And very reasonable was this
usage; for when the people was spoken to it was fit to look towards them,
but when God was spoken to it was fit to turn from the people." And so he
goes on to explain the custom of turning to the east in public prayer.
In Bishop Wren's directions it was enjoined that the minister's reading
desk should not stand with the back towards the chancel, nor too remote
or far from it.
The double reading desk is still occasionally met with, as in East Ilsley
Church, Berkshire, where is a kind of double reading desk so that the
minister can turn himself either towards the west or south. In Priors
Salford Church, Warwickshire, is an old carved reading pew bearing the
date of its construction, 1616; and in St. Peter's Church, Dorchester,
Dorsetshire, and in Sherbourne Church, in the same county, are reading
pews which evidently, from the style and the carved work with which they
are covered, were constructed in the early part of the seventeenth
century.
The enclosing of the communion table in the church of Stow, in the county
of Norfolk, by rails, about the year 1622, is noticed by Weaver, who
states that the vicar and churchwardens pulled down a tomb to make room
for the rail.
In Bishop Wren's diocesan directions it was ordered that the communion
table in every church should always stand close under the east wall of the
chancel, the ends thereof north and south, and that the rail should be
made before it, reaching up from the north wall to the south wall, near
one yard in height, so thick with pillars that dogs might not get in.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165