effective: religious sentiment
insists that it should be of the best and richest, unsparingly, and even
lavishly given; common sense dictates that the loving labour spent upon
it should not be lost. And these and other such considerations involve
methods of work which, by constant use for church purposes, have come to
be classed as ecclesiastical embroidery. But there is no consecrated
stitch, no stitch exclusively belonging to the church, none probably
invented by it. For embroidery is a primitive art--clothes were stitched
before ever churches were furnished; and European methods of embroidery
are all derived from Oriental work, which found its way westwards at a
very early date. Phrygia (sometimes credited with the invention of
embroidery) passed it on to Greece, and Greece to Italy, the gate of
European art.

Christianity produced new forms of design, but not new ways of work. The
methods adopted in the nunneries of the West were those which had
already been perfected in the harems of the East.

Embroidery for the church must naturally take count of the church, both
as a building and as a place of worship; but, as apart from all other
needlework, there is no such thing as church embroidery; and the
branding of one very dull kind of thing with that name is in the
interest neither of art nor of the church, but only of business.
"Ecclesiastical art" is just a trade-term, covering a vast amount of
soulless work. There is in the nature of things no reason why art should
be reserved for secular purposes, and only manufacture be encouraged by
the clergy. The test of fitness for religious service is religious
feeling; but that is hardly more likely to be found in the output of the
church furnisher (trade patterns overladen with stock symbols), than in
the stitching of the devout needlewoman, working for the glory of God,
in whose service of old the best work was done.

Many of the examples of old work given on these pages are from church
vestments, altar furniture, and the like; information on that point will
be found in the descriptive index of illustrations at the beginning of
the book; but they are here discussed from the point of view of
workmanship, with as little reference as possible to religious or other
use: that is a question apart from art.

The distinguishing features of church work should be, in the first
place, its devotional spirit, and, in the second, its consummate
workmanship. In it, indeed, we might e