COPTS 331 convent of St. Anthony, near the gulf of Suez. The mode of election is as follows : A list is made out of 100 monks who are believed to be fit for the office of patriarch. Out of this num- ber 50 are elected by a majority of votes; this number is then by vote reduced to 25, subse- quently to 10, and at last to 3, one of whom is chosen by lot. He must continue unmarried and conform to his monastic customs of dress and diet and sleep. He appoints the abuna or head of the Abyssinian church as his suffragan. The bishops are 13 in number, and like the pa- triarch wear the broad round turban and are celibates. It is customary to choose them from the convents, though the canons of the church do not always require this. The youngest among the dioceses are that of Esne, an im- portant place for the Abyssinian trade, estab- lished in the 18th century, and that of Khar- toom, which embraces all Nubia, and was es- tablished in 1835. Below the bishops are the archpriests, who are sometimes at the head of the convents, and sometimes are chosen directly from the order of the priesthood. Their functions correspond to those of arch- deacons in the English church. Next to these are the priests, who may be married, provided the marriage has taken place before their or- dination. After that they are not allowed to marry ; nor can any one be ordained a priest who has had more than one wife, or has mar- ried a widow. The priest wears a turban of peculiar shape, narrow in the rim and flattened at the top. He is not compelled to abstain from secular labors, but may earn money by a trade or a profession. The same rules apply to the shemma, or deacon, who is only an incip- ient priest. Both priest and deacon receive ordination from the hands of the bishop, or, if they live in Cairo, from the patriarch. In reality most of them, especially in Lower Egypt, are unmarried, their ranks being chief- ly recruited from the convents. The Coptic convents were once very numerous, 336, ac- cording to the legend. They were distributed through the desert of Nitria, the Thebaid, the shores of the Eed sea, Nubia, and along the Nile. The sexes were separate, and nunneries were as common in Egypt as in Italy or Spain. At present their number is greatly reduced. Of monasteries proper, in which only men are admitted, there are but seven, those of St. An- thony and St. Paul in the eastern desert, four in the desert of Nitria, and one at Mount Kos- kam in Upper Egypt. In these the monastic rule is rigidly observed, and the old customs are kept in their integrity. In Cairo there are three convents ; in Fostat or Old Cairo, and in Alexandria, two each; two in the Fayoom, where once there were 30 or more ; and one in Abu Honnes, Mellawi, Ekhmin, Girgeh, Negaddeh, and other towns along the river. The best known to travellers is the Deyr el- Adra, or convent of the Virgin, which crowns the summit of a precipitous rock, the Jebel et-Tari, on the E. bank of the Nile. The white and red monasteries near Soohag are also fre- quently visited on account of the remarkable architecture of their churches. In the neigh- borhood of Abydos there is also an impor- tant convent. But in all these establishments the monks have lapsed into secular habits, the fasts are much neglected, women live with the men, and the convent is only a Chris- tian village of greater or less extent. In the regular monasteries, such as those of Nitria and of St. Anthony and St. Paul, hard and long probation is required before initiation, and the discipline is severe. The dress is a simple shirt of coarse woollen fabric. The badge of the class is a dark blue strip of cloth, which is suspended from the turban below the back of the neck. Only on feast days is animal food allowed, and then in small quantities ; the or- dinary food of the brethren is black bread and lentils, and on fast days they are deprived even of this meagre fare. The convents, when not situated on some inaccessible rock, are sur- rounded by a high and strong wall, which has only a single iron door, and in some cases is wholly without opening, the means of entrance being a pulley from the top. In the neighbor- hood of these convents are the ruins of many others. Baptism, a rite to which the Copts attach great importance, is performed by dip- ping the child three times into water which has received a few drops of consecrated oil. An unbaptized child will be blind in the next world. The rite ought to be administered to a male infant 40, and to a female 80 days after birth. It secures regeneration. Next to bap- tism is circumcision, which is performed upon boys at the age of seven years, though without any special religious ceremonies. It is more scrupulously attended to at Negaddeh than at Cairo. The Copts are as careful to observe their seasons of daily prayer as the better class of Moslems. Seven times a day they perform their lustrations, turn to the east, recite their Pater nosier, and beg in 41 repetitions for the Lord's mercy. Their rosary contains 41 beads. Many of them go over in these seven daily ex- ercises the whole of the Psalms. The public religious service is excessively long, lasting at least three hours before the consecrated cakes, stamped with the sign of the cross and the pious inscription, can be distributed to the people. It is accompanied by monotonous chantings, abundant burning of incense, pro- cessions of the host around the church, and the noisy beating of cymbals at intervals. Like all orientals, the Copts decorate their houses of prayer with ornaments of ostrich eggs, rude inscriptions, and pictures of their favorite saints. Chief among these are the fighting St. George, and the hermits Anthony and Paul and Macarius, the last of whom is the especial protector of the Nitrian convents. The form of the churches and the general style of Coptic architecture is that of the Greek basilica ; none of their churches are cruciform. In many instances ancient heathen temples
