VOUSSOIRS, the individual stones forming an arch, and of which the central one is the keystone. They arc always of a truncated wedge-form.
VOW (Fr. neu, from Lat. t'otum), a promise made to God of a certain thing or action good in itself, and within the dominion and right of the person promising, The practice of vows appears to have formed part of the religious observance of almost all races in any degree civilized; and it largely pervaded the whole ceremonial system of the llnsuic dispensation (Gen. xxviii. 20, hey. xxvii. 2, I. Chron. [I Paralip. Vulg.] xxix. 9, 2 Chron. xxxi. 6, Judges xi. 30, Num. xxx. 2, Judith xvi. 19, Jon. i. 16). The stringency of the. obligation of fulfilling a vow when once made, is distinctly laid down (Dent. xxiii. 21; Eccles. v. 4, 5); but it is equally clearly stated, that it is by no means a matter of obli gation to make a vow (Dent, xxiii. 22). The practice of making vows continued among the Jews in the time of our Lord ; and St. Paul, after his conversion to Christianity, con tinued to conform to this usage (Acts xviii. 18). It would be out of place to enter here into the question, whether this observance was meant by our Lord to form part of his new dispensation, or to discuss how far the practice of vows, especially of chastity, can be traced as in use among the Christians of the 1st and 2d c.; but it appears quite clear that in the end of the 3d, and all through the 4th, the monastic life became general in the cast, and soon afterward spread all over the church. See ANTONY, PAUL, MONACIIIS31. It is unnecessary to add, that vows, while discarded as a religious observance by the Reformers, enter largely into the system of the Roman Catholic church. The objects of these engagements among Catholics are very various; bat they arc drawn, for the most part, from what are called the evangelical "counsels," in contradistinction to "precepts" or "commands"—the most ordinary subject of vows being the so-called " evangelical " virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Pilgrimages, however, acts of abstinence,
or other self-mortifications, whether of the body or of the will, special prayers or religious exercises, are frequently made the object of vows; and there is another large class of more material objects, as the building of churches, monasteries, hospitals, and other works of public interest or utility, to which medival Europe was indebted for many of its most magnificent memorials of piety and of art. Vows in the Roman church law are either "simple" or "solemn." The principal difference between them consists in the legal effects of the "solemn" vow, which, where the subject of such vow is chastity, renders not merely unlawful, but null void, a marriage subsequently contracted. A "simple" vow of chastity makes it unlawful to marry, but, except in the Jesuit society, does not invalidate a marriage, if subsequently contracted. Catholics acknowledge in the church a power of dispensing in vows; but this is held to be rather declaratory than remissory, and it is not acknowledged in the case of vows which involve any right of a third party. Bishops are held to possess the power of dispensing in simple vows gen erally; but the power of dispensing in solemn vows and in certain simple vows, as, for example, that of absolute and perpetual chastity, and of the greater pilgrimages, is reserved to the pope. The practical operation of the canon law regarding vows has evidently been much modified, even in Catholic countries, since the French revolution, and the subsequent political changes; but this must be understood to regard chiefly their external and purely juridcial effects. So far as concerns their spiritual obligation, the modern Roman theology recognizes little if any change.—See Ferraris, Bibliotheca Canonica; Andre, Cours de Droit Conon; Welter and Wetse's Eirchen-Lexicon.