BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE. The excommunication by. B., B., and C. is a solemnity belonging to the church of Home. The officiating, minister pronounces the formula of excommunication, consisting of maledictions on the head of the person anathematized, and closes the pronouncing of the sentence by shutting the book from which it is read, taking a lighted candle and casting it to the ground, and tolling the bell as for the dead. This mode of excommunication appears to have existed in the western churches as early as the 8th century. Its symbolism may be explained by quoting two or three sentences from the conclusion of the form of excommunication used in the Scottish church before the reformation: " Cursed be they from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. Out be they taken of the book of life. And as this candle is cast from the sight of Men, so be their souls cast from the Sight of God into the deepest pit of hell. Amen." The
rubric adds: "And then the candle being dashed on the ground and quenched, let the bell be ping." So, also, the sentence of excommunication against the murderers of the archbishop of Dublin in 1534: "And to the terror and fear of the said damnable persons, in sign and figure that they be accursed of God, and their bodies committed into the hands of Satan, we have rung these bells, erected this cross with the figure of Christ; and as ye see this candle's light taken from the cross and the light quenched, so be the said cursed murderers excluded from the light of heaven, the fellowship of angels, and all Christian people, and sent to the low darkness of /lends and damned creatures, among, whom everlasting pains do endure."