that this most important rule is complied with. The top of the altar should be covered with a linen cloth twice its size, and doubled so as to form two thicknesses. The frontlet, or superfrontal, as it is called, is an apparel to this cloth, and sewed to one of its front edges. The frontal, or coloured altar-cloth, should hang separately from the altar,' the edge of suspension being hidden by the frontlet, by turning back which the frontal may be changed without disturbing the other vestments; for one frontlet may serve with a variety of frontals. It is best for the ends as well as the front of an altar to be vested, and I think the most convenient way of doing it, is to sew pieces the size of the ends, and of the same material as the frontlet, to the linen cloth to which it is attached. The last vestment is the long, fine linen cloth, about the same width as the altar, which covers the top and hangs down nearly to the ground at the ends. Strictly speaking, the name altar-cloth should be confined to this. When the altar is not in use, its top should be protected by a cover of some convenient material.

Some very "correct" people hang in front of their altars certain ribbons or flaps, which they call stoles, and which may have a purpose, but I think it would be well to refrain from using them till we know what it is.2

1 I need scarcely say that it should be allowed to hang naturally, and not be stretched on a frame. Even fixing a frontal to a rod at the top is a mistake. It always gives it a distorted and pulled look.

Something of the sort is shown in some old Flemish pictures, but I

U

In conclusion, let me protest against the very usual disfigurement of churches by the indiscriminate acceptance of gifts to them. Nothing is commoner than to hear, by way of excuse for the presence of some particularly hideous "ornament," the remark, "Oh, it was given, so we must use it!" Surely a huge non sequitur. If a man made you a present of stinking fish, you would not feel it your duty to eat it. People who give such things, do so from ignorance, and if it were generally understood that only what is suitable would be allowed to be set up or used in the church, they would not cease to give, but would be more careful to ascertain what would be acceptable.

have never found mention of them in any ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern. Some years ago I inquired in Notes and Queries for any authority either for the things or the name, but in vain. If any one can now produce such, I shall be much obliged if he will do so.

SECTION XXXII.

OF PICTURES AND IMAGES.

I CLASS these apart from ornaments generally, because, although they may be used as ornaments, they are, or at least ought to be, themselves objects of special interest. It is not very easy to draw a definite line of demarcation between mere architectural ornament and work of a higher class; but a general distinction is, that the first is used, because its place requires it, and the other has a place found for it for its own sake. I am not concerned to argue the lawfulness or desirability of the presence of images and pictures in churches, for they are now acknowledged by churchmen of all schools, with the exception of a very few crotchety and uninfluential individuals, but what should be admitted, and how it should be admitted, are proper subjects for discussion.

We have seen that there are grades in architectural ornament, and that, if the highest cannot be obtained, the lower may, under proper restrictions, be employed. So also there are grades of pictures and images, from the German chromolithograph, or the rough plaster cast, up to the highest works of Raphael and Phidias; but whether there is any legitimate use for the lower orders,

depends entirely upon the way in which they are regarded. If a painting or a statue is looked upon as an offering of the highest human skill, set up in the church for its increased glory and dignity, there nothing but first-rate work is admissible. But if, on the other hand, the story of the picture is valued for its own sake, the inferior methods of representation may be used without blame, provided always that what is used is the best which can be procured. And this is a very common case. It is mere vulgar claptrap to assert, as is often done, that the use of printing has superseded that of pictures as means of instruction. Pictures are now, just as much as they were in the days of Paulinus of Nola, the books of the unlearned. The experience of the nursery and the schoolroom should be sufficient to convince people of that. The uneducated and the half-educated are far more easily impressed through the eye than through the ear. And they are, and in spite of education acts and school boards always must be, the vast majority of Christians for reading, writing, and arithmetic alone are not education—and, as they have therefore the greatest share in the parish church, it is not reasonable that their special needs should be overlooked. But, says undecimarian respectability, we should go to church to say our prayers and be preached to, not to look at pictures-another claptrap. As though the one use of the church rendered the other impossible. I should like to be told why a man may not look at a picture in church. Nobody wishes to put doing so in the place of

attending to the service, or of listening to the sermon, even though the pictures be the more eloquent and instructive. Why may not a man attend to all if he likes? Objections can only be based upon what may be called the meeting-house theory about churches: the theory that a church is intended to be used at certain specified times, and for public worship and preaching only, which ended, the congregation are to be turned out, and the place locked up till the next "service-time." I believe that to this odious theory alone1 is due the denationalisation of the church so far as it has taken place it has been much exaggerated-and that all our improvements in church matters will have no influence on the masses until it has been totally abandoned. The parish church should be not only the place of public worship, but also the place of private meditation and prayer, and the common centre and home of all the religious action and organisation of the parish. Every parishioner should have free access to it at all reasonable times. Nay, it ought to be made interesting to attract him, and instructive to teach him when attracted. One church so used will do more good than a hundred of the coldly respectable places, in which well-to-do congregations assemble twice or thrice each Sunday, and perhaps once in the course of the week. Such a reform cannot be made in a day. People cannot all at once unlearn

1 In saying this I am not overlooking the evil effects of the private pew system, for, but for the meeting-house theory, that, in anything like its present form, would be impossible.