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Bredimaco Angularus Directory 04
Page 10
The Pilgrims who settled New England were Independents, peculiar in their ecclesiastical tenet that the single congregation of godly persons, however few or humble, regularly organized for Christ's work, is of right, by divine appointment, the highest ecclesiastical authority on earth. A church of this order existed in London by 1568; another, possibly more than one, the "Brownists," by 1580. Barrowe and Greenwood began a third in 1588, which, its founders being executed, went exiled to Amsterdam in 1593, subsequently uniting with the Presbyterians there. These churches, though independent, were not strictly democratic, like those next to be named.
The matrimonial stone was interesting enough. It was a double vessel carved out of a solid stone, a perforation being made in the partition between the two vessels. It seems, when marriages were performed, that the Incas placed a red liquid in one vessel and some water in the other, the perforation in the central partition being stopped up until the ceremony took place, when the liquids were allowed to mingle in emblem of the union of the two lives. Curious, too, was the pipe-like arrangement, called the _kenko_, ornamented with a carved jaguar head, also used at their marriage ceremonies.
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