The organ, as a solemn musical instrument, may claim a very early origin, and has been in use in our churches from the Anglo-Saxon era. The ancient organs were small, and all the pipes were exposed. The phrase “_a pair of organs_,” so frequently met with in old inventories and church accounts, may probably have answered to the great and choir organ of a subsequent period--one instrument in two divisions. The mechanism of the old organs was rude and simple, compared with the improvements of modern times, and the cost was small; they were generally placed in the rood-loft. The church chest is often an ancient and interesting object: sometimes we find it rudely formed, or hollowed out of the solid trunk of a tree, with a plain or barrel-shaped lid of considerable thickness. The churches of Bradford Abbas, Dorsetshire; Long Sutton, Somersetshire; and Ensham, Oxfordshire; contain chests thus rudely constructed. Sometimes they are strongly banded about with iron. The fronts and sides of these chests are not unfrequently embellished more or less richly with carved tracery, panel-work, and other detail in the style prevalent at the period of their construction. In Clemping Church, Sussex, is an early chest of the thirteenth century, the front of which exhibits a series of plain pointed arches trefoiled in the head, and other carved work. In Haconby Church, Lincolnshire, and in Chevington Church, Suffolk, are very rich chests covered with tracery and detail in the decorated style of the fourteenth century. In Brailes Church, Warwickshire, is an ancient chest of the fifteenth century covered with panel-work compartments, with plain pointed arches foliated in the heads. Panelled chests of this century are numerous. In Shanklin Church, Isle of Wight, is a chest bearing the date of 1519, on which no architectural ornament is displayed, but the initials T. S. (Thomas Selkstead) are fancifully designed, and are separated by the lock, and a coat of arms beneath.