The Roman fashion of tacking lace to one of these cloths is against all English tradition, and very seldom looks well. Anything suggestive of effeminacy should be rigidly excluded, the more so as it always has a tendency to creep in through the efforts of well-meaning women. The hem of the undercloths may be ¾ in., of the fair linen 1 in. at the sides and 2 in. at the ends.
It is cleaner to follow the old custom of removing the linen after service, especially the outer cloth of an altar which is not in daily use. It can be taken on to a wooden roller and put away in a drawer. In any case the Lord’s Table should be protected by a cover. This cover should be exactly the same size as the mensa, unless the fair linen cloth is left on, in which case it may be 12 inches longer. It may be of silk (say a good yellow or green) lined with blue linen, or of blue linen lined with American cloth; in either case it would need a binding.
Whether gradines can be included among the ornaments allowed by the rubric is a disputed point. The majority of experts think that they were never in use here; and undoubtedly it was the general custom for the two candlesticks to be placed on the altar itself. But the gradine was sometimes used in England from the Jacobean period until the present day. Post-Reformation use can, therefore, be urged in its favour; and a shelf has something to recommend it, on the score of convenience alone, if it be low—say 3 in. in height. But anything like a flight of steps is unsightly. The altar should not look like a sideboard, and it cannot be too often remembered that the altar itself should be the central feature of a church and not any of its adjuncts. When a gradine is ugly or cold and irremovable, it can be redeemed by being entirely covered with a piece of really good tapestry, which of course need not be changed, except, perhaps, in Lent.
The Ornaments on the Altar included under the
