The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1879-03-14
WAS THE "OLD MILL" AT NEWPORT ABAP.
TISTERY.

In Scribner for March, Mr.. r. G. Hatfield
has fresh study of the old problem of
the original use of the old tower in Truro
Park, Newport. In the authors mind, the
weight of evidence is decidedly in favor of
it having been built as a baptistery by the
Norwegian discoverers about the year l000
In elucidation of this theory, and in confu-
tation Of others, number of interesting
drawings of baptisteries, etc., are given with
the article. The writer says:
In the early centuries it was considered
indispensable that every cathedral, or church
of bishop, should have its baptistery,-a
separate building located in the vicinity Of
the cathedral, where the ordinance of Chris.
tian baptism could be administered to the
candidates, preparatory to admitting them
to the assemblies of the faithful. In Italy
alone about sixty of these buildings are still
extant. Some of them are in ruins, as at
Canosa, in Apulis, and at Castel.Seprio !;
others still have had the font removed, and
as chapes made to serve for worship, as that
of Sta Costanza, at Rome, that of Bologna,
and that of Rovigno, in Istria; many are
still used as baptisteries, and in some the
original font, of ample dimensions, yet re-
mains, as in Rome, at the Lateran baptistery
the font of which is twenty. seven feet in di-
ameter; that of the beautiful circular bap.
tistery of Pisa, the font in which is ten feet
in diameter and three and onethird feet
deep; as also that of Nocera, the font in
which is seventeen feet in diameter end four
feet deep. The font of the baptstery of
Florence was destroyed three hundred years
since; it occupied an octangular space
twenty seve feet in diameter, now paved
with marble differing from the other pave
ment, and surrounded by white marble
coping, on which, plainly visible, is an in
scripton designating the inclosed area AZ the
place of the original font. Dante, in his i'm
mortal poem, refers to this font, a part of
from drowning These facts afford incon
testable proof, in addition to historical trs-
ditions concerning them, of the use for
which these buildings were originally con-
structed. If these were baptsteries-and it
cannot be questioned-then the Newport
structure was also one.
The round buildings of Greenland, re-
ferred to by Professor Rain, were also bap-
tsteries. There was one doubtless, for each
bishopric. Only one is found in Vinland,
because the colony was small, and was all
comprised, no doubt, in one bishopric
1t need not be thought strange that ifthe
Newport structure be a baptistery, there are
no remains of the church near which it must
have Stood In country like Vinland
abounding with timber at that early time
,e first structures of the colonists were un.
doubtedly of wood, and not until they came
| to feel that their residence there was likely
to prove permanent, would they resolve to
build with more durable material. Then
after having constructed the baptstery OF
stone, they may have intended to follow thi.
up by the more important work Of building
the cathedral Of the same material bu
failed to realize these intentions through ap
prehension of ftrouble with the Indians, or b,
actual war, which may have ended in tn,
extermination of the colonists.