tion, which ended in his entering a convent and becoming a monk. A short experience convinced him that this was not for him the ideal Christian life ("amisi monachum, inveni Christianum "), and in February 1522 he made his way to Ebernburg, near Creuznach, where he acted as chaplain to the little group of men holding the new opinions who had settled there under the leadership of Franz von Sickingen.

The second period of Oecolampadius's life opens with his return to Basel in November 1522, as vicar of St Martin's and (in 1523) reader of the Holy Scripture at the university. Lecturing on Isaiah he condemned current ecclesiastical abuses, and in a public disputation (20th of August 1523) was so successful that Erasmus writing to Zürich said "Oecolampadius has the upper hand amongst us." He became Zwingli's best helper, and after more than a year of earnest preaching and four public disputations in which the popular verdict had been given in favour of Oecolampadius and his friends, the authorities of Basel began to see the necessity of some reformation. They began with the convents, and Oecolampadius was able to refrain in public worship on certain festival days from some practices he believed to be superstitious. Basel was slow to accept the Reformation; the news of the Peasants' War and the inroads of Anabaptists prevented progress; but at last, in 1525, it seemed as if the authorities were resolved to listen to schemes for restoring the purity of worship and teaching. In the midst of these hopes and difficulties Oecolampadius married, in the beginning of 1528, Wilibrandis Rosenblatt, the widow of Ludwig Keller, who proved to be non rixosa vel garrula vel vaga, he says, and made him a good wife. After his death she married Capito, and, when Capito died, Bucer. She died in 1564. In January 1528 Oecolampadius and Zwingli took part in the disputation at Berne which led to the adoption of the new faith in that canton, and in the following year to the discontinuance of the mass at Basel. The Anabaptists claimed Oecolampadius for their views, but in a disputation with them he dissociated himself from most of their positions. He died on the 24th of November 1531.

Occolampadius was not a great theologian, like Luther, Zwingli or Calvin, and yet he was a trusted theological leader. With Zwingli he represented the Swiss views at the unfortunate conference at Marburg. His views on the Eucharist upheld the metaphorical against the literal interpretation of the word "body," but he asserted that believers partook of the sacrament more for the sake of others than for their own, though later he emphasized it as a means of grace for the Christian life. To Luther's doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body he opposed that of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit in the church. He did not minutely analyse the doctrine of predestination as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli did, contenting himself with the summary" Our Salvation is of God, our perdition of ourselves." See J. J. Herzog, Leben Joh. Oecolampads u. die Reformation der Kirche zu Basel (1843); K. R. Hagenbach, Johann Oecolampad u. Oswald Myconius, die Reformatoren Basels (1859). For other literature see W. Hadorn's art. in Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopädie fur prot. Rel. u. Kirche.

OECUS, the Latinized form of Gr. oikos, house, used by Vitruvius for the principal hall or saloon in a Roman house, which was used occasionally as a triclinium for banquets. When of great size it became necessary to support its ceiling with columns; thus, according to Vitruvius, the tetrastyle oecus had four columns; in the Corinthian oecus there was a row of columns on each side, virtually therefore dividing the room into nave and aisles, the former being covered over with a semicircular ceiling. The Egyptian oecus had a similar plan, but the aisles were of less height, so that clerestory windows were introduced to light the room, which, as Vitruvius states, presents more the appearance of a basilica than of a triclinium.

OEDIPUS (Οἰδίπους, Οἰδιπόδης, Οἰδίπος, from Gr. οἰδεῖν swell, and wous foot, i.e. " the swollen-footed ") in Greek legend, son of Laïus, king of Thebes, and Jocasta (Iocastē). Laïus, having been warned by an oracle that he would be killed by his son, ordered him to be exposed, with his feet pierced, immediately after his birth. Thus Oedipus grew up ignorant of his parentage, and, meeting Laïus in a narrow way, quarrelled with him and slew him. The country was ravaged by a monster, the Sphinx; Oedipus solved the riddle which it proposed to its victims, freed the country, and married his own mother. In the Odyssey it is said that the gods disclosed the impiety. Epicastē (as Jocasta is called in Homer) hanged herself, and Oedipus lived as king in Thebes tormented by the Erinyes of his mother. In the tragic poets the tale takes a different form. Oedipus fulfils an ancient prophecy in killing his father; he is the blind instrument in the hands of fate. The further treatment of the tale by Aeschylus is unknown. Sophocles describes in his Oedipus Tyrannus how Oedipus was resolved to pursue to the end the mystery of the death of Laïus, and thus unravelled the dark tale, and in horror put out his own eyes. The sequel of the tale is told in the Oedipus Coloneus. Banished by his sons, he is tended by the loving care of his daughters. He comes to Attica and dies in the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, in his death welcomed and pardoned by the fate which had pursued him throughout his life. In addition to the two tragedies of Sophocles, the legend formed the subject of a trilogy by Aeschylus, of which only the Seven against Thebes is extant; of the Phoenissae of Euripides; and of the Oedipus and Phoenissae of Seneca.

See A. Höfer's exhaustive article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie; F. W. Schneidewin, Die Sage von Oedipus (1852); D. Comparetti, Edipo e la mitologia comparata (1867); M. Bréal, "Le Mythe d'Edipe," in Mélanges de mythologie (1878), who explains Oedipus as a personification of light, and his blinding as the disappearance of the sun at the end of the day; J. Paulson in Eranos. Acta philologica Suecana, i. (Upsala, 1896) places the original home of the legend in Egyptian Thebes, and identifies Oedipus with the Egyptian god Seth, represented as the hippopotamus "with swollen foot," which was said to kill its father in order to take its place with the mother. O. Crusius (Beiträge zur griechischen Mythologie, 1886, p. 21) sees in the marriage of Oedipus with his mother an agrarian myth (with special reference to Oed. Tyr. 1497), while Höfer (in Roscher's Lexikon) suggests that the episodes of the murder of his father and of his marriage are reminiscences of the overthrow of Cronus by Zeus and of the union of Zeus with his own sister.

OECUMENICAL (through the Lat. from Gr. olkovμevikós, universal, belonging to the whole inhabited world, oikovμevn sc. yn, oikeiv, to dwell), a word chiefly used in the sense of belonging to the universal Christian Church. It is thus specifically applied to the general councils of the early church (see COUNCIL). In the Roman Church a council is regarded as oecumenical when it has been summoned from the whole church under the presidency of the pope or his legates; the decrees confirmed by the pope are binding. The word has also been applied to assemblies of other religious bodies, such as the Oecumenical Methodist Conferences, which met for the first time in 1881. "Oecumenical " has also been the title of the patriarch of Constantinople since the 6th century (see ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH).

Medieval Legends. In the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (13th century) and the Mystère de la Passion of Jean Michel (15th century) and Arnoul Gréban (15th century), the story of Oedipus is as in the classical account. The Judas legend, however, never really became popular, whereas that of Oedipus was handed down both orally and in written national tales (Albanian. Finnish, Cypriote). One incident (the incest unwittingly committed) frequently recurs in connexion with the life of Gregory the Great. The Theban legend, which reached its fullest development in the Thebaïs of Statius and in Seneca, reappeared in the Roman de Thèbes (the work of an unknown imitator of Benoit de Sainte-More). Oedipus is also the subject of an anonymous medieval romance (15th century), Le Roman d'Edipus, fils de Layus, in which the sphinx is depicted as a cunning and ferocious giant. The Oedipus legend was handed down to the period of the Renaissance by the Roman and its imitations, which then fell into oblivion. Even to the present day the legend has

It is probable that the story of the piercing of his feet is a subsequent invention to explain the name, or is due to a false etymology (from oidéw), oldimous in reality meaning the "wise" (from oida). chiefly in reference to his having solved the riddle, the syllable -Tous having no significance.

See Jahn, Chronik der Stadt Ölsnitz (1875).

OELWEIN, a city of Fayette county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 132 m. N.E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 830; (1900) 5142, of whom 789 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 6028. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Chicago Great Western railways, the latter having large repair shops here, where four lines of its road converge. Oelwein was named in honour of its founder, August Oelwein, who settled here in 1873; it was incorporated in 1888, and chartered as a city in 1897.

OENOMAUS, in Greek legend, son of Ares and Harpinna, king of Pisa in Elis and father of Hippodameia. It was predicted that he should be slain by his daughter's husband. His father, the god Ares-Hippius, gave him winged horses swift as the wind, and Oenomaüs promised his daughter to the man who could outstrip him in the chariot race, hoping thus to prevent her marriage altogether. Pelops, by the treachery of Myrtilus, the charioteer of Ocnomaüs, won the race and married Hippodameia. The defeat of Oenomaüs by Pelops, a stranger from Asia Minor, points to the conquest of native Aresworshippers by immigrants who introduced the new religion of Zeus.

See Diod. Sic. iv. 73; Pausanias vi. 21, and elsewhere; Sophocles, Electra, 504; Hyginus, Fab. 84. 253. Fig. 33 in article GREEK ART represents the preparations for the chariot race.

OENONE, in Greek legend, daughter of the river-god Kebren and wife of Paris. Possessing the gift of divination, she warned her husband of the evils that would result from his journey to Greece. The sequel was the rape of Helen and the Trojan War. Just before the capture of the city, Paris, wounded by Philoctetes with one of the arrows of Heracles, sought the aid of the deserted Oenone, who had told him that she alone could heal him if wounded. Indignant at his faithlessness, she refused to help him, and Paris returned to Troy and died of his wound. Oenone soon repented and hastened after him, but finding that she was too late to save him slew herself from grief at the sight of his dead body. Ovid (Heroïdes, 5) gives a pathetic description of Oenone's grief when she found herself deserted.

OERLAMS, the name (said to be a corruption of the. Dutch Oberlanders) for a Hottentot tribal group living in Great Namaqualand. They came originally from Little Namaqualand in Cape Colony. They are of very mixed Hottentot-Bantu blood.

OESEL (in Esthonian Kure-saare or Saare-ma), a Russian island in the Baltic, forming with Worms, Mohn and Runö, a district of the government of Livonia, and lying across the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, 106 m. N.N.W. of the city of Riga. It has a length of 45 m., and an area of 1010 sq. m. The coasts are bold and steep, and, especially towards the north and west, form precipitous limestone cliffs. Like those of Shetland, the Oesel ponies are small, but prized for their spirit and endurance. The population, numbering 50,566 in 1870 and 60,000 in 1900, is mainly Protestant in creed, and, with the exception of the German nobility, clergy and some of the townsfolk, Esthonian by race. The chief town, Arensburg, on the south coast, is a place of 4600 inhabitants, with summer sca-bathing, mud baths and a trade in grain, potatoes, whisky and fish. In 1227 Oesel was conquered by the Knights of the Sword, and was governed by its own bishops till 1561, when it passed into the hands of the Danes. By them it was surrendered to the Swedes by the peace of Brömsebro (1645), and, along with Livonia, it was united to Russia in 1721.

OESOPHAGUS (Gr. olow I will carry, and dayev, to eat), in anatomy, the gullet; see ALIMENTARY CANAL for comparative anatomy. The human oesophagus is peculiarly liable to certain accidents and diseases, due both to its function as a tube to carry food to the stomach and to its anatomical situation (see generally DIGESTIVE ORGANS). One of the commonest accidents is the lodgment of foreign bodies in some part of the tube. The situations in which they are arrested vary with the nature of the

food. An impacted substance may be removed by the oesophageal forceps, or by a coin-catcher; if it should be impossible to draw it up it may be pushed down into the stomach. When it is in the stomach a purgative should never be given, but soft food such as porridge. Should gastric symptoms develop it may have to be removed by the operation of gastrotomy. Charring and ulceration of the oesophagus may occur from the swallowing of corrosive liquids, strong acids or alkalis, or even of boiling water. Stricture of the oesophagus is a closing of the tube so that neither solids nor liquids are able to pass down into the stomach. There are three varieties of stricture; spasmodic, fibrous and malignant. Spasmodic stricture usually occurs in young hysterical women; difficulty in swallowing is complained of, and a bougie may not be able to be passed, but under an anaesthetic will slip down quite easily. Fibrous stricture is usually situated near the commencement of the oesophagus, generally just behind the cricoid cartilage, and usually results from swallowing corrosive fluids, but may also result from the healing of a syphilitic ulcer. Occasionally it is congenital. The ordinary treatment is repeated dilatation by bougies. Occasionally division of a fibrous stricture has been practised, or a Symond's tube inserted. Mikulicz recommends dilatation of the stricture by the fingers from inside after an incision into the stomach or a permanent gastric fistula may have to be made. Malignant strictures are usually epitheliomatous in structure, and may be situated in any part of the oesophagus. They nearly always occur in males between the ages of 40 and 70 years. An X-ray photograph taken after the patient has swallowed a preparation of bismuth will show the situation of the growth, and Killian and Brünig have introduced an instrument called the oesophagoscope, which makes direct examination possible. The remedy of constant dilatation by bougies must not be attempted here, the walls of the oesophagus being so softened by disease and ulceration that severe haemorrhage or perforation of the walls of the tube might take place. The patient should be fed with purely liquid and concentrated nourishment in order to give the oesophagus as much rest as possible, or if the stricture be too tight rectal feeding may be necessary. Symond's method of tubage is well borne by some patients, the tube having attached to it a long string which is secured to the cheek or car. The most satisfactory treatment, however, is the operation of gastrotomy, a permanent artificial opening being made into the stomach through which the patient can be fed.

OETA (mod. Kotavothra), a mountain to the south of Thessaly, in Greece, forming a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and the Boeotian Cephissus. It is an offshoot of the Pindus range, 7080 ft. high. In its eastern portion, called Callidromus, it comes close to the sea, leaving only a narrow passage known as the famous pass of Thermopylae (q.v.). There was also a high pass to the west of Callidromus leading over into the upper Cephissus valley. In mythology Oeta is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the funeral pyre on which Heracles burnt himself before his admission to Olympus.

OETINGER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH (1702-1782), German divine and theosophist, was born at Göppingen on the 6th of May 1702. He studied theology at Tübingen (1722-1728), and was much impressed by the works of Jakob Böhme. On the completion of his university course, Octinger spent some years in travel. In 1730 he visited Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut, remaining there some months as teacher of Hebrew and Greek. During his travels, in his eager search for knowledge, he made the acquaintance of mystics and separatists, Christians and learned Jews, theologians and physicians alike. At Halle he studied medicine. After some delay he was ordained to the ministry, and held several pastorates. While pastor (from 1746) at Waldorf near Berlin, he studied alchemy and made many experiments, his idea being to use his knowledge for symbolic purposes. These practices exposed him to the attacks of persons who misunderstood him. "My religion," he once said, "is the parallelism of Nature and Grace." Oetinger translated Swedenborg's philosophy of heaven and earth, and added notes

Oetinger's autobiography was published by J. Hamberger in 1845. He published about seventy works, in which he expounded his theosophic views. A collected edition, Samtliche Schriften (1st section, Homiletische Schriften, 5 vols., 1858-1866; 2nd section, Theosophische Werke, 6 vols., 1858-1863), was prepared by K. F. C. Ehmann, who also wrote Oetinger's Leben und Briefe (1859). See also C. A. Auberlen, Die Theosophie Friedr. Chr. Oetinger's (1847; 2nd ed., 1859), and Herzog, Friedrich Christoph Otinger (1902). OEYNHAUSEN, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, on the Werre, situated just above its confluence with the Weser, 9 m. W. from Minden by the main line of railway from Hanover to Cologne, with a station on the Löhne-Hameln line. Pop. (1905) 3894. The place, which was formerly called Rehme, owes its development to the discovery in 1830 of its five famous salt springs, which are heavily charged with carbonic acid gas. The waters are used both for bathing and drinking, and are particularly efficacious for nervous disorders, rheumatism, gout and feminine complaints. OFFA, the most famous hero of the early Angli. He is said by the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith to have ruled over Angel, and the poem refers briefly to his victorious single combat, a story which is related at length by the Danish historians Saxo and Svend Aagesen. Offa (Uffo) is said to have been dumb or silent during his early years, and to have only recovered his speech when his aged father Wermund was threatened by the Saxons, who insolently demanded the cession of his kingdom. Oifa undertook to fight against both the Saxon king's son and a chosen champion at once. The combat took place at Rendsburg on an island in the Eider, and Offa succeeded in killing both his opponents. According to Widsith Offa's opponents belonged to a tribe or dynasty called Myrgingas, but both accounts state that he won a great kingdom as the result of his victory. A somewhat corrupt version of the same story is preserved in the Vitae duorum Offarum, where, however, the scene is transferred to England. It is very probable that the Offa whose marriage with a lady of murderous disposition is mentioned in Beowulf is the same person; and this story also appears in the Vitae duorum Ofarum, though it is erroneously told of a later Offa, the famous king of Mercia. Offa of Mercia, however, was a descendant in the 12th generation of Offa, king of Angel. It is probable from this and other considerations that the early Offa lived in the latter part of the 4th century.

See H. M. Chadwick, Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907), where references to the original authorities will be found.

OFFA (d. 796), king of Mercia, obtained that kingdom in A.D. 757, after driving out Beornred, who had succeeded a few months earlier on the murder of Æthelbald. He traced his descent from Pybba, the father of Penda, through Eowa, brother of that king, his own father's name being Thingferth. In 779 he was at war with Cynewulf of Wessex from whom he wrested Bensington. It is not unlikely that the Thames became the boundary of the two kingdoms about this time. In 787 the power of Offa was displayed in a synod held at a place called Cealchyth. He deprived Jænberht, archbishop of Canterbury, of several of his suffragan sees, and assigned them to Lichfield, which, with the leave of the pope, he constituted as a separate archbishopric under Hygeberht. He also took advantage of this meeting to have his son Ecgferth consecrated as his colleague, and that prince subsequently signed charters as Rex Merciorum. In 789 Cffa secured the alliance of Berhtric of Wessex by giving him his daughter Eadburg in marriage. In 704 he appears to have caused the death of Æthelberht of East Anglia, though some accounts ascribe the murder to Cynethryth, the wife of Offa. In 796 Offa died after a reign of thirty-nine years and was succeeded by his son Ecgferth. It is customary to ascribe to Offa a policy of limited scope, namely the establishment of Mercia in a position equal to that of Wessex and of Northumbria. This is supposed to be illustrated by his measures with regard to the see of Lichfield. It cannot be doubted, however, that at this time Mercia was a much more formidable power than Wessex. Offa, like most of his predecessors,

See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. J. Earle and C. Plummer (Oxford, 1899), s.a. 755, 777, 785, 787, 792, 794, 796, 836; W. de G. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885-1893), vol. i.; Asser, Life of Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904); Vitae duorum Offarum (in works of Matthew Paris, ed. W. Wats, London, 1640).

OFFAL, refuse or waste stuff, the "off fall," that which falls off (cf. Dutch afval, Ger. Abfall). The term is applied especially to the waste parts of an animal that has been slaughtered for food, to putrid flesh or carrion, and to waste fish, especially to the little ones that get caught in the nets with the larger and better fish, and are thrown away or used as manure. As applied to grain "offal" is used of grains too small or light for use for flour, and also in flour milling of the husk or bran of wheat with a certain amount of flour attaching, sold for feeding beasts (see FLOUR).

OFFENBACH, JACQUES (1819-1880), French composer of opéra bouffe, was born at Cologne, of German Jewish parents, on the 21st of June 1819. His talent for music was developed at a very early age; and in 1833 he was sent to Paris to study the violoncello at the conservatoire, where, under the care of Professor Vaslin, he became a fairly good performer. In 1834 he became a member of the orchestra of the Opéra Comique; and he turned his opportunities to good account, so that eventually he was made conductor at the Théâtre Français. There, in 1848, he made his first success as a composer in the Chanson de Fortunio in Alfred de Musset's play Le Chandelier. From this time forward his life became a ceaseless struggle for the attainment of popularity. His power of production was apparently inexhaustible. His first complete work, Pepito, was produced at the Opéra Comique in 1853. This was followed by a crowd of dramatic pieces of a light character, which daily gained in favour with Parisian audiences, and eventually effected a complete revolution in the popular taste of the period. Encouraged by these early successes, Offenbach boldly undertook the delicate task of entirely remodelling both the form and the style of the light musical pieces which had so long been welcomed with acclamation by the frequenters of the smaller theatres in Paris. With this purpose in view he obtained a lease of the Théâtre Comte in the Passage Choiseul, reopened it in 1855 under the title of the Bouffes Parisiens, and night after night attracted crowded audiences by a succession of brilliant, humorous trifles. Ludovic Halévy, the librettist, was associated with him from the first, but still more after 1860, when Halévy obtained Henri Meilhac's collaboration (see HALÉVY). Beginning with Les Deux Aveugles and Le Violoneux, the series of Offenbach's operettas was rapidly continued, until in 1867 its triumph culminated in La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein, perhaps the most popular opéra bouffe that ever was written, not excepting even his Orphée aux enfers, produced in 1858. From this time forward the success of Offenbach's pieces became an absolute certainty, and the new form of opéra bouffe, which he had gradually endowed with as much consistency as it was capable of assuming, was accepted as the only one worth cultivating. It found imitators in Lecocq and other aspirants of a younger generation, and Offenbach's works found their way to every town in Europe in which a theatre existed. Tuneful, gay and exhilarating, their want of refinement formed no obstacle to their popularity, and perhaps even contributed to it. In 1866 his own connexion with the Bouffes Parisiens ceased, and he wrote for various

theatres. In twenty-five years Offenbach produced no less than sixty-nine complete dramatic works, some of which were in three or even in four acts. Among the latest of these were Le Docteur Ox, founded on a story by Jules Verne, and La Boite au lait, both produced in 1877, and Madame Favart (1879). Offenbach died at Paris on the 5th of October 1880.

OFFENBACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse, on the left bank of the Main, 5 m. S.E. of Frankfort-onMain, with which it is connected by the railway to Bebra and by a local electric line. Pop. (1905) 58,806, of whom about 20,000 were Roman Catholics and 1400 Jews. The most interesting building in the town is the Renaissance château of the counts of Isenburg. Offenbach is the principal industrial town of the duchy, and its manufactures are of the most varied description. Its characteristic industry, however, is the manufacture of portfolios, pocket-books, albums and other fancy goods in leather. The earliest mention of Offenbach is in a document of 970. In 1486 it came into the possession of the counts of Isenburg, who made it their residence in 1685, and in 1816, when their lands were mediatized, it was assigned to Hesse. It owes its prosperity in the first place to the industry of the French Protestant refugees who settled here at the end of the 17th, and the beginning of the 18th century, and in the second place to the accession of Hesse to the German Zollverein in 1828.

See Jöst, Offenbach am Main in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Offenbach, 1901); Hager, Die Lederwarenindustrie in Offenbach (Karlsruhe, 1905).

OFFENBURG, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, 27 m. by rail S.W. of Baden, on the river Kinzig. Pop. (1905) 15,434. It contains a statue of Sir Francis Drake, a mark of honour due to the fact that Drake is sometimes regarded as having introduced the potato into Europe. The chief industries of the town are the making of cotton, linen, hats, malt, machinery, tobacco and cigars and glass. Offenburg is first mentioned about 1100. In 1223 it became a town, in 1248 it passed to the bishop of Strassburg; and in 1289 it became an imperial free city. Soon, however, this position was lost, but it was regained about the middle of the 16th century, and Offenburg remained a free city until 1802, when it became part of Baden. In 1632 it was taken by the Swedes, and in 1689 it was destroyed by the French. See Walter, Kurzer Abriss der Geschichte der Reichsstadt Offenburg (Offenburg, 1896).

OFFERTORY (from the ecclesiastical Lat. offertorium, Fr. offertoire, a place to which offerings were brought), the alms of a congregation collected in church, or at any religious service. Offertory has also a special sense in the services of both the English and Roman churches. It forms in both that part of the Communion service appointed to be said or sung, during the collection of alms, before the elements are consecrated. In music, an offertory is the vocal or instrumental setting of the offertory sentences, or a short instrumental piece played by the organist while the collection is being made.

OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," "service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, "to do," and either the stem of opes, "wealth," "aid," or opus, "work"), a duty or service, particularly the special duty cast upon a person by his position; also a ceremonial duty, as in the rites paid to the dead, the "last offices." The term is thus especially used of a religious service, the "daily office " of the English Church or the "divine office " of the Roman Church (see BREVIARY). It is also used in this sense of a service for a particular occasion, as the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, &c. From the sense of duty or function, the word is transferred to the position or place which lays on the holder or occupier the performance of such duties. This leads naturally to the use of the word for the buildings or the separate rooms in which the duties are performed, and for the staff carrying on the work or business in such offices. In the Roman curia the department of the Inquisition is known as the Holy Office, in full, the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (see INQUISITION and CURIA ROMANA).

Offices of Profit.-The phrase" office of profit under the crown is used with a particular application in British parliamentary practice. The holders of such offices of profit have been subject in regard to the occupation of seats in the House of Commons to certain disabilities which were in their origin due to the fear of the undue influence exercised by the crown during the constitutional struggles of the 17th century. Attempts to deal with the danger of the presence of " place-men "in the House of Commons were made by the Place Bills introduced in 1672-1673, 1694 and 1743. The Act of Settlement 1700 (§ 3) laid it down that no person who has an office or place of profit under the king or receives a pension from the crown shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons. This drastic clause, which would have had the disastrous effect of entirely separating the executive from the legislature, was repealed and the basis of the present law was laid down in 1706 by 6 Anne (c. 41). This first disqualifies (§ 24) from membership all holders of new offices," i.e. those created after October 1705; secondly (§ 25) it renders void the election of a member who shall accept any office of profit other than "new offices" but allows the member to stand for re-election. The disqualification attaching to many new offices" has been removed by various statutes, and by § 52 of the Reform Act 1867 the necessity of re-election is avoided when a member, having been elected subsequent to the acceptance of any office named in a schedule of that act, is transferred to any other office in that schedule. The rules as to what offices disqualify from membership or render re-election necessary are exceedingly complicated, depending as they do on a large number of statutes (see Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 11th ed., pp. 632-645, and Rogers, On Elections, vol. ii., 1906). The old established rule that a member, once duly elected, cannot resign his seat is evaded by the acceptance of certain minor offices (see CHILTERN HUNDREDS).

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OFFICERS. Historically the employment of the word officer to denote a person holding a military or naval command as representative of the state, and not as deriving his authority from his own powers or privileges, marks an entire change in the character of the armed forces of civilized nations. Originally signifying an official, one who performs an assigned duty (Lat. officium), an agent, and in the 15th century actually meaning the subordinate of such an official (even to-day a constable is so called), the word seems to have acquired a military significance late in the 16th century. It was at this time that armies, though not yet "standing," came to be constituted almost exclusively of professional soldiers in the king's pay. Mercenaries, and great numbers of mercenaries, had always existed, and their captains were not feudal magnates. But the bond between mercenaries and their captains was entirely personal, and the bond between the captain and the sovereign was of the nature of a contract. The non-mercenary portion of the older armies was feudal in character. It was the lord and not a king's officer who commanded it, and he commanded in virtue of his rights, not of a warrant or commission.

European history in the late 15th century is the story of the victory of the crown over the feudatories. The instrument of the crown was its army, raised and commanded by its deputies. But these deputies were still largely soldiers of fortune and, in the higher ranks, feudal personages, who created the armies themselves by their personal influence with the would-be soldier or the unemployed professional fighting man. Thus the first system to replace the obsolete combination of feudalism and "free companies" was what may be called the proprietary system. Under this the colonel was the proprietor of his regiment, the captain the proprietor of his company. The king accepted them as his officers, and armed them with authority to raise men, but they themselves raised the men as a rule from experienced soldiers who were in search of employment, although, like

1 This section also disqualifies colonial governors and deputy governors and holders of certain other offices.

At sea the relatively clear partition of actual duties amongst the authorities of a ship brought about the adoption of the term "officer "somewhat earlier.