cloth. "Here's a sight for thee," cries one in The Winter's Tale at the discovery of Perdita, "Here's a sight for thee: look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open 't." "A yard of lawn will serve thee for a christening cloth," occurs in Middleton's The Witch. During the ceremony the priest laid on the child's face the face-cloth, or chrisom-cloth, of pure white linen, emblematic of purity. This was worn by the child till after the churching of the mother. Infants who died during the period allotted to the wearing of the chrisom were frequently alluded to in the records of deaths merely as chrisoms. The sweet innocence of infancy is implied by Dame Quickly in her well-known remark: "'A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child."
It was the custom to give presents at the christening. In Stow's Chronicle (Ed. 1631), we read that at about this time it is not customary "for godfathers and godmothers generally to give plate at the baptism of children, but only to give 'christening shirts,' with little bands and cuffs, wrought either with silk or blue thread. The best of them for chief persons were edged with small lace of black silk and gold, the highest price of which, for great men's children, was seldom above
