etain such[226-*]. At the Reformation,
however, they were first required to be set up in churches. The ancient
poor-box in Trinity Church, Coventry, is an excellent specimen of the
Elizabethan era, and the shaft which supports it is of stone, covered with
arabesque scroll-work and other detail peculiar to that age; but most of
the old charity-boxes are of the seventeenth century.

[Illustration: Ancient Charity-box, Trinity Church, Coventry.]

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the practice of preaching by an
hour-glass, set in an iron frame affixed to the pulpit or projecting from
the wall near it, began to prevail; and in the succeeding century this
practice became quite common. In the churchwardens' accounts for St.
Mary's Church, Lambeth, occurs the following: "A. 1579, Payde to Yorke for
the frame on which the hower standeth,--..1..4;" and in the churchwardens'
accounts of St. Helen's Church, Abingdon, is an item, "Anno MDXCI. payde
for an houre glass for the pilpit, 4_d._" In the parochial accounts for
St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, A. D. 1597, is a charge "for removing the desk and
other necessaries about the pulpit, and for makeinge a thing for the hower
glasse, 9_d._" In Shawell Church, Isle of Wight, the old iron stand for
the hour-glass still remains affixed to a pier adjoining the pulpit; it is
composed of two flat circular hoops or rings, one at some distance above
the other, annexed or attached and kept in position by four vertical bars
of iron, and the lower ring has cross-bars to sustain the glass. In
Cassington Church, Oxfordshire, projecting from the wall by the side of
the pulpit, is an iron stand for the hour-glass, consisting of two
circular hoops or rings of iron, connected by four wrought iron bars,
worked in the middle; and across the lower ring or hoop is an iron bar or
stay. In High Laver Church, Essex, the iron stand for the glass still
remains, and is in fashion not unlike a cresset, having only one hoop or
ring encircling the top, and supported on four iron bars, which cross in
curves at the bottom. Many other churches might be enumerated in which the
stand for the hour-glass is still preserved; and the hour-glass itself,
together with its frame, is said to be retained in South Burlingham
Church, Norfolk. An hour-glass within a rich and peculiar frame, supported
on a spiral column, and apparently of the latter part of the seventeenth
century, is yet preserved in St. Alban's Church, Wood Stre