means the safety or preservation of any thing which is or has been in danger, and is generally used in a religious sense, when it means preservation from eternal death, or reception to the happiness of heaven, which is now offered to all men by the Christian religion upon certain conditions. The Hebrews but rarely make use of concrete terms as they are called, but often of abstracted. Thus, instead of saying that God saves them and protects them, they say that God is their salvation. Thus the word of salvation, the joy of salvation, the rock of salvation, the shield of salvation, the horn of salvation, &c. is as much as to say, "The word that declares deliverance; the joy that attends the escaping a great danger, a rock where anyone takes refuge, and where he may be in safety from his enemy; a buckler, that secures him from the arm of the enemy; a horn or ray of light, of happiness and salvation, &c. See Theology, &c.

**SALVATOR ROSA.** See Rosa.

**SALVE REGINA,** among the Romanists, the name of a Latin prayer, addressed to the Virgin, and sung after complines, as also upon the point of executing a criminal. Durandus says, it was composed by Peter bishop of Compostella. The custom of singing the salve regina at the close of the office was begun by order of St Dominic, and first in the congregation of Dominicans at Bologna, about 1237. Gregory IX. first appointed it to be general. St Bernard added the conclusion, *O dulci! O pia,* &c.