On the Lord's Table

Those who decorate an altar with flowers are particularly privileged, and in a special sense cooperators with Him. For the flowers are His own; and all who come into His House feel so. The altar vases thus represent no casual "decoration." They are a constant work of art, expressing the consecrated thought of the artist creating perpetual beauty in the worship of God.

Thus last week in The Churchman (Episcopal) wrote Rev. Dr. Donald Bradshaw Aldrich of Manhattan's Church of the Ascension. His remarks were by way of foreword to an article "Flowers on the Altar" by Mrs. Eleanor H. Sloan, Connecticut horticulturist who long has been on the Church of the Ascension's Altar Guild. Helpful to harassed ladies on altar guilds up & down the land were Mrs. Sloan's practical pointers. Excerpts:

"The altar flowers on a given Sunday can express the season--white for All Saints' Day, red for Whitsunday--or they may be a memorial. . . . For instance, one Sunday the flowers at the Church of the Ascension were given in memory of a warrior son lost on the field of battle. Glorious spears of gladiolus were selected in a vivid, singing red--a most triumphant note all through the worship, that day.

"One November Sunday no one gave flowers. Here was a problem. . . . It was met by bringing an armful of white pine branches from the country. In each vase of soft feathery green were inserted a few branches of brilliant autumn leaves. The effect was 'different,' and caused much favorable comment. The symbolism was rather nice, too. . . .

"It is wise to connect with one good florist and do business all through him. He then gets to know the vases and how to make up his piece so that it fits. . . . Be sure to choose a florist who has fresh, first class merchandise. 'Seconds' are noticeably inferior when placed on the altar, and they wilt rapidly."

Mrs. Sloan comes out "forcibly" against the asparagus fern, whose "color, texture and scale are all bad." White roses, says she, "are never wholly successful. Even the best fade very rapidly, almost before they open." The button chrysanthemum she finds one of the few small flowers which look well on the Lord's table. "Once we used button chrysanthemums in yellow and deep bronze with dark red oak leaves at the base. Very Spanish, when seen at close range; but the colors were massed in such a way that from a distance they looked like two lovely flames."

For country churches Mrs. Sloan approves garden flowers and even such wild growths as "soft brown cattails (shellacked to preserve their deep color), grasses and such delights as the brown cottony seed pods of the fireweed, the cloudy blue bayberry, or the brilliant scarlet berries of the black alder. . . ."

But, cautions Mrs. Sloan, garden blooms "must not be insignificant nor as someone expressed it, diddley."

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