Lights on the Altar

In the 42nd canon of those enacted under King Edgar (Thorpe's *Ancient Laws and Institutes of England*, vol. ii. pp. 252-3.) we find:— "Let there be always burning lights in the church when mass is singing." And in the 14th of the canons of Ælfric (pp. 348-9. of the same volume):— "Acoluthus he is called, who bears the candle or taper in God's ministries when the Gospel is read, or when the housel is hallowed at the altar: not to dispel, as it were, the dim darkness, but, with that light, to announce bliss, in honour of Christ who is our light."