The marking with a cross by engraving, embroidery, or otherwise of almost all articles used in the sacred offices, calls for little comment, being largely a matter of taste merely. It has long been usual to enrich the stole and maniple with three crosses, one in the centre and one at each end; most of the linen used at the altar is also similarly marked. The old English chasubles usually had a cross on the back in the form of a =Y=, the Continental ones have a Roman Cross. The "Imitatio Christi" refers to these chasubles, and explains their form thus: the priest "has before him and behind him the sign of the cross of his Lord, that he may continually bear in mind Christ's Passion. Before him he bears the cross on his chasuble, that he may diligently look at the footsteps of Christ, and fervently endeavour to tread in them. Behind him on his back he is signed with the cross, that he may meekly endure for Christ's sake any trials which others may bring upon him." This passage has a literary interest in that it has been imported into the controversy concerning the disputed authorship of that famous book of devotion. The work has been ascribed to Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, as well as to Thomas à Kempis; but Cardinal Garganelli argued that neither the Frenchman or the German could have written it, but that the honour belongs to Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli; one of his arguments being that the Italian vestments only had the cross both on front and back, those used elsewhere bearing it behind only. The curious "dissembled" cross, the fylfot, early used with various mystical meanings by the faithful, became a not uncommon form with which to impress church bells in some districts, especially in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire. It is alleged to have been thought a charm against lightning. The cross has long been used in two very natural ways outside the fabric of the church. As the church in the midst of the clustered houses is itself a setting forth of the faith, so it follows, almost as a matter of course, that it should uprear the symbol of that faith as prominently as possible. Thus the tall spire, the church's finger, heavenward pointing, holds aloft a cross. At Amiens is an example dating from 1526,--a long life for a piece of metalwork in so exposed a position. The stone crown which caps the tower of S. Giles's, Edinburgh, originally had a bold cross above it, as shewn in old engravings.