ecclesiastical as in civil matters and required obedience from ecclesiastical no less than from civil functionaries. The empire of Charlemagne came nearer to the realization of the idea of a Holy Roman Empire than did any subsequent imperial administration. The origin of the name is obscure. It is found in no early documents. A certain sanctity was attached to the old Roman empire whose head was the recipient of divine honors. That it should be applied to the dominion of a Christian sovereign who aspired to universal civil dominion and who professed an earnest desire to bring about the universal acceptance of the religion of Christ might have been expected.
It is not probable that the idea of the Holy Ro-
Holy Roman Empire Holy Sepulcher