Upon the first Monday in Lent all the crucifixes and images of every kind, both large and small, were covered with white cloths; or in the case of those niches which had their own wooden doors, these were closed till the eve of Easter. The linen or silk coverings were worked or painted with a red cross, and the “red cross” had its peculiar significance in the ritual of the English Church. The procession on each Sunday in Lent was not allowed to be headed by the ordinary _Crux processionalis_, but a wooden cross painted red, in reference to the shedding of our Lord’s blood upon the cross in the throes of His crucifixion, was substituted for it. That the practice had a special meaning to our forefathers seems to be the case, since Sir Thomas More walked to execution, as Cresacre More says, “carrying in his hands a red cross.” Langland, too, in his vision makes “Conscience” say that “These aren Cristes armes. Hus colours and hus cote-armure, and he that cometh so blody, Hit is Crist with his crois, conqueror of crystine.” PALM SUNDAY.--The dramatic ceremonies of Holy Week commenced with those of Palm Sunday. “This week now begun,” says an old fifteenth-century writer, “is called _penosa_, because people, in this more than in any other week, keep their sins before their minds, and mortify themselves in their sorrow.” From the earliest times, as Ælfric tells us, it was the custom in England on this Sunday that “the priest should bless palm-twigs and distribute them so blessed to the people,” and that then the people should go forth in procession with him, singing the “hymn which the Jewish people sang before Christ when He was approaching to His Passion.” The so-called “palms” in England were probably willow, box, and yew, charges for which appear in the churchwardens’ accounts. In fact, one sixteenth-century authority states that the yew trees so frequently to be found in the neighbourhood of churches were planted in the churchyards of England to furnish the yew-branches which usually served for palms on Palm Sunday. Dr. Rock thus describes the procession and other ceremonies in the first part of the service on this day--