Page:Suggestions on the Arrangement and Characteristics of Parish Churches.djvu/26

Rh taking down from the cross till his resurrection. It was never sanctioned by the Roman Ritual, and, in consequence of some irreverences which attended it in one of the French Cathedrals, was forbidden. That rite cannot, therefore, be practised. But the “sepulchre” was appropriated to another use—that is, it served as a memorial for the person who built or largely endowed the Church, and was called the “Founder's Tomb.” The same privilege would now, I presume, be granted to persons possessed of so much zeal as to imitate the pious liberality of our ancestors in Church building.

It is not sufficient that the chancel is separated and distinguished from the nave architecturally—that is, by a chancel arch, and by raising the general level of the chancel floor above that of the nave, or by making the width of the chancel less than that of the nave; every feeling of reverence and propriety suggests that there should be some sufficient barrier to prevent the too free access of the laity to the chancel; and, indeed, few of our poorest Churches are without a sanctuary railing of some sort. In the mediæval times, the cancelli of an earlier period developed into lofty and magnificent screens, occupying every open space about the chancel and chapels. That which stood in the chancel-arch was, in England, called the rood screen, from its being surmounted by figures of our