A valuable paper on the low side windows of certain Surrey churches may be found in the _Transactions of the Surrey Archæological Society_ (vol. xiv. part ii.), in which the writer gives drawings of many of these windows with detailed descriptions, and shows that they served one of two purposes—either for the confessional, in which case the priest sat within the church and the penitent knelt without; he proves that the practice was common in these churches where the only other place of confession was “behind the veil,” _i.e._ in the chancel. The other purpose was for the anchorite to take part in the service through this window. There are indications in some of the churches that a cell formerly existed against the church wall, _e.g._ the marks of a peat-roof in the wall. In one church, that of Hurtly, near Rainham, the cell itself remains to this day. The writer observes that these low side windows are not found in churches built during the second half of the fifteenth century. He attributes this to the decay into which the friars, who had formerly been the favourite confessors, had fallen. In another place, I have shown that the practice of making bequests to the friars, hermits, and anchorites of London gradually decayed and finally ceased during the same period. May we not believe that the decay of the respect formerly paid to the religious of all kinds affected the demand for anchorites and therefore the supply? It is surely reasonable to believe that when the calling or profession of an _inclusus_ was no longer attended by the general belief in superior sanctity, one attraction, perhaps the principal one, towards the life would no longer exist, while it is certain that the knowledge and the proof of such a belief would be a powerful support and a certain encouragement to the anchorite in enduring the lonely vigils, the frosts and cold, the silence of the night, the visits and the mockeries and the terror of the Fiend, and all the miseries of the cell, which he was never to leave until death called him forth. In my book on “Westminster” I have described the consecration of a recluse—supposing, without any historical foundation, that the Sub-prior was ready to take the place of the late anchorite. The manner of the consecration is supposed to be described by one of the monks:—