vesture or garment, which, immediately after it was baptized, the priest put upon it, saying, "Take this white vesture as a token of the innocency which, by God's grace in this holy sacrament of baptism, is given unto thee, and for a sign whereby thou art acknowledged, so long as thou livest, to give thyself to innocence of living, that after this transitory life thou mayest be partaker of life everlasting. Amen."

As soon as the priest had pronounced these words, he anointed the infant upon the head, saying, "Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Ghost, and hath given unto thee the remission of all thy sins; he vouchsafe to anoint thee with the unction of his Holy Spirit, and bring thee to the inheritance of everlasting life. Amen."

It was from this anointing or chrism that the white garment got the name of chrism, which, after being worn a few days, was offered to the priest to be kept in the church or vestry, in order to be produced as evidence against the person whose chrism it was, should he afterwards deny the faith in which he had been baptized. These ceremonies were retained, for some time after the reformation, in the church of England, which ordered the mother of the child (if the child was then alive) to offer, when she was churched, the chrism and other accustomed offerings. If the child died before its mother was churched, the chrism was not given to the priest, but employed as a shroud, in which the body was buried; and hence it is that chrismos are now enumerated, most absurdly indeed, in the weekly bills of mortality. We say absurdly; because children who die unbaptized are called chrismos, though the chrism, when it was used, was never put on till baptism. See Whitsunday on the Book of Common Prayer, &c.

CHRONOLOGICAL CHARACTERS are characters by which times are distinguished. Of these some are natural or astronomical; others, artificial or historical. The natural characters are such as depend on the motions of the stars or luminaries, as eclipses, solstices, equinoxes, the different aspects of the planets, &c. The artificial characters are those that have been invented and established by men; as the solar cycle, the lunar cycle, &c. Historical chronological characters are those supported by the testimony of historians, when they fix the dates of certain events to certain periods. Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary.