FIG. 66. Gateway, at Eastern entrance to St Stephen’s church, Coleman Street, London. The carving (5 feet × 2½ feet) on the upper portion was originally over the North gateway. The subject is the Day of Judgement, and the figures are in high relief. The Judge is seen enthroned above, Satan is falling from heaven, and the dead are rising from their coffins. Representations of this kind are often called “Dooms.” ] The building itself affords evidence of the current superstition. Part of this testimony was put forward, inferentially, when the South was being considered; one or two additional facts may now be noticed. On the Northern gate of the church, there were sometimes represented the terrible scenes connected with the Last Judgement. An elaborate example of this treatment formerly existed over the Northern gateway of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and another at St Stephen’s, Coleman Street (Fig. 66), though in each case the craftsman’s work now occupies a different position[865]. Gloomy subjects, like the one mentioned, were also reserved for the North face of the church by those Mediaeval sculptors whose sermons in stone warned many long-past generations. Rheims Cathedral has the terrors of the Last Day thus depicted on its North side. The arrangements of the church services also show traces of the influence now under discussion. In the North of Europe, where the usual rule for orienting churches is observed, the Gospel is read from the North side of the altar, so that, according to Mediaeval symbolism, light may be given “to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death[866].” Or, as Durandus has it, the North side is allotted to sinners, and the Gospel calls sinners to repentance[867]. Conversely, the Epistle is read from the South side, the abode of the faithful and the converted. If one person has to read both the Epistle and the Gospel, he crosses from the South to the North before reading the latter service. To account for this change of position, other reasons have been advanced. Some writers think that the spread of the Word from the South to the North is intended; others declare that the crossing over was a matter of mere convenience. Moreover, while a similar custom prevailed in the early churches of Rome, the position of the reader in those days was to the right or left of the celebrant; consequently, where the building was not alined East and West, the mystical interpretation could not apply. Whatever be the origin or the date of the introduction of the custom, it seems fairly conclusive that some such symbolical meaning was understood during the Mediaeval period[868]. Nevertheless, we should be on our guard against the meticulous and over-strained interpretations which the symbolists are wont to produce for the most trivial ceremonies and occurrences. Most readers will recall the passage in Ecclesiastes concerning the fall of the tree to the South, or to the North. On these