ere in Germany, but not of the
great size of these two.

Organ-cases here as elsewhere are mostly abominations. The makers of
sweet music evidently thought that any heavy baroque combination of
wood-carving and leaden pipes was good enough so long as the flow of
melody was uninterrupted.

The stained glass throughout the Rhine valley is mostly good and
unusually abundant, and the freedom of this accessory from fanatical
desecration is most apparent. The same is true of such paintings as are
found hung in the churches, though seldom have they great names attached
to them; at least, not so great as would mark them for distinction were
they hung in any of the leading picture galleries of Europe.

At Essen the baptistery is separated from the main church, like that at
Ravenna, or at Aix-en-Provence, the two foremost examples of their kind.
A little to the westward of this minster, and joined to it by a
Romanesque ligature, is a three-bayed Gothic church which occupies the
site, or was built up from a former chapel dedicated to St. John the
Baptist.

[Illustration: FONT LIMBURG]

Sooner or later the custom became prevalent of erecting a baptismal font
within the precincts of the main church itself, thus doing away with a
structure especially devoted to the purpose. This change came in the
ninth century, hence no separate baptisteries are found dating from a
later epoch only, except as an avowed copy of the earlier custom.

At this time, too, immersion had given way to sprinkling merely, though
in many cases the German name still applied is that of _taufstein_,
meaning dipping-stone.

Late examples of fonts were frequently in metal, the most remarkable in
the Rhine valley being in St. Reinhold's at Dortmund, in St. Maria in
Capitola, and St. Peter's at Cologne, and in St. Mary's and St. James's
at Mayence.

One of the most elaborate, and certainly the most beautiful and
remarkable of all, is the stone font of the cathedral at Limburg.

VI

CONSTANCE AND SCHAFFHAUSEN

_Constance_

There is a sentimental interest attached to Constance and the lake which
lies at its door, which has come down to us through the pictures of the
painters and the verses of the poets. Aside from this, history has
played its great part so vividly that one could not forget it if he
would.

The city was founded about 297 A.D. In after years it fell before the
warlike Huns, and all but disappeared, until it became the seat of a