Ultramontane, meaning "beyond the mountains," originally referred to the Alps - namely, in relation to France. Later it had reference to that party in the Church of Rome which assigns the greatest weight to the papal prerogative. Italians of course use the word in a converse geographical sense for people beyond the Alps, and so in the north of Europe.

Korân (Arab., from karaa, "to read"), The Reading, by way of eminence; a term first applied to every single portion of Mahommed's "Revelations," used at a later period for a greater number of these, and finally for their whole body, gathered together into the one book which forms the religious, social, civil, commercial, military, and legal code of Islam.

American pioneers were God-fearing and Bible-loving. They staked out town lots in twenty-two Bethels, ten Jordans, nine Jerichos, fourteen Bethlehems, twenty-two Goshens, twenty-one Shilohs, eleven Carmels, eighteen Tabors and Mount Tabors, twenty-two Zions and Mount Zions, twenty-six Edens, thirty Lebanons, twenty-six Hebrews and thirty-six Sharons.

Secularism is the name given to the principles advocated (about 1846) by George Jacob Holyoake, a native of Birmingham. The central idea of Secularism is freedom of thought, and freedom of action without injury to others. It is the religion of the present life only, and its standard of morals is utilitarian. Mr. G. J. Holyoake was succeeded in the leadership of English secularists by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, who died in 1891.

The secular clergy are the clergy generally who live in private houses. Nearly all archbishops, bishops, deans, canons and parochial clergymen are seculars, in contradistinction to the regulars, who, having vowed obedience, chastity and poverty, live in some religious house, dead to the world and the " civil law " by their "entrance into religion." Called " regulars" because they live under the regula or rule of some religious house.

Hades, in the religion of ancient Greece, was the name applied to the kingdom of the under-world, the abode of the departed spirits or shades. Hades and Pluto are also personal names for its king. It is the Greek word by which the Septuagint translates the Hebrew sheol, the abode of the dead, in which sense it occurs frequently in the New Testament.

The devotional term litany applies to a form of prayer in which the same thing is repeated several times at no long intervals. Hence in Latin the word is always used in the plural, litanice. The common formula, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison - "Lord, have mercy upon us - Christ, have mercy upon us - Lord, have mercy upon us"- is the simplest ("lesser") litany.

The English church assembly termed Convocation, is recorded to have met under the king's writ in 1294. Its power was limited by Henry VIII., and further in 1716. Since 1854 its proceedings have been formal, though it was authorized to deliberate on alterations of the Liturgy in 1872. Convocation is now a deliberative council of representative Churchmen, but has no official authority.

In the ceremony of the greater excommunication by the Catholic Church, since the eighth century, after reading the sentence a bell is rung, the book closed, and a candle extinguished; and from that moment the person excommunicated is excluded from the communion of the faithful, from public worship, and the sacraments. Hence comes the expression "bell, book and candle."

Camp-meetings are gatherings of devout persons, held usually in thinly populated districts, and continued for several days at a time. It was in connection with Methodism in America that such meetings became especially prominent. The introduction of the protracted camp meetings into England in 1799 by Lorenzo Dow, led to the separation of the Primitive Methodists from the Wesleyans.

Humanitarians is a name assigned to anti-Trinitarians, who regard Christ as a mere man, and refuse to ascribe to him any supernatural character, whether of origin or of nature. The name Humanitarian is also sometimes applied to the disciples of St. Simon, and in general to those who look to the perfectibility of human nature as a great moral and social dogma; also to those who, from over-philanthropy, object to severe measures, such as capital punishment, etc.

The Temple Society is a body of German Christians who wait for the second coming of Christ. They separated from the Church in Wurtem-berg and formed a separate sect; and many of them settled in Palestine in 1868, where they now have colonies at Haifa, Jaffa, Sarona and near Jerusalem. They are distinguished for industry, enterprise and success. There may be about five thousand in all of the community, of whom about thirteen hundred are in Palestine.

The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, made from the Massoretic text at Alexandria. Tradition says that it was executed in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-47 B. C.), by seventy-two translators in 72 days; but critics hold that it is the work of different times. The Septuagint was the official Bible of the Hellenistic Jews until after the destruction of the Temple, and it became the official Bible of the Catholic Church. Most of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are taken from the Septuagint.

Mephistopheles is the name of one of the best-known personifications of the principle of evil. The word has been very variously explained, but is probably of Hebrew origin, like most names of devils in the history of magic, confounded with, and approximated in form to, the Greek mephostophiles, "one who loves not light." Mephistopheles owes all his modern vitality to Goethe's "Faust."

The Mojaves believe that all who die and are not cremated are turned into owls, and when they hear the dismal screech of one of the above named creatures of the night, they tell you that it is the spirit of some dead Mojave who has returned to advise his people to submit to the ordeal of fire. When one of the tribe dies his relations and immediate friends do not eat salt or wash themselves for four days.