The word candle was introduced into the English language as an ecclesiastical term, as early as the eighth century.It was known in classical times and denoted any kind of taper in which a wick, not uncommonly made of a strip of papyrus, was encased in wax or animal fat. We need not shrink from admitting that candles, like incense and lustral water, were commonly employed in pagan worship and in the rites paid to the dead. But the Church from a very early period took them into her service