Book-markers are a convenience, but not an ecclesiastical ornament, needing a particular treatment. To change them with the seasons is a piece of fancy ritual, which may be harmless, but is at any rate unnecessary, and rather damaging to the book. Red or blue are good colours. Reverence would suggest a sparing use in these and similar things of very sacred symbols.
Lectern-cloths are among the ornaments of our rubric, and often they will greatly improve the appearance of a lectern. The usual pattern is, however, not a good one: the lectern-cloth should be a strip of handsome material (not embroidered for preference) as wide as the desk, and long enough to hang not only over the front, but over the desk to a longer distance down the back. Cloths of this sort are better fringed at the ends, and sometimes also at the sides. There is no reason why they should follow the colour of the seasons, though they may be put away in Lent and either replaced by some older or more sombre cloths, or the lectern left bare. Of all things of this kind it is well to bear in mind that it is better to spend a fair sum on one of good material than to waste the same amount on four or five cheap ones. One bad result of this multitude of changeable material has been that the lesser feasts and fasts of the Church are often not marked at all. Only the frontal need be changed.
The Litany Desk or Faldstool is not proved to have been in use at the time of the rubric; but, as in the first year of Edward VI. it was ordered that in parish churches ‘the priests, with other of the quire, shall kneel in the midst of the church, and sing or say the litany,’ a desk may have come into use as a matter of convenience. Grindal in 1563 orders the Litany to be said ‘in the midst of the people.’ Cosin, in 1627, as Archdeacon of the East Riding enquires, ‘Have you … a little faldstool, or desk, with some decent
