existed:  the early church imitated His blessed example:  and they have been faithfully preserved as a precious inheritance till the present time.  The very objection, that some of them were borrowed from Jews or Pagans, is a proof of their primitive antiquity:  Christ or the church removed from them all profaneness or superstition, and then adopted and sanctified them. (See Wiseman’s Letters to Poynder).  If all parties unite in approbation of the illumination of the cupola of S. Peter’s, and of the fireworks of S. Angelo, considered as outward demonstrations of the exultation of the church at the resurrection of her Divine Spouse; we shall ever admire also the expressions of christian feeling exhibited in the interior of her temples, whether they consist in ceremonies or words; and on this day emulating the transports of joy of the fervent and eloquent pilgrim to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai, when shall unite our voices with those of the angelic spirits in singing, Alleluja; “because Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was delivered up for our sins, rose again for our justification”.  Rome.  IV, 24, 25.[139]

[Footnote 111:  Anciently in some churches, as Thomassin has shewn (de dierum Festorum celebratione lib. 2. c. 14), fire used to be struck from a flint to light the church-lamps etc. every day and particularly on Saturday, and the new fire was blessed; on holy Saturday however this ceremony was performed with great solemnity; and in the 11th century it was restricted to that day alone.  At Rome in holy week this practice was not originally confined to holy Saturday, but was observed on the three days before caster:  for the first Ordo Romanus directs, that on holy thursday fire should be struck from a flint outside the church, and blessed.  Amalarius also (4e Ordine Antiph.) testifies that on good friday “new fire was enkindled and reserved till the nocturnal office”.  Leo IV however (A.D. 847) appears to have first ordered that on Easter Eve “the old fire should be put out, and new fire blessed and distributed among the people” (Homil. de cura Pastorali).  For Pope Zachary, about the year 731. in answer to the enquiries of Boniface, bishop of Mayence, states that “on holy thursday, when the sacred chrism is consecrated, three lamps of a large size filled with oil collected from the different lamps of the church, and placed in a secret part of the said church, should burn there constantly, so that the oil may suffice till the third day, that is saturday.  Then let the fire of the lamps which is used for the sacred font be renewed.  But concerning the fire taken ex cristallis, as you have asserted, we have no tradition”.  Pouget (Inst.  Cathol. l. 1) observes that the new fire is blessed with great solemnity on this day, “because the fire struck from a flint appears to be a type of Christ arising from the dead”.  Formerly not only the lights of the church, but all the fires of the city were enkindled from the blessed