15. More recent fittings or ornaments, such as altar appurtenances, organ, etc.; the previous headings being supposed to be confined to older details possessing some historic value. But if the date, or probable date, is given of each particular, it might perhaps be as well to describe everything (if a complete account up to date is desired) under its proper head; thus a modern altar cross and candlesticks might be mentioned under the 5th head. A few words on church “RESTORATION” may be here introduced; for it cannot surely be inappropriate to include a sentence or two in these pages (whose object it is to further the preservation of local records), that may possibly have some small influence in preventing the needless destruction of any part of those noble buildings round which the history of each English parish so closely clusters. From the standpoint of a local annalist nothing has been more painful in the “restorations” of the past forty years than the wanton way in which monuments, and more especially flat tombstones, of all ages, have been often treated. It is necessary to enter a warm protest against the notion that any honour can be paid to God, or respect to the memory of those that He created in His own image, by burying inscribed gravestones beneath many inches of concrete in order to stick therein the glossy tiles of recent manufacture. The effacing or removal (wherever it can be avoided) of the memorials of the dead should in all cases be strongly resisted, no matter what be the eminence of the architect that recommends it. There are not many unrestored churches left in the country, but there are some of much value and interest for whose fate we tremble. When a “restoration” (the term is a necessity for the lack of a better) is contemplated, let it be recollected that all work--beyond the removal of galleries, and modern fittings, the opening out of flat plaster ceilings, above which good timber roofs often lie concealed, the scraping off the accumulated layers of whitewash and paint, the letting in of light through blocked-up windows, the allowing of feet to pass through doorways closed in recent days by the mason or bricklayer, and the making strong of really perishing parts--all work beyond this is in great danger of destroying the traces of the historic continuity of our Church, and of doing a damage that can never be repaired. And in preserving this historic continuity, let it not be thought that any service is being rendered to history or religion by sweeping clean out of the church all fittings of a post-Reformation date. The sturdy Elizabethan benches, the well-carved Jacobean pulpit, or the altar rails of beaten iron of last century, should all be preserved as memorials of their respective periods; in short, everything that our forefathers gave to God’s service that was costly and good, should be by us preserved, provided that it does not mar the devout ritual