And such things can be because there is a lack of knowledge. Persons may have the best intention in the world; their experience in other, different fields may have been very wide; in a general way they may have good taste; moreover, they may possess a long purse and a liberal disposition; perhaps they may think to save themselves from going wrong by putting the whole matter into the hands of strongly advertised window-makers. But none of these things will supply the lack of a knowledge of stained glass. There is nothing for it but study and education. The clergy first of all, and after them the vestries, must inform themselves on the subject as thoroughly as possible. In the meantime, let them be slow to lend themselves to anything which they later, or those who come after them, might bitterly deplore and be helpless to remedy. Nor is it to-day so forbidding a task to get this knowledge as it was but a few years ago. Then one had to go to the libraries in our largest cities, and laboriously gather from rare works the history and principles of this art. Now there is fortunately at least one single volume, easily obtainable, which may serve as a text-book to all who desire to study the subject. Mr. Lewis F. Day has given us in his _Windows: A Book about Stained and Painted Glass_, published in London, 1897, by B. T. Batsford, imported by the Scribners, just that information which is needed. No vestry that has the matter of Stained Glass Memorials before it should permit its rector to be without this book; he should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it; but not he only; they also, at least the members of any committee responsible for such work; and intending donors likewise, who desire to have a controlling voice in regard to memorials to be erected. This is too important a thing to enter upon recklessly or at the dictation of mere fancy. * * * * * Meanwhile it may not be out of place to tell briefly and simply what stained glass windows in a church ought to be; and what stained glass itself is. Stained glass windows are still, after all, windows: and windows are essential component parts of a building. If in a church, the axiom applies the more inevitably: a church is a building presumed to conform rigidly to a certain type; and therefore, the idea which the whole is to exhibit and impress must not for a moment be hidden or dissipated by any component part.