vases of latten, brass, china, or earthenware, specially made for holding flowers to decorate the altar. This custom does not appear to be of any very great antiquity, beautiful and appropriate as it is. Churches were anciently decorated with boughs and branches, and their floors strewn with rushes, bay and yew boughs; but the formal introduction of flowers in vases on the altar-ledge is of no higher antiquity than the early part of the last century.