SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE FONT AT WILNE. 187 
break into irregular crosses with numerous arms proceeding 
from a centre, some diamond-shaped and other foliaginous. The 
human figures have in every case stood over the heads of the 
dragons or birds in the panels below, not over the crosses. 
Another ‘‘ Oriental” inscription, supposed to be in cursive Arabic, 
was sent to me some months ago. It occurs on a Scoto-Irish 
reliquary, and is placed above a hand which is stretched over a 
representation of the Crucifixion. It was sent to me represented 
as contained within a panel. After Arabic scholars had disowned 
it, I explained it as the fire of the Spirit, the hand representing the 
Father, but with the remark that but for the panel I should have 
taken it as a cloud from which the hand proceeded. There is, I 
now understand, no panel, and the cloud theory has been accepted. 
I found some time after a representation of a cloud in the 
Caedmon Codex which very greatly resembles it. 
It is difficult to say what the original purpose of the pillar may 
have been. There is a representation in the catacombs of the 
four Evangelists, each with a cylindrical pillar before him reaching 
about as high as his waist. The pillars have a flat top, and the 
top has a cover which works on a single hinge, like the lid of a 
watch. The covers are represented as lying back on the hinge, 
and the pillars are being used as tables, presumably altars for the 
consecration of the eucharistic elements, the covers indicating the 
care taken to protect the surface on which the consecration took 
place. We know that early missionary bishops in our own country 
carried with them portable altars, in the form of small square 
plaques on which they consecrated, and it is not unreasonable to 
suppose that local piety provided, in addition to the preaching 
cross, some permanent table or altar, reserved for the purpose of 
supporting these little altars when the itinerant bishop or presbyter 
visited the place. An Italian portable altar of red jasper, of the 
15th century, may be seen at the South Kensington Museum 
(8986.—’63) ; it is in a maple-wood frame, the slab of jasper being 
about 8 inches by 5. In Archbishop Ecgberht’s Pontifical, we find 
that in consecrating a church the proceedings with respect to the 
altar were as follows. First the altar was blessed and consecrated 
