"Most assuredly. Nevertheless, where they can conveniently be had, they are _appropriate_, and teach their own lesson. It was not _necessary_ to put a cloth of black on the altar at Droneworth when your father died two years since; and I am doubtful whether Mr. Beeland was quite right in doing so. But surely if you thought it was right for him to do this at the funeral of a mere mortal man, you cannot say that it is wrong to use a black altar-cloth on _Good Friday_; and, of course, the same argument applies to all the rest. With regard to the custom in some places of covering half the church with black for a month, because some rich man has died in the parish--I say plainly that I regard that as next to impiety and profanation." "I see the justness of your words. What do you say to _cushions_ on the altar?" "Say! _they ought never to be there_. I can imagine nothing more out of place. I have often wondered for what purpose they could originally have been put there. They are certainly not required, nor yet convenient as a rest for the Altar Service Book. It is too shocking to suppose they were intended to enable the priest to rest his arms and head softly on God's altar! I have sometimes fancied I see their origin in an old custom observed in the Roman Church of placing the two lambs, whose wool was used for making the palls[160] with which the Bishop of Rome invests his archbishops with their archiepiscopal authority, on _two richly embroidered cushions, one of which was placed on the north, the other on the south side of the altar_; but I know not. A _desk_ of brass or oak is convenient to support the office-book, and _two candles_ are ordered to be placed on the altar." "But, my dear sir, I am told that is a very _Romish_ custom." "Well, Sir John, and so it is a very Romish custom to say the Lord's Prayer, and it is a very Hindoo custom for a wife to love her husband with a special devotion; but we shall not, for either reason, be disposed to blame either custom. The thing with us, like every thing else, is either right or wrong _in itself_, independent of the use of any other Church. But it so happens that this is the very reverse to a Romish custom, for these two candles were ordered to be placed on the altar in direct opposition to the custom of the Roman Catholic Church[161]. Nothing can be more expressive, and utterly unobjectionable, than the symbolism of these _two_ candles (of course, it is not _necessary_ that they should be _lighted_ in order to preserve their emblematic meaning), and I should be very sorry to see this simple symbolism broken into by the introduction of more than two lights upon the altar[162]. I have not by any means mentioned all that is required for the service of the altar; I have only spoken of its ordinary furniture. That which is specially required for the Eucharistic services is, doubtless, already provided in your church."