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 L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
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 A FEW WORDS 
 
 TO 
 
 CHURCHWARDENS 
 
 ON 
 
 CHURCHES 
 
 AND 
 
 CHURCH ORNAMENTS 
 No. I. 
 
 SUITED TO COUNTRY PARISHES 
 
 ^uIiU0f)e!i tip iffc CamtiriUge Camtien Sociefp 
 
 ' In that It was in thine heart to build an house to My Name thou didst 
 well that it was in thine heart." 
 
 NINTH EDITION 
 
 WITH NEW COKRECTION3 AND ADDITIONS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 STEVENSON CAMBRIDGE PARKER OXFORD 
 
 RIVINGTONS LONDON 
 
 M DCCC XLI 
 
 Price Sd.; or, 25 Copies for 5.9.; 50 /or 8*.; 100 for lOs.
 
 CAMBRIDGE CAMDEN SOCIETY. 
 
 Instituted May, 1839. 
 
 PATRONS. 
 
 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbi'ry. 
 His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, Chancellor of the 
 University. 
 
 The Right Hon. the Lord High Chancellor of England, High 
 
 Steward of the University. 
 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Armagh. 
 The Right Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of London, 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Winchester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Lincoln. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Chester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ely. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Hereford. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Worcester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of New Zealand (Elect). 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of Ross and Argyll. 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of Edinburgh. 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of New Jersey, U. S. 
 The Hon. and Rev. the Master of Magdalene College. 
 The Rev. the Master of Clare Hall. 
 The Rev. the Provost of King's College. 
 The Rev. the Master of Downing College. 
 
 The Very Rev. the Dean of Peterborough, Regius Professor of 
 Divinity. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Tlie Venerable Thomas Thorp, Archdeacon of Bristol, 
 
 Tutor of Trinity College. 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES. 
 The Rev. John Mason Neale, Downing College. 
 
 TREASURER. 
 Arthur Shelly Eddis, Esq., Trinity College. 
 
 HONORARY SECRETARIES. 
 Benjamin Webb, Esq., Trinity College. 
 James Gavin Young, Esq., Trinity College. 
 Frederick Apthorp Paley, Esq. St Jolin's College. 
 
 I UJUC ' 
 
 % /
 
 A FEW WORDS TO CHURCHWARDENS. 
 
 In the following i-emarks I am going to speak only of that part 
 of your duties which has to do with the Parish church. About 
 your other duties, though they are weighty enough, I shall say 
 nothing just now; but if you will spare half an hour to read 
 what I am going to tell you about these, you may perhaps gain a 
 few liints that may be of use to yourselves, and to others after 
 you. 
 
 But you will say, I know that the care of a church is a thing 
 not to be slighted; but the Archdeacon at his Visitation seldom 
 ends his charge without a few words to us Churchwardens, and 
 I do not see what need we have of any advice besides. 
 
 It is indeed true, I am glad it is so, that the Archdeacon often 
 gives you some share of his address; and you may be sure that 
 notliing I say will interfere with his authority, or that of the Rural 
 Dean; first, because I take for granted your Clergyman will put you 
 on your guard against doing any thing without their consent, which 
 in any but the commonest matters is altogether necessary; and 
 next because, as you must see from what I do say, my only pur- 
 pose is to lighten their work by giving you some insight into the 
 right and wrong of things they may order, as well as some directions 
 suited to save both them and you trouble in matters belonging to 
 your every day duties. So that if it should happen, — as happen 
 it may, for what in this world is perfect? — that in any thing here 
 said I differ from either the Ordinary or the Clergyman, you will 
 at once make up your minds that they are right, and I am wrong. 
 For I do not pretend to speak, as they do, with authority, being but 
 a way-faring man that go about visitmg churches for the love of Him 
 that is worshipped in them, nor to pass for an oracle just because 
 nobody knows who I am. I hope I am better acquainted with these 
 things than I was a few years ago, and am happier for it, if not better 
 too : yet some of them are matters about which people's minds may 
 differ, and some things I recommend may be right in themselves 
 without being wise or practicable, and some that are wrong j^erhaps 
 cannot be got rid of without more harm than will come of letting 
 them be as they are ; besides that their being so is something in 
 their favour, for it is a good rule, as we all know, to "let well 
 alone": and, above all, it is easy for me to say "this is right", 
 and "that is wrong", who have nothing to do with it, and can 
 come by no blame or discredit by my advice, Avhen very likely, if 
 it rested with me, I should find, after weighing every thing, that 
 
 1—2
 
 tlie balance turned the other way; and that what 1 may talk about 
 very safely as Nobody knows who, I should be verj' sorry to do if 
 I liappened to be an Archdeacon. So now I hope you will find 
 nothing in these pages but what will make the business of Visita- 
 tions easier, and your share in it greater than you have been used to 
 think it, as well as more to your liking: and indeed at all seasons 
 of that kind there is so much to be said, and so little room in 
 Avhich to say it, that whatever you then hear about churches must 
 needs be very short; so that you may still find some further re- 
 marks will help you better to know what you have to do. And 
 if I should happen to tell you, as it is not unlikely I may, 
 something that you knew well before, you will forgive this when 
 you remember that it may be of use to some Churchwardens who 
 know less about such affairs than yourselves. And before I quit 
 this matter, let me pray you to make a point of attending the 
 daily service when the Bishop or Archdeacon holds his Visitation, 
 that you and the Church may have the blessing of your prayers 
 along with those of the Clergy at a business of so much importance, 
 instead of dropping in at the end, as is too often the case, only to 
 answer to your names and make your Presentments, as if you did 
 not belong to the Church, but were heathens or heretics. And if 
 I should only have brought you to take this view of your duties, 
 I rather look to be thanked than to he called a busy body, as well 
 by you as the Bishop or the Archdeacon. 
 
 I cannot begin better than by reminding you of your privilege 
 in being allowed to watch over God's earthly dwelling-place. Little 
 as we may think of it now-a-days, it was not so thought of by 
 wiser and better men than ourselves in former times; and the 
 " Homily of repairing and keeping clean and comely adorning of 
 churches" has given us some very good advice on this point, as 
 well as warned us of our sin if through our fault we let them 
 run to decay. Many people who have not troubled themselves 
 about the subject seem to believe that, so long as a church is in 
 such repair as will keep it from tumbling down, so long as its 
 windows give light enough, and the doors turn on their hinges, it 
 matters not how much the building has been spoilt, how much of 
 its beauty it has lost, how damp and unhealthy it has become. 
 But do you think it befitting the Majesty of Him Whose House 
 this is, that things should be done in it which the poorest peasant 
 would not do in his cottage? Do you think that it is, — I will 
 not say right, but even decent, — that the church windows should 
 be blocked up with brick or boarded over with wood, the roof 
 patched and plaistered till it can hardly be called the same, and 
 the floor made up of bricks and stones and tiles, and these 
 the cheapest of their kind? Let me ask you a plain question. 
 You have a house, good and comfortable, which j'ou let to a tenant 
 on the understanding that he should koop it so. You stay away
 
 5 
 
 for some years; and when you come back, you lose no time in 
 going to your house to see after it. You are shocked to find 
 many of the panes broken, and stuffed up with paper, or straw, 
 or rags; instead of the handsome door you had left, a piece of 
 coarse unpainted deal ; the cieling Avretchedly damp, with here and 
 there the laths peeping out wherever the plaister has fallen down ; 
 and the whole house so changed that you hardly know it again. 
 Would you think it enough if yoift- tenant were to say, " Why, 
 sir, the house is in no danger ; I did indeed block up some of 
 your windows, but I don't think we much wanted the light ; as 
 to the door, I forget how it got off the hinges, but plain deal 
 is much cheaper than oak, and I thought it would answer as 
 well; and the rain used to come in at the windows, so I made 
 the best shift I could to stop up the holes." You will find there 
 is as much reason in such an answer, as there would be in that 
 of a Churchwarden who lets his church go to decay. 
 
 But you may ask me, — if all this be true, ^vhy have we not 
 heard more about it from the Clergyman, whose business it is to 
 tell us of it ? In the first place I will venture to say that you 
 have heard something from him on the duty of keeping your 
 church in order; but in the next place, you must remember that 
 to look after this is more your business than his; and besides 
 all, he has hindrances of his own, which a stranger like myself 
 whose name you do not know, and who does not know yours, 
 cannot have. For example : a Clergyman comes into a new parish, 
 and finds that the church has been shamefully used. He calls 
 on Mr A. the Churchwarden, and points out the alterations that 
 are wanted; here something ought to be pulled down, and there 
 a door altered. Now both these things were made as they are by 
 Mr C. the late Churchwarden, who rather prides himself on what 
 he has done. Do you not see that, if Mr A. does as the Clergy- 
 man advises him, Mr C. will bear them both a grudge for their 
 pains ? 
 
 I am not fond of quoting Scripture, but there is a passage 
 which has so much to do with what I am saying, that I shall 
 quote it whole. 
 
 " Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, saying, This people say, 
 The time is not come, the time that the Lord's House should be 
 built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, 
 saying. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, 
 and this House lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of 
 Hosts; Consider your ways. Ye looked for much, and lo! it came 
 to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. 
 Why? saith the Lord of Hosts? Because of Mine House that is 
 waste, and ye run every man unto his own house." Haggai i. 3, 
 
 But there is another reason why you should look well after 
 your church. It is because of the poor. If the building they
 
 meet in on the Sunday is not opened from week's end to 
 week's end; if the walls are allowed, as is too often the ease, to 
 be covered with green mould, and the water to stand in little 
 pools on the cold damp stones; can you wonder if they betake 
 themselves to the next meeting-house, where they Avill at least be 
 sure of being comfortably seated, rather than stay aAvay from public 
 worship altogether? I am not speaking of what they ought to do, 
 but of what they will do. Is it not vei-y sad to think of, and will 
 it not be a sin laid to your charge, if through your neglect in not 
 keeping the church dry and healthy any of your poorer brethren 
 should take themselves away, not only from the earthly building, 
 but from that spiritual Church of which it is a type and shadow? 
 The great cause of almost all the ruin and unhealthiness that 
 are found in our Parish churches may be told in one word, damp. 
 And, as matters commonly stand, how can it be otherwise ? 
 In the first place there is a mass of wet soil always rottmg in 
 the churchyard: this is mostly heaped up to some height against 
 the walls: the mound so raised becomes higher every week by 
 sweepings from the church, pieces of old matting, and all the odds 
 and ends that the sexton carries out on the Monday morning : and 
 on this pile, damp and decaying of itself, the eaves of the roof 
 are every now and then discharging fresh water, and the sun can 
 shine but little upon it. Our forefathers made their foundations very 
 strong ; but it is not in stone and cement to stand for ever against 
 wet, and above all wet earth. It follows of course that the outside 
 walls crumble away by degrees, and in the inside long tracks of 
 green slime shew themselves one after another. If they make 
 any one's seat uncomfortable, and it is agreed to get rid of them, 
 there are two ways used for this purpose. The one is, to board 
 over the piece of wall so diseased: and thus the wall, being now 
 shut out from the drying of the air, cracks all the quicker. The 
 other is to whitewash the place: and when the mould comes 
 again, to whitewash it again, and so on; unless sometimes by way 
 of change lamp-black is used instead. But you may try these plans 
 for ever without getting rid of the enemy yoii want to destroy. 
 Your plan must be rather more troublesome, but it will be both 
 sure and speedy. You must begin by clearing away all the earth 
 from the walls of the church, about three or four feet broad. If 
 unhappily any graves have been made close to the wall, they must 
 be moved further back. This advice may seem at first hard- 
 hearted ; but it is not so. To leave them where they are is cruelty 
 to the living : and you will not, I think, suspect me of wantonly 
 disturbing the I'eraains of the dead. You will next have to make 
 a gutter of drain-tiles all round the buUding, and carry it off at a 
 slope from the churchyard. I need not remind you that, unless 
 your eave-drains and water-spouts are good, and so contrived that 
 all their water may run into the drain-tiles, your pams will have
 
 been altogether in vain. When you have done this, you will easily 
 remove the stains, (which are nothing but a green vegetable matter 
 caused by damp), by scraping and washing; and to prevent their 
 appearing again, mop the walls once or twice well over with a 
 mixture made of one ounce of corrosive sublimate dissolved in a 
 quart of water. You will of course be careful of tliis liquid, as it 
 is deadly poison. 
 
 You will find the following plan also very useful in making 
 the church drier. The door and some of the windows should be 
 left open for a thorough draught duiing the whole day, and in all 
 weathers. To prevent mischief, and to hinder birds from getting in, 
 there should be wire over the open windows, and a lattice door to 
 the porch: this should exactly fit the whole opening, and should 
 be kept locked; though I would much rather, where it can be 
 done, that it should fasten with a latch, so that every one might 
 be able at all times of the day to go to their oa\ti Parish church 
 for private prayer, as was the custom in former times. 
 
 But there is another evil to which a church is liable, which 
 arises from a wish on the part of the churchwardens to "beautify" 
 as it is called; whereas, through unskilfubiess in setting about 
 their work, they often do a great deal to spoil the building. And 
 here I must say a few words to explain one or two hard names 
 which I have to use, in order that you may understand me with 
 the greater ease. 
 
 There is no one but knows that every old chui-ch is built East 
 and West, and has at least two parts, which are mostly divided 
 from each other by an arch ; the part to the East being called the 
 Chancel, from a Latin word CancelU, which means rails, because it 
 always used to be railed off, as it sometimes is now ; and the 
 part to the West the Nave, in French Nef, though some have 
 thought the name comes from a Latin word meaning a ship, to teach 
 us that the Church of God may be likened to a vessel tossed up 
 and down upon the waves of this troublesome world. Very often 
 the Nave is divided by two rows of pillars from the Aisles, or 
 wings: and, in churches built like a Cross, the cross arms that go 
 oflF to the North and South are called the Transepts. The Chancel, 
 as I have said, used to be parted from the Nave by rails, or a 
 screen, as it is called; the old name was the Rood-screen, that is 
 Cross-screen, because a Cross with certain figures used to stand over 
 it. You will often find a little round staircase left in one of the 
 pillars of the Chancel arch, (that is, the arch between the Chancel 
 and the Nave), which led up to this Cross. You will also com- 
 monly see on your right hand, as you stand facing the Altar, a 
 recess in the wall, with a hole leading to a water-drain : this was 
 used to pour away the water in which the Clergyman rinsed the 
 sacred vessels, which he always did after the Holy Communion. 
 By the side of this it is not unlikely that there may be three
 
 8 
 
 seats in the wall, one higher than another: it was here that the 
 Priest and Deacons used to sit. All these things you will some- 
 times find in like manner near the east end of the south Aisle. 
 The reason I speak of them is hecause in many churches they have 
 been boarded over, either to hide the damp, as I said before, or 
 from a fancy that it made the church warmer. But this is 
 altogether a mistake; and the things so hidden are at any rate 
 great ornaments, and so is the Rood-screen, which is often taken 
 away out of a notion that it hinders the Clergyman from being 
 heard when reading the Communion service. 
 
 The Chancel arch itself is too often knocked about to make 
 room for pews: you ought to remember that the beauty of a 
 church, when you look up it from the west, is entirely spoilt wher- 
 ever this arch has been allowed to be hurt. There is also almost 
 always a door either on the north or south of the Chancel, which 
 has been blocked up. Let me ask you to open it as soon as you 
 can: it will cost but little, and be a great improvement. 
 
 A word or two as to the windows. Perhaps you are not aware 
 that any one used to such matters can tell how old a window is 
 by only looking at it; and, if they have to be repaired, the old 
 form ought not to be lost. This is a matter in which you never 
 can trust a country mason: you must take it into your own 
 hands. What I would advise is this, and the rather if the 
 window you are going to repair be a large or fine one, and if 
 your Clergyman cannot help you, though that is not very likely. 
 Send an account of the window (if you can get a drawing done, 
 so much the better) to the Camden Society at Cambridge, or to 
 the Architectural Society at Oxford (which have both been 
 formed for the purpose of preserving ancient churches, and teacliing 
 others how to preserve them), and they will tell you all you 
 want to know. But if for some reason or other you should 
 not be able to do this, then I can tell you no better way than 
 the following: — you must get a piece of lead, two or three 
 feet long, about half-an-inch broad, and as thin as you can: with 
 this let your mason take the shapes of the muUions, tracery, and 
 labels (he will understand these words, if you do not) by pressing 
 it tight round them; and when he has got them, he can take 
 them off upon paper, and must make his new work just like 
 the old. And this will do for the doors and pillars of the church, 
 as well as for its windows. 
 
 Indeed you cannot be too much on your guard against every 
 kind of change if you would not have your church spoilt. What 
 may seem to you an improvement may be, and most likely will 
 be, the very contrary. Perhaps it might seem to you an im- 
 provement to move the Font away from its place by the door, 
 fliid to put it (as is now often done) just before the Altar. 
 Now they who do so make two great mistakes. The Font was
 
 9 
 
 not put near the door by chance, for it was meant to shew by 
 this that Baptism is the door by whicli a child is brought into 
 the Church. They first lose sight of that meaning ; and then they 
 make another and a worse mistake, by carrying the Font into 
 the Chancel. For the Chancel is that part of the church which 
 is set apart for the holiest services : and yet they would bring a 
 child into it for the purpose of being admitted to the very first 
 privilege it can have as a Christian. 
 
 Now this reminds me to say something about your Altar. It is a 
 sin and a shame to see, in many Parish churches, a shabby table used 
 for this purpose, only because it is good for nothing else. The table, 
 if of wood, in the first place should be made of either mahogany 
 or oak, and covered with the best cloth or velvet; in many places 
 they have the letters I H S, (more properly I H C,) worked into 
 the covering, and it is a becoming mark of remembrance of Him 
 Whose Body was broken and Whose Blood was shed: for these 
 letters stand in Greek for the name of Jesus.* A piece of thick 
 carpet should be spread over the floor within the Altar-rails. And 
 do not treat the Holy Sacraments so lightly as to let the vessels 
 employed in them be so cheap and poor, or so ill used, as one often 
 finds them. If we cannot now spare our gold and silver for the holy 
 Table, as they did of old, let us at least have vessels set apart for this 
 purpose alone, and which are not disgraceful from their meanness. 
 
 In the same way the Font should be taken care of: it should have 
 the water-drain and plug in good order, and should itself be 
 filled when wanted with fresh water; for those small basons which 
 sometimes stand in it are against the orders of the Church. I 
 need not say how painful it is, on lifting up the cover of the 
 Font, to find it used as a box to hold rubbish, torn books, ends 
 of tallow candles, and the like. 
 
 You are required by the 82d Canon to have the Command- 
 ments put up on the East wall of the church or chapel : they are 
 often seen in other parts of the church. Wlienever they want 
 renewing, if renewed at all, they should be painted in large black 
 letters, with all those letters in red which are printed in capitals 
 in the Prayer Book : this is called rubricating, and it gives them 
 a handsome look. By the same Canon it is ordered that certain 
 chosen sentences should be painted up in several parts of the 
 church. It is a pity to see this custom every day more and more 
 disused. 
 
 It may not be amiss now to say something about the roof. 
 There are few churches which have not lost much of their beauty 
 from their roofs being of a much lower pitch than they used to 
 be. If you look at the east side of your tower, you may see 
 what is called the weather-moulding of the old roof remaining; 
 and from thence you will be able to judge how much lower the roof 
 * See the List of Tublications, p. 16.
 
 10 
 
 is than it was once. Now the reason is very plain. In this figure 
 ABC shews how the roof stood at first : in 
 time the ends A, C, which are fixed in the 
 wall, become decayed, and instead of getting 
 new rafters the parish vestry think it enough 
 to cut off a foot or so of the old wood, and thus 
 the rafters being much shorter can of course 
 ^ reach only to D. At this slope they stand 
 tUl the lower ends decay again; which happens much sooner this 
 time, because they were most likely not very sound at first ; and 
 then another piece is cut ofi^, and the roof sinks down to E. Now, 
 besides the ugliness of a flat cieling, there is more harm done here. 
 Suppose that in this church there was a window which reached nearly 
 as far as B. ^Fhat is to be done with it when the roof gets down to 
 D and to i? ? Why of course it must be blocked up : and many of 
 the finest windows in the country have been spoilt in this very way. 
 Besides, a high pitch is best for the roof, whatever the roof may be 
 made of; the higher the pitch, the quicker the drainage, and the smaller 
 the thrust on the walls. The best roofing is of lead, and in former 
 times little else was ever used : but it is apt to crack with the heat. 
 If you have to repair the leads, be sure before the roof is taken off to 
 get an exact estimate of how much new lead must be mixed with the 
 old (for some new lead always must be used). Some Churchwardens 
 who have not done this have found the cost so much greater than they 
 thought of, that ihey have allowed all the lead to be taken away, and 
 have put up tiles instead. I hope you will never think of that 
 shameful way of raising money, when you want it for repairs, to 
 sell the lead, and put tiles in its place. 
 
 I now come to speak of the monuments in your church. It 
 is a very sad thing that these should have been treated as they 
 often have been. Those of brass, inlaid in the floor of the church, 
 have been stolen and sold for the sake of the paltry sum they 
 would fetch; the alabaster figures have sometimes been broken 
 up from mere wantonness, and sometimes ground into powder for 
 cattle medicines. I pass over the great use such monuments are 
 of in the study of histoiy, and the beauty they give to the build- 
 ing where they are put up. What I think most of is the hard- 
 heartedness of allowing such havock. It is tme that they Avhom 
 they were meant to remind us of are far beyond our reach either 
 for good or ill : " they rest from their labours, and their works 
 do follow them." But what would be your own feelings, if you 
 could foresee that the monument you had raised to a father, or 
 a wife, or a cliild, was to be puUed down to please some idle 
 whim of those who ought to take care of it, and the only re- 
 membrance left of them on earth to be lost for everl 
 
 Brasses are of all tilings most likely to be hurt. They may 
 be (luite worn out by the many feet that pass over them. You
 
 11 
 
 must hinder this as well as you can. If the nails which fasten 
 them to the stone come out, the holes should be filled with pitch, 
 and the nails driven in again. And if you have any loose brasses 
 kept in the parish chest, oi* elsewhere, you should try to find 
 the stone where they were imbedded, and put them down in it 
 again: but if you cannot find it, it will be easy to have another 
 stone cut so as to hold them, always remembering that their feet 
 should be turned towards the East. If you can do notliing else, 
 you may fix them in a safe place upright against the wall. But 
 never allow a brass to be boarded over: if you should find one 
 that has been boarded over before your time, it ought to be un- 
 covered. If that cannot be, the place where it lies, and a copy of 
 the legend, (that is the reading,) should be entered in the Parish 
 Register, And do not let such brasses be rubbed, like a brass 
 kettle, to keep them bright : for you thus wear away all the marks 
 in them, and make them worth nothing. As to those who take 
 alabaster monuments to serve their own purposes, they are guilty 
 of sacrilege as well as the thief who steals the Communion plate : 
 I do not say that their guilt is as great as his, because I hope 
 they do it thoughtlessly ; still, thoughtlessness is a poor excuse to 
 those who might know better if they would. 
 
 One word more about brasses. There is a way of taking coijies 
 of them by laying thin paper upon them, and rubbing it over 
 with black lead, or with what is called heel-ball; and some that 
 are curious in these matters may find their way to your church 
 for the purpose: you will of course give them all the help you 
 can. To hinder them is no proof of any care for the brass, be- 
 cause what they do may save it from bemg forgotten, and cannot 
 in the least hurt it. 
 
 There are some now who go about to churches, and try to 
 buy the old armour, or helms, or spurs, which are still to be found 
 on many an old tomb. I hope that no one who has the charge 
 of a church will ever let these, or any other things, however small, 
 be taken away by visitors; for they are all hallowed by having 
 been placed in the House of God. 
 
 About pews and galleries it is hard to speak; we are so 
 accustomed to see them in churches, that we do not rightly judge 
 of the harm they have done, and stiU do, both to the buildings 
 themselves, and to the people assembled in them. They have spoilt 
 more churches than perhaps any other thing whatever ; and as to 
 the congregations, it surely looks like selfishness to make one man 
 shut himself up in a comfortable pew, while many can find no 
 room at all. The fashion of pews was brought into general use by 
 those who endeavoured to overthrow, and for a time did overthrow, 
 our Church and State, and martyred their anointed sovereign. 
 Blessed King Charles the First. But these are not the men we 
 should like to follow.
 
 12 
 
 But there is something more to be said against these wooden 
 boxes. In ancient times it was the custom for all to kneel to 
 the East; whether because, as the Sun rises in the East, that 
 part of the sky seemed to remind them of Christ, the Sun of 
 Righteousness, or because they thus turned in their prayers, like 
 Daniel, to the Holy Land. But now in our huge square pews 
 people, if they kneel at all, often kneel face to face, whether they 
 look into their own or their neighbour's pew, as if they were wor- 
 shipping each other rather than God ; and the wandering of thought 
 that must arise from this is very mischievous and painful. Open 
 benches with backs to them are what befit a church best ; and every 
 bench should have a place to kneel on, and perhaps a ledge for the 
 books. There is scarcely any country church but has some of 
 these, and they may be copied when others are made. Pews 
 have been well called eyesores and heartsores; but I hardly think 
 you will be able to get rid of them all at once ; still if you can 
 do away with one or two this year, the next churchwarden may 
 do the same next year, and so on ; and if you should have to 
 repew the church in your year, and are able to bring in benches, 
 you will have done no little good both to church and people. At 
 any rate, whether pews or benches, they should look the same 
 way, and that should be to the East. 
 
 Galleries are altogether bad. But, you may ask, what is to 
 be done where the people are too many for the church? must not 
 a gallery be built then? I will tell you a case of this kind that 
 happened in a parish I know. The church, pewed as it then 
 was, held 280; room was needed for 850. The Churchwarden 
 called on the Clergyman, and wanted to have a gallery at the west 
 end made to hold 50. I have a great dislike to galleries, said the 
 rector; and besides you will still want 20 seats. May be, sir, an- 
 swered the Churchwarden; but the gallery will not hold more, and 
 we must do the best we can. I think, if you will leave it to me, 
 said the other, I can shew you a better way. And so it turned 
 out; the pews were all taken away and open benches were put in 
 their stead ; and then there was found room for 400 people. In 
 this case, 5 feet was left for the passage midway down the Nave, 
 36 inches by 18 being given to each seat ; and less than that will 
 not allow of a man's kneeling. 
 
 However, if this does not make room enough, it is better to build 
 a gallery than to pew the Chancel : at least that is my opinion. But 
 at any rate, let it be built where it will hide least; and let it be 
 plain. A tawdry, flaunting gallery is the most hideous of all 
 hideous things. And never let it rest on the pillars of the church, 
 but on wooden uprights behind them. 
 
 If you have new windows to put in, let the glass be in lozenges, 
 as in the old casements, with their dim chequered light making the 
 ()uict church feel so calm and holy, and not in staring square panes
 
 such as we often see now. And never let a broken pane remain a 
 day unmended: to do so lets in the birds and the rain, and leads to 
 the breaking of more. Remember the old saying, " a stitch in time 
 saves nine." If the old windows have any stained glass, you should 
 fence them outside with wire. And if you happen to find any 
 scattered bits of stained glass that have been left here and there 
 by the church- destroyers of other days, you may gather them toge- 
 ther, and put them up in such a way as to be a pleasing ornament. 
 Sometimes in repairing a church the remains of old paintings are 
 found on the wall. I would earnestly advise you, if this should hap- 
 pen, to send to one of the two Societies I told you of before, as 
 the cleaning these paintings is a very difficult thing, and they are 
 so curious that they ought to be looked to with great care. 
 
 Take care too that those parts of a church which are not 
 wanted to hold people, such as the Tower and the west ends 
 of the Aisles, are kept clean and not used as lumber places; 
 one is often shocked to find coals kept in them. And if you 
 must have a stove, be sure that it does not stand near a brass 
 or a tombstone ; and let the smoke be carried through a flue 
 under the floor and wall of the church to a chimney outside, with 
 a fire-place at the bottom to make the air draw, — and not through the 
 roof or Avindow. Very often too the arch leading to the Belfry 
 is blocked up to make the church warm ; by all means, if yoxi 
 can, pull this screen down, and if your Tower is kept as it ought 
 to be, the church will be none the colder for it. The Tower is too 
 often looked upon as if it did not belong to the church ; people 
 put on their hats when they go into it. You should teach the 
 ringers to treat it as a holy place : they should not be allowed 
 to send for beer to drink there. Do you not remember what S. Paul 
 says — " \Vliat, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in ? or de- 
 spise ye the church of God?" 
 
 The scores of triple bob majors, and the like, should not be 
 written up in white or red chalk on the Tower walls; you may 
 get a smooth board, on which they will show plainer. And take 
 care that the candles used by the ringers have good stands, other- 
 wise the Tower is made untidy by the drippings of grease. The 
 more you encourage ringing, I mean good ringing, the better ; but 
 I hope you will never let the bells be rung at an election, or any 
 thing of that kind. The church is in all countries what it is 
 called in some. The House of Peace; do not make any dislike the 
 sound of its sweet bells, by hearing them rung because their ovra 
 side is beaten; no, not even though they should be wrong and 
 you right. And therefore a flag on a church tower during a con- 
 tested election is what ought never to be seen. You are told 
 in the Canon the fit time for the bells to be rung, namely, on 
 Saints' days and their eves. They should not be rung in Lent, 
 except on Sundp.ys. In some places they are never rung when
 
 14 
 
 auy one rich or poor lies dead in the village, and this is a kind 
 and good custom. I hope, if any money happen to be left for 
 the keeping up that good old custom the curfew, you take care 
 it is kept up, and that the money is not spent otherwise. The 
 Bells, you must know, are often very curious, and well worth 
 seeing. Keep them in good order; and let your ladders, and bell 
 frames, and belfry-floor be good and safe. Let the Belfry be kept 
 always clean; and, if you do not like to banish the birds, at least 
 remove the sticks and rubbish they bring in and leave there. 
 I know of one Cathedral where there were found whole stacks, 
 I might say, of such rubbish, brought together by the jackdaws or 
 caddows; and you know that this is supposed to have had some- 
 thing to do with the dreadful destruction of York Minster. 
 
 The pavement of the church must be well looked to; take 
 care of any painted tUes you may happen to have ; and lay them 
 down in front of the Altar or in the Chancel. Stones of course are 
 best for the floor ; tiles next, as we make them now ; then bricks ; 
 and wood worst of all. 
 
 Do not, if you can help it, let the school be taught in the 
 church; at any rate not in the Chancel. The children break the 
 windows, wear out the brasses, and the like; and, what is worse, 
 they get to look on the church as a common place. Hence it 
 comes that one often finds hatpegs stuck all over the church : by 
 all means take them away. And let there be, as the Canon orders, 
 a poor-box; I would put it near the door and write over it some 
 such text as " He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." 
 
 I must also ask you to look well to the care of your church- 
 yard. It pains and grieves one to see the place where our fore- 
 fathers are laid, and where we are to lie, cut to pieces by paths 
 that have been made from time to time for passers-by, who are 
 in too great a hurry about their worldly business to let the dead 
 rest in peace. You should stop up these paths wherever you 
 can do so with the good will of the parishioners; they will often 
 be persuaded by you, when they might not by the Clergyman, to 
 give up such encroachments. And at any rate you should not allow 
 children or idle people to play there, defacing the gravestones, and 
 learning to think lightly of hallowed j)laces, where, if an angel 
 were to meet us, he would say, " Take off thy shoe from off thy 
 foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy gi-ound." And, 
 talking of gravestones, you will often have some that have fallen 
 down, lying along, whole or in pieces, for want of one to set 
 them up again. If there be any of the family of the deceased 
 to be found in the parish or elsewhere, it will be your duty to 
 seek them out, and theirs to repair their family monuments; but 
 if not, then I advise you to have the stones carefully moved to 
 the side of the churchyard wall, where a number of them standing 
 side by side will be an ornament instead of an eye-sore, and will
 
 15 
 
 leave room for smootliing and clearing the ground, instead of being 
 in every body's way. And if you can by degrees bring about a 
 tidier look of the churchyard gi-ound, which may be done by 
 little at a time, by clearing away rubbish and useless earth, 
 you will, I am sure, make your parishioners take a pride in it, 
 though they may not have liked all your doings at first; and all 
 the more if you will now and then plant a few evergreens, yews, 
 cypresses, or such like shrubs, where the ground allo\\s of it, to shew 
 that it is a place to be held in reverence. Never let clothes be 
 hung to dry in the churchyard : nor let the neighbours keep their 
 hens in it. And you will of coui-se take care that it be sui-rounded 
 by a stout fence of a proper height, to guard it from inroads 
 of cattle and children, without shuttmg it out from sight; and 
 above all you must keep the entrances closed, as much as may be, 
 so as not to allow pigs or cattle to stray in, which is a grievous 
 wrong to the dead. The larger cattle, at any rate, ought never 
 to come into a churchyard; and even sheep, which from theii- harm- 
 lessness are favourites, and mow the grass cleaner than a scythe, 
 nevertheless often do mischief to the gravestones by rubbing their 
 backs against and dislodging them. But this is rather a matter 
 belonging to the Clergj'man, who will I am sure always set you 
 herein a good example. 
 
 You should be careful not to let ivy grow so as to do harm 
 to the walls of your church. It often spreads and then winds in 
 through the mortar and between the stones of the building, so 
 that I have even seen it make its way through the wall into 
 the church, or through the panes of the windows : after which, as 
 it begins to swell, it pushes against the stones on each side of it, 
 and forces them asunder, to the ruin (in the end) of the whole 
 building. Not that I would wish you to banish it altogether, as it is 
 a great beauty to the church, and is said to keep the walls dry. 
 
 I hope the minister, to whom the custody of the church key 
 belongs, will take care that one is kept near the church. It is a 
 very tiresome thing, when one has come a long way to see a 
 church, to find that the clerk lives a mile off: and when you 
 get to his cottage hot and tired, to hear that he is gone out, and 
 has taken the key with him. 
 
 It is my wish to be as short as may be; and therefore though 
 I have not said the tenth part that I might have said, I shall 
 only make one or two remarks before I end, on the use of paint 
 and whitewash, wliich are with most churchwardens very favourite 
 means of beautifying a church. Paint should never be used unless 
 for the texts I spoke of before ; and whitewash, at least over stone, 
 never at all. The finest ornaments of a church are often so clogged 
 with one coat of it after another, as to be scarcely seen. Doors, win- 
 dows, pillars, monuments, all alike are spoilt by it. Far from adding 
 to the mischief you ought, to the best of your power, to remove
 
 16 
 
 whitewash where it has been ah-eady laid on. This may be most 
 easily done by scraping away the outer surface, and then moistening 
 the part by means of a brush with a mixture composed of one 
 part of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), and eight or ten of water, and 
 washing it over with water after every second or third application 
 till you see the stone or wood appear. If however you wish to 
 remove the white- wash from the remains of a painting on a wall, 
 use soft soap with hot water and a brush, not too hard. This 
 done carefully will not hurt the painting. Paint is harder to get rid 
 of; it may however be effectually done with strong soap maker's lye, 
 or, what is quite as good, the following liquid: put one pound of 
 potash or pearlash, with half a pound of unslaked lime, into a jar, 
 and pour over it one gallon of boiling hot rain water; wash this 
 repeatedly over the surface, scrubbing off the paint as it becomes 
 softened. Or you may try this way: take a quarter of a pound 
 of soda: (for good soda you ought not to pay more than three 
 halfpence the pound) : boil it with a little soap in three pints of 
 water, till it comes to a paste; then lay it on what you want to 
 clean, pretty thick ; two days after, lay it on again, without washing 
 the old away ; do this four times, and then scrub the whole off: the 
 panit will come oiF too. This does either for stone or wood. 
 
 You must be quite aware that 1 can have had no other reason 
 for speaking to you thus, than the wish to help you to understand 
 and to be fit for your duties, which are becoming every day more 
 weighty and important on account of that zeal for the Church both 
 as to its buildings and its worship, which is now spreading through 
 the country. You may, or you may not, do what I have been 
 telling you ; if you do not, you will at least have been told your 
 duty; if you do, it will not be your church alone that w-ill be 
 the better for your pains; the blessing of Him \VTio is the Lord of 
 that church will rest upon yourselves. 
 
 Note. / should wish you, if possible, to read txvo other little Tracts, 
 which I have lately written: the first is called '•'A Few Words to Church- 
 Waudens, Part ii.", and though addressed to the Churchwardens of 
 larger Parishes, suits you in viany points ; the other is called " A Few 
 Words to Church-builders," and is addressed to all who are engaged 
 in that good work. 
 
 PUBLICATIONS OF THE CAMBRIDGE CAMDEN SOCIETY. 
 
 The Report for 1841, ivith the Presidenfs Anniversary Addresses, Lists 
 
 of Laws, Members, 8^c. Is. 6rf. 
 Hints on the Practical Study of Ecclesiastical Antiquities, 2nd Edit. Is. 6rf. 
 Church Schemes, Ninth Edition, 4to. 2s. M. per score. 
 
 Illustrations of Monumental Brasses. Parts I. and II. 5s., Part III. 8s. 
 Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society. Imperial 4to. Part I. 5s. Qd. 
 An Argument for the Greek origin of the Monogram IHS. Is. 6rf. 
 A Few Words to Churchwardens on Churches and Church Ornaments. 
 
 Part ii. suited to Town and Manufacluring Parishes. 3d., or 25 
 
 copies for 5s.; 50 for 8s.; 100 for 10s. 
 A Feu- Words to Church -builders. Plates. \s.
 
 A FEW WORDS 
 
 TO 
 
 CHURCHWARDENS 
 
 ON 
 
 CHURCHES 
 
 AND 
 
 CHURCH ORNAMENTS 
 
 No. II. 
 
 SUITED TO TOWN AND MANUFACTURING PARISHES 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 'Is it time for you O ye to dwell in your cieled houses and this house 
 lie waste?" 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 STEVENSON CAMBRIDGE PARKER OXFORD 
 RIVINGTONS LONDON 
 M DCCC XLI 
 
 Price nd; or, 2-5 copies for 5s; 50 for 8.v ; 100 ./or 10s.
 
 CAMBRIDGE CAMDEN SOCIETY. 
 
 Instituted May, 1839. 
 
 PATRONS. 
 
 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, Chancellor of the 
 University. 
 
 The Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellor of England, 
 
 High Steward of the University. 
 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Arjiagh. 
 The Right Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of London. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Winchester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Lincoln. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Chester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ely. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Hereford. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Worcester. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Nova Scotia. 
 The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of New Zealand (Elect.) 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of Ross and Argyll. 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of Edinburgh. 
 The Right Rev. the Bishop of New Jersey. U. S. 
 The Hon. and Rev. the Master of Magdalene College. 
 The Rev. the Master of Clare Hall. 
 The Rev. the Provost of King's College. 
 The Rev. the Master of Downing College. 
 The Very Rev. the Dean of Peterborough, Regius Professor of 
 
 Divinity. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 The Venerable Thomas Thorp, Archdeacon of Bristol, 
 Tutor of Trinity College. 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES. 
 The Rev. John Mason Neale, Downing College. 
 
 TREASURER. 
 Arthur Shelly Eddis, Esq., Trinity College. 
 HONORARY SECRETARIES. 
 Benjamin Webb, Esq., Trinity College. 
 James Gavin Young, Esq., Trinity College. 
 Fkederiok Apthorp Paley, Esq., St John's College. <^^&. 
 
 5UIUC
 
 A FEW WORDS TO CHURCHWARDENS. 
 
 It is now many weeks since I wrote my first Few Words to the 
 Churchwardens of Country Parishes : and thus I have had time to 
 hear what has been thought of tliem by those to whom I wrote. And 
 right glad am I to find that they have not scorned my homely Eng- 
 lish, but have seen how my plain speaking only betokened my own 
 earnestness and wish to do good, and not any pride in my o^^•n know- 
 ledge, nor any belief that other people did not know all these things as 
 well as I. Thus, since those who have heard me kindly and even 
 taken my advice are already more than those who have found fault, 
 I am emboldened to keep on my old way, when I take up my pen to 
 write a few words to the Churchwardens of large parishes, whether 
 in towns or in manufiicturing counties. 
 
 But I must own tliat I feel some fear in beginning this the hardest 
 half of my work ; for while those to whom I now write are often 
 richer and more learned than my former hearers, so the things about 
 which I wish to speak to them are often more weighty and harder to 
 be mended. It is not only, as in country parishes, that churches have 
 for the most part been left to run to decay, their roofs to fall in, their 
 mouldings to be broken, and their windows to be blocked up : here, 
 besides all these, there are yet greater evils. For many to^^^l-churches 
 have been so spoilt by having misshapen additions made to them to 
 hold more people, and had sometimes so little of the true plan of a 
 church at first, that now unless you were told it you would often 
 scarcely know you were in a church. You can neither make out a 
 Chancel and Nave and Aisles, nor yet a goodly cross church with its 
 Transepts ; but perhaps you may find yourself in a large square room 
 with a pulpit against the south wall, and pews ranging one above the 
 other all the way to the north : and if you ask for the Altar, you are 
 shewn it in a little Chancel quite out of the way on the East, or it 
 maybe some other, side. Again, Avhen town-churches are rebuilt, it 
 is generally without a thought of the old pattern of a church ; so' 
 that what with new churches, and what with old churches made new, 
 I have no easy task in trying to bring them back to the old ways. 
 
 It may be as well to say at the outset that all the faults I shall 
 speak of are somcAvhere or other really to be found: and I could 
 give the names of the churches, but I will not do so, lest it should 
 be thought that I had any bitterness or unkindness even against 
 those who have used their churches so ill. Yet it has cost me much 
 grief to see these faults so many, and much trouble when I went about 
 to look for them. I have been through counties where there were far 
 more tall chimneys piercing the sky, than spires leading to heaven :
 
 and many more factories and costly mansions, than Houses of God. 
 And when I passed through such places, or through crowded streets, 
 amid the crash of hammers and engines, with smoke and dust around 
 me, I longed for the peaceful country churches I had so lately seen ; 
 where the only noise was the birds' sweet note, and where above my 
 head was the open sky, below me the flo\vered turf. 
 
 And when, through such dismal scenes, I reached the parish- 
 churches, peaceful and holy even there, I found that in them another 
 enemy had been at work. It was no longer poverty, wliich had 
 brought about coldness and neglect and decay : but wealth and shoAv 
 and comfort which had crept in, and changed the Houses of Gon into 
 places meant only for the ease and comfort of man. But while eveiy 
 thing which touches man is so carefully thought of, there is seldom 
 any care for the church itself and its proper ornaments. A showy 
 Altar-cloth may hide a shabby Table, and a few handsome things 
 be put where they can be most seen. In the mean while the building- 
 may be going fast to decay for want of timely help : and so it has 
 proved of late years, when some unhappy parishes have begun to 
 withstand the church-rates, and have thus not only defrauded God of 
 His due, but scorned the earthly laws under which they live. In such 
 parishes the church has been found to be in so bad a state, that 
 when the yearly cobbling could no longer be given to it, it threat- 
 ened daily to fall, and has had in some places to be shut up. 
 
 I do not know whether those who may read this will have read 
 what I have lately written about country parishes; I should much wish 
 them to do so, because there is much there Avhich suits just as well 
 for to-mi-churches : particularly what is said about the holiness of a 
 church, and about the sin of ill-using God's chosen abode. There is 
 also a great deal which cannot well be said over again, though it is 
 fit for the churches of manufacturing parishes, wliich stand as it were 
 half way between town and country-churches. But as I have to speak 
 of these as well as of town-parishes, I must try to make what I say 
 suit both as well as I can; and if I must now and then say again what 
 has been said before, I hope it will not be taken amiss. 
 
 Now perhaps the very first thing which strikes one in going 
 into a to\\Ti-church is the pewing. The pews are almost always 
 higher than in countiy-churches, and take up much more room. In- 
 deed there are sometimes not left any free sittings, as they are named 
 (as if we had not at least as much to do with kneeling as with sitting 
 in the House of Prayer,) except in the very narrow alleys which run 
 between large plats (as they may be called) of pews. Is not this a 
 sad thing, when we remember that the poor cannot have any places 
 whether for sitting or kneeling unless they be free? Sometimes 
 all the pews are of different height, and shape, and kind, and colour, 
 having been built as every man thought best : not indeed that the 
 ease is much better when the church has been "^repewed' all on a 
 level, for then there is less chance of seeing a change. Perhaps it
 
 is too much to hope as yet to bring back the old plan of open seats in 
 town-churches; but still it is our duty to lift up our voice against 
 the present plan, so frauglit as it is with ill. Besides, a Churchwarden 
 may always lessen the evil hy makmg the pews very low and all level 
 with each other ; by making them all look one way, and that towards 
 the East ; by getting rid of all square pews, and by giWng to each 
 person a place to kneel. 
 
 This last thing is verj^ needful : for to oblige men to sit doAvn or to 
 stand at the CJiurch's prayers, when all are bidden to kneel, is veiy 
 wrong. Who would think that men were in the House of Goi>, and 
 beseeching His aid, Avhen one sees some of them sitting, some standing, 
 and only a few, if any, kneeling? Now many of our prayers are 
 common to the whole of Christendom : and when the Holy Church 
 throughout all the world is at the same time uttering the same an- 
 cient words, shall there be members of it who are too proud or too 
 idle to kneel do>vn ? 
 
 Again, it will be easy to get rid of pews which range one higher 
 than the other, like the seats in a lecture-room or theatre. Some 
 churches indeed, — or rather sermon-houses, for they are not fit for 
 prayer, — remind one rather of auction or assembly-rooms : the inside 
 being full of comfortable boxes, and the outside having a fine portico 
 for the company whose carriages roll up with pride and bustle and 
 strife. 
 
 Give me leave to say yet more about pews. There can never be 
 enough said; for after seeing very many churches, and trying to find 
 out the reason of such falling off from the old ways of Church- worship, 
 and thereby of Church-feeling, I fully believe that most of the mis- 
 chief comes of pews. I might speak of the jealousy and heart-burnings 
 likely to flow from such an allotment of room to the wealthier parish- 
 ioners, as leaves no suitable provision for theii' poorer neighbours, 
 and so drives them from the House of God, which by the law of 
 the land, as well as by God's will, is their own: but this I will 
 not do, because there are every day more tokens of a desire on the 
 part of the rich to make sacrifice of their own convenience in order 
 to extend the opportunities of worship to the poor, and to shew 
 that, though both reason and law make allowance for those distinc- 
 tions which come by God's appointment, yet they at least are bound 
 to recollect that all men are equal in the House of Prayer. But 
 this principle, which the rich man ought ever humbly to cherish 
 and the poor man to respect, has been sadly lost sight of in the times 
 that have gone by, when (to say nothing of large pews in the Aisles 
 railed off for particular families, and inherited by them from an- 
 cestors who built and endowed the Chapels which these pews noAv 
 cover, and whose right the Law allows) we not seldom see pews, 
 even in the Nave, half- roofed like country villas, and sometimes 
 even embattled, as if it were necessary to set up a warlike fence 
 betwixt neighbours and brethren ! To give up a whole Aisle, or 
 1
 
 Transept, or, much more, the greater part of the Chancel for a 
 pew, is bad enough : but it is still worse when this gi-eat pew is 
 fitted up like a drawing-room, with fire-place and chimney, and a 
 separate entrance. 
 
 I cannot say that I like the setting aside of a great pew for the 
 Corporation, often with seats of a different height, like the Bench in 
 a Court of Justice. Churchmen always love to pay reverence to 
 magistrates, since they are taught in their Catechism " to honour and 
 obey the Queen, and aU that are put in authority imder Her:" but 
 surely they need not do this at God's cost. Yet I have seen tliis pew 
 placed where it interferes with the respect due to the Altar itself: 
 and the whole church so arranged that the people may look towards 
 that pew and the pulpit instead of the East. Indeed all pews must 
 more or less hide the Altar, even where a middle passage is left 
 leading to it. But men are beginning to fill even this passage with 
 pews, which are the more valuable as having so good a view of the 
 preacher. I have told you that the several parts of a church have 
 generally a symbolical meaning, just as the Je\\Tsh Tabernacle was 
 figurative and typical. Now if the open passage from the door to the 
 Altar typifies the whole Christian course and the straight way to Hea- 
 ven, when that passage is so blocked up it seems to mean that this 
 way is now closed. Do not let such a blot as this remain in your 
 church. Indeed pews have nearly made us quite forget the meam'ng 
 of the parts of a church. Thus, because there is mostly a passage left 
 between the rows of pews up the Nave and each of the Aisles, people 
 think no more of the Nave and the Aisles themselves, (in which they 
 might find an emblem of the jMost Holy Trinity), but only of these 
 passages witliin them, which they call the ' middle aisle ' and ' side 
 aisles.' Now 'aisles' mean 'wings' or 'sides:' so that we talk of 
 ' middle side' and ' side sides.' It were greatly to be wished that 
 this way of speaking were dropped. 
 
 Once more, think of the strange practice of having pew-openers, 
 without whom one cannot go into one's o\^^l seat; and sometimes, 
 which is worse, without a fee a stranger cannot get room anywhere. 
 Now though all good Churchmen go to their own parish-church, yet 
 there may always be strangers and travellers, who have a right to 
 look for room in any church they may come to without paying for 
 it. But perhaps it is not quite in my place to speak of these things. 
 
 A word next about galleries, which spoil a church as much as pews. 
 If they cannot be got rid of, they may often be at least made less 
 frightful by being painted some modest colour : dark oak is perhaps 
 the best. As I said before, "a tawdry flaunting gallery^ is the most 
 hideous of all hideous things." You would think with me if you had 
 seen, as I have, a bright gi-een bow-gallery throAvn out between two 
 piers, with a red curtain round it, or a sky blue galleiy Avitli gilt 
 panelling. To see in great staring gold letters on the faces of these 
 galleries the names of the Churchwardens who built or 'beautified'
 
 them is very painful : and I am quite sure tliat all these, when they 
 came to think about it, would allow with me that it is a most selfish 
 and irreverent custom. Let us rememlxjr tliat all record of those 
 who built the old church itself is gone: they indeed left no such 
 vaunting record ; they built only for God's honour, without one 
 thought of themselves. Strange that now-a-days we should take 
 pride to ourselves in putting up what is nothing but a tasteless 
 deformity ! Again, would any one wish that his name should stare 
 Avhere the Canon bids that holy texts should be for wandering eyes to 
 rest on ? Surely not. 
 
 Another evil, which is now becoming more common, and reaching 
 even to country parishes, is the use of double or even triple galleries, 
 one above the other. The upper tier is often given to the charity- 
 children or national schools: or sometimes these are put behind the 
 organ. Neither of these places is a good one for the children, and the 
 first quite spoils a church besides. If they could be arranged on 
 either side of the Nave, like the two half-choirs in a Cathedral, they 
 might be made very useful in the performance of Divine Service, 
 by chanting the Psalms veree by verse in the antiphonal or answer- 
 ing way, which from the first ages the Church has always loved. 
 And they would thus not only be more in sight, but would be well 
 placed for the ancient and reviving practice of catechising. 
 
 There is another practice, very common in some parts of the 
 country, against which I cannot speak too strongly : I mean the having 
 sepai'ate doors to the galleries, either through a window, or a hole cut 
 purposely in the wall. By this the outside of a church is as much 
 spoilt as the inside : for there are great flights of steps all round to these 
 new doors, beautiful windows are stopped up, and shapeless openings 
 made where once all was order and evenness. Besides this, there is 
 good reason why the doors of the church should all be towards the 
 west end, (excepting one in the Chancel for the Priest alone), to bear 
 their part in the general symbolism of the building. For as the Altar 
 stands at the east end of the Chancel representing the full Communion 
 of the Christian, and the end of the Christian life in Heaven, so the 
 entrance ought to be at or towards the west end of the Nave, and tlve 
 Font hy it, to show that thus the entrance into the earthly building 
 typifies our initiation by Holy Baptism into the spiritual Church*. 
 Thus beautifully does the plan of a church hang together ! But this 
 is quite lost when doors are placed without any regard to it. If any 
 one doubts this, I would ask him to explain how it comes to pass that 
 he never saw an ancient church with any doors (except the one I have 
 just described) that were not further from the east than the west end. 
 These doors always put one in mind of what is said about entering 
 into the sheepfold by the wrong way. It is a strange thing that 
 new entrances are now mostly made nearer the east end than the 
 west. I know of a church where a fine old door-way and porch near 
 
 • See A Few Hints on the practical study of Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 2.5. 2nd Edition. 
 
 1—2
 
 the west end are stopped up, aiid a new staring door opened in the 
 Chancel. Indeed, some new churches, and some old churches that 
 have been restored, have their only entrances at the east end itself, one 
 on each side of the Altar : so that those who come into the church 
 cannot help turning theii- backs at once upon that part of it, wliich 
 in other days no one ever passed or looked at without reverence ; 
 a custom indeed in some places still kept up amongst ourselves. 
 
 Though 1 have spoken before about the Font, I must say something 
 more now, both because it is of so much concern, and because in this 
 matter town-parishes are much more in fault than country-parishes. 
 
 You know then why the Font is to be placed near the door, and 
 that by the eighty-first Canon you are bound to have one "of 
 stone; the same to be set in the ancient usual places: in which only 
 Font the Minister shall baptize puljlickly." How wrong then must 
 those wooden stems be which we now so often see with earthen or tin 
 basons set upon them ! You may say perhaps that it is not for you to 
 see that the jNIinister shall baptize publickly only at the Font ; but it is 
 at least your bounden duty to see that the Font is a proper one, clean 
 and in good repair, and in eveiy way fit for the Clergj-man's use. Few 
 will baptize from a bason in the vestry or at the Altar, if the Font is 
 where and what it should be. But sometimes there is not a Font in 
 the church! and sometimes — one of my instances of this is from an 
 archiepiscopal city — the Font has been very lately put out of the 
 church to catch the rain from a water-spout. This is too painful a thing 
 to dwell upon. Should you ever be able to rescue a Font from such 
 desecration, you will have done God a service. Again, what do you 
 think of old Fonts being used as horse-troughs, or as ornaments to 
 a publick teagarden ? And when they are allowed to remain in the 
 church, they are often little better used. Sometimes their tops are 
 cut off because they are too high; sometimes a gas-pipe is made to 
 branch out of them; sometimes they are blocked up with rubbish 
 and plaister, or filled with candles and brushes ; sometimes built into 
 tlie wall ; sometimes cut over with the names of fonner Churchwar- 
 dens; sometimes cased with wood; sometimes made to serve as a 
 singing-desk for the clerk ; sometimes used instead of tressels for 
 coffins to lie on. To paint them aU sorts of colours, however ugly 
 and unmeaning, is, after this, but a small evil. 
 
 Let me warn you against buying those cheap ' Composition ' Fonts of 
 which we hear now-a-days, if ever you should want one ; (which may 
 be the case, for, as I said, I know of several churches ^^•ithout Fonts 
 altogether.) The patterns in which they are made are both poor and 
 faultj' ; and a plain stone Font is not only much better than so worth- 
 less though perhaps gaudy a thing, but it is in obedience to the Canon. 
 One cannot speak too strongly against this new-fangled plan of buying 
 cheap Fonts, or crockets or other ornaments in ' artificial stone ' : and 
 the cast-iron ugly Altar-raUs are just as bad. 
 
 Thus much about the Font. Nor has the Holy Altar fared better.
 
 This also is most spoilt in toA\Ti-churches, whether from neglect on 
 the one hand^ or ill-judged ornament on the other. For if, as is 
 often the case, the Chancel has been quite shut out from the Nave by 
 a boarded screen up to the roof, or by an overgrown pew, that holy 
 part of the church is sure to be given up to dirt and decay. In other 
 churches where there is no Chancel at all, or at best a little alcove for 
 the Altar, there is much room for fault. I have seen some Tables 
 which would not be thought good enough for a kitchen, and some 
 which also serve as cupboards for books and cushions : nay the church- 
 chest itself is in one place used for the Altar, and in another the same 
 thing serves both for an Altar and a stove ! and though these be covered 
 with showy Altar-clotlis, their meanness, though hidden, is j ust as much 
 to be blamed. A fault, on the other hand, is to have a Table on one or 
 two legs with large claws, like a drawing-room table. But this is at 
 least well-meant. I wonder men are not ashamed to use the holy Altar 
 for a tool-box or work-bench while repairs are going on: and it is 
 nearly as 1)ad to make it the place for hats and shawls to be thi-o-\vn 
 on by school-children and others, or a desk for the registering of 
 Marriages or Baptisms. 
 
 And, as I said before, the way of decking an Altar, though well 
 meant, is often in bad taste. To let it be overtopped by large monuments 
 at its back is shocking. Then, again, the Altar-screens mostly fuund are 
 very bad pieces of wood-work, not only not in tlie style of the church, 
 but in no style whatever : and the emblems often used are poor, and 
 not nearly so good as the older sort. Thus the Hebrew letters for 
 Jehovah in a triangle are not so good a symbol as IHS. Very often 
 there is a space left in the screen for some text or sentence : perhaps 
 the best words to put up in it are "Lift up your hearts," from the 
 Communion Service. In the Altar-cloth also and other hangings 
 none but proper emblems should be admitted. Above all things, I 
 would shun such as are not of a religious cast, such as the rose, thistle, 
 and shamrock. Nor would I put angels and cherubs in such places. 
 
 Sometimes in larger churches the two candlesticks (which with so 
 beautiful a meaning the Church bids us place on the Altar*) are still to 
 be found. But I know at least one Parish church in which these have 
 been moved from the Table to the rails, and the wax-candles replaced 
 by gas-pipes, to give more light to the church. You should not let 
 this be done. If the old Altar-stone remains in your church (you 
 may know it by the five little Crosses cut in it) you should take 
 care of it. Its having been once used for such holy purposes should 
 secure it from contempt. 
 
 "Wliere there is a niche on each side of the Altar, it ought to be 
 kept up, and re-opened, if already blocked. These are often hidden 
 by ugly paintings, so bad as to be unworthy of admission into a 
 church. Nor is there any good reason that I can find for placing 
 pictures of Moses and Aaron in this pai-t. A picture of the Holy. 
 
 * See what I have said in my " Few Words to Chiirthbuilders." p. 24.
 
 10 
 
 Person in whose name the church is dedicated to God would be 
 much more appropriate, and might suggest a holy example to our- 
 selves. 
 
 You should provide two seats at the Altar, and let the space be- 
 fore it be well carpeted. I do not like to see cushions on the Table, 
 as if it were a mere kneeling place : modem Altars are generally too 
 low. By all means let the coverings be taken away during the week- 
 day sei'vices, even though the Communion Service be not used. To hide 
 the Altar in any and every way seems to be what people now desire 
 most. I have seen the pews nearest to it fitted up with a curtain on 
 brass rods, as if they were not high enough in themselves. For this 
 not even fear of draughts is a sufficient excuse. 
 
 The best place for the pulpit is on the north or south of the Nave, or 
 against one of the piere of the Chancel or Nave-arch. If ever in an old 
 church it is found elsewhere, be sure it has been moved. Perhaps the 
 worst of the modern places for it is in front of the Altar: sometimes it 
 bestrides the passage which separates two rows of pews : sometimes it 
 has a huge soundmg-board over it. Almost equally wrong is it to 
 put the pulpit at the west end facing the East: for in such cases 
 almost all must turn their backs to the East. Parishes in which such 
 tilings ai'e done are often remarkable for their irreverence and liad taste : 
 thus in one of them, which I have now in mind, there is a plan on foot 
 to build galleries, " because the church is too light." The next worst 
 arrangement is when there are two pulpits of equal height, one on 
 each side, the one for the prayers, the other for the sermon; and 
 worst of all when there are three pulpits, one for the Priest, another 
 for the clerk, and a still higher one between the two for the sermon ; 
 all of course with their backs to the Altar. In the same church, 
 as if a witness against the innovation, there still remains an old 
 stone pulpit against a pier: this is now the seat for the IVIinister's 
 wife ! Nor is it better when the pulpit, reading-pew, and clerk's 
 pew, are put together one under the other. How can the Priest lead 
 the people in prayer or in the Creed, turning as of old to the East, 
 when the pulpit soars just behind him ? The Chiu'ch never wished to 
 exalt preaching thus above prayer : indeed, the sermon is only a part 
 of the Communion Sei-vice, and not a separate office : for which rea- 
 son the Priest still preaches in a surplice in Cathedrals, which may be 
 considered as patterns for parish churches. 
 
 Almost all these newfangled ways arose at that unhappy time when 
 the Church of England was trampled upon by rebels and puritans : 
 and they became more, as it were, inbred after the revolution in 1688. 
 For after that men were for pruning every thing old and hallowed 
 just because it was so : but we have learnt better now, and know that 
 we can never be quite safe when we begin to stray from the old paths. 
 
 I have already spoken of gas. I for one do not love to see gas-pipes 
 all over a church : but much less when the pipes are made showy and 
 gay, and in the shape of snakes and other things unfit for a church.
 
 11 
 
 iiistead of being as plain and humble as may l)c. At any rate you 
 should take care that the smoke, particularly from oil-lamps, does not 
 soil the church : I know one church made quite black by it. Wax 
 candles are by far the best for lighting a church, but they should not 
 be put in a large chandelier. Nothing can be uglier than the chande- 
 liers for the most part ; and yet they are often kept when the church 
 is fitted up anew with oil or gas. 
 
 Next about the stoves, another new thing which we are told we can- 
 not do without. Yet our fathers did not want such comfort, though 
 they had not warm cushioned pews and greenbaized doors as we have. 
 If the church be kept well aired and dry, and, above all, if it be filled 
 twice every day by a large congi*egation, it will never be very cold. 
 At least let the stove be some easily managed thing, without any cum- 
 brous pipes or heated flues, which have destroyed so many churches 
 by fire. I have seen a great pipe carried nearly the whole lengih of a 
 church upon iron hoops, which spring from pew to pew over the mid- 
 dle passage : and this sometimes passes over the Clergyman's head, 
 and is made zigzag and up and do^^^l, that it may throw out more 
 heat from its greater length. Instead of tliis, it should be put as much 
 out of sight as may be, behind a pier for instance : and the chimney 
 should be moveable, that in the summer it may be taken away ; and 
 never let the pipe be carried out of the church through a window, or 
 through a piscina, or through a niche : nor let the chimney end at the 
 gable where the Cross used once to stand, or, what is worse even than 
 this, make the chimney in the shape of a Cross. I have seen two 
 chimneys like huge caterj^illars, climbing each up a pinnacle : and a 
 chimney from a new vestry thrown like a flying buttress to the east 
 end of an Aisle, and then, blocking in its way a beautiful old window, 
 carried up as before to take the room of the Cross ; — ti-ue emblem of 
 the age which puts its ease and comfort higher than the pains and 
 crosses which should be our teachers here ! 
 
 It is very hard indeed to say much that I wish to say to you, 
 without trenching upon what concerns the Clergyman more than you. 
 But it must be so, that your high office will often bring you and liim 
 together. You must work hand in hand: and while a friendly 
 Churchwarden is one of the greatest blessings a Clergyman can have, 
 so one who fails in his duty is j ust as much the other way. There 
 is no saying how many plans for furthering God's honour and His 
 people's welfare have been thwarted by the ill-will of tlie Church- 
 wardens. But this is an unnatural and wrongful state of things. 
 You may for instance do much for the more solemn and reverent 
 performance of Divine Service, by encouraging the organist to teach 
 the children to sing : and veiy often your countenance will make it 
 easier for the Clergyman to get rid of those unauthorized hymn-books 
 which have been so much used of late years, and which are often 
 only kept because they have taken such hold on the minds of the con- 
 gregation.
 
 12 
 
 I hope your organ is in the right place, that is at the west end : 
 to have it over the Altar itself, or between the Chancel and Nave so 
 as to block off the one from the other, is not to be borne. You should 
 move it at any cost. It is often in this place in Cathedrals, and even 
 in them it would be better at the west end, though it does not block 
 up the Chancel-arch there as it does m small churches. The Transept- 
 arch is not a good place for it, if as it often does it destroys the eflfect 
 of the four arms of the Cross. You will not, I dare say, be of those 
 who would let the organ go to decay or remain out of tune, because 
 some evil-minded people may say that it does not fall under the neces- 
 sary repairs of the church ; nor of those who would let the bells go 
 wdthout ropes on the like grounds. Necessary repairs ! as if these 
 only ought to be thought of for His House Who gave us all we have ! 
 and this when we are but called upon to repair what our fathers 
 built for us, and not to build anew for ourselves ! We are indeed 
 unworthy of our fathers, who will not be at the cost even of keeping 
 up what they left for us; — the holy monuments at once of their 
 piety towards God and love for us, and no less monuments (in their 
 decay) of our coldness in religion and our contempt fur those that 
 have gone before us. 
 
 You should be proud of your bells, particularly if you have a 
 good peal : and it is well to have a lock on the belfry-door to keep 
 out such bad people as would purposely crack them : (for tliis has 
 been done before now). If a bell is cracked, I would not let it hang 
 so, or lie about in the church, but get it recast, and that in the right 
 tone. You will see in the 88th Canon, about "Churches not to be 
 profaned," what poAver the j\Iinister and you have over the bell- 
 ringers, and you are bound to support him in this matter. In some 
 churches the conduct of these men is shameful. Sometimes there are 
 rival companies who think they may go into the belfry whenever they 
 wish, and who drink and quarrel there, and will for a fee ring the 
 bells on any occasion, however profane or even wicked. It may be a 
 hard task to withstand an abuse thus sanctioned by custom, but I 
 hope you will not shrink from doing your part in the work. 
 
 One sometimes sees in large churches tables of fees for different 
 things, even (I shudder to say it) for the Holy Sacrament of Bap- 
 tism. If this is required by the Law in any case, and done or 
 even approved of by the Clergyman, I have nothing to say : but if 
 it has been done unwittingly by yourself or by a fonner Church- 
 warden, I do earnestly entreat jou to undo the evil as quickly as 
 you can. Besides the selling a rite, so holy and so 'necessary for 
 salvation,' think of our poor and ignorant people being driven to those 
 who will not come back to the Church, and who are in some jjlaces 
 but too happy to give what they call baptism at a lower rate. 
 
 Again, tables of fees for burials, from the A'ault down to the 
 churchyard grave, are grievous eyesores. It is good indeed to be re- 
 minded of death : but every thing about us in church teaches us of
 
 13 
 
 this ; and one does not like to have death brought before one only bj* 
 what it would cost to bury us. It is distressing also to see tables 
 of the cost of pews, though this is much worse abroad. Money 
 should never come into our thouglits at church, save wlien we think 
 of what we can give for His sake VVTio became poor for us. We 
 know what He thought of buying and selling in the Temple, and 
 may therefore well grieve to see books sold in churches, whether 
 hymn-books, or descriptions and guide-books of the church if it be a 
 fine one. I have shrunk from hearing money ring upon the cold 
 tombs of the dead, money fur guide-books or for viewing the church. 
 If the advice of one wlio has seen many churches in his time be 
 worth anything, you should have, besides the alms-box for the poor 
 which you are bound to have, another box for the repairs of the 
 building and pajmient of the servants : and these should have a fixed 
 salary, unless you think a varying one more likely to ensure courtesy 
 from them to strangers. Indeed you would have no reason for regret- 
 ting the change: for the ricli would give more largely than what is 
 usually expected as a fee, and the poor would be able to see for nothing 
 the mighty piles which former ages have raised; thougli they too 
 would often give their grateful mite. 
 
 But I have been led away from speaking about what concerns the 
 dead. If you are able to hinder l)urials beneatli the church itself, you 
 should do so, as it causes gi-eat unhealthiness. Sometimes when a 
 long-closed vault is opened, the air has to be made pure by burning 
 fires for several days together. But this, thougli no great hinder- 
 ance now-a-days, wlien we have only service on Sundays, would have 
 been, and will, I hope, again be too crying an evil to be borne, 
 when keeping people from tlie Daily Service of the Church. Besides, 
 many churches have been ruined by vaults undermining the piers or 
 walls. If but one pier gives way, the whole building almost always 
 follows. 
 
 I have spoken before at much length about burials in church- 
 yards : but I wish to say a word upon monuments. Nothing can be 
 more unsightly than most of these, not to say irreverent and profane. 
 You may often persuade your fellow-parishioners to give up the 
 ugly headstones, with their vulgar doggrel rhymes, and make them 
 choose proper emblems instead of those Avhich are now most common. 
 ^Fhat can be worse than poppies and broken columns, which typify 
 everlasting sleep and thwarted liopes, instead of the peaceful and 
 hopeful rest of the Christian? But of all things shun urns: they 
 are heathen and silly emblems, though more used perhaps than any- 
 thuig else. Nor are they put on monuments only : I know of more 
 than one East end stuck about with urns and pots of different sizes and 
 colours ; of a beautiful porch groaning under the weight of a shape- 
 less modem urn ; and even of a Chancel-arch removed altogether to 
 make way for an urn on the top of each pier. At any rate you 
 can hinder the mutilation of the church itself for urns and monu-
 
 u 
 
 meuts. It is a shame to cut away piers and carvings and mouldings, 
 and to block up arches and windows for such tilings as these. It is 
 a shame also to use monumental stones over again, and thus destroy 
 the record of one man's life to make room for that of another. 
 And again, it is worse than dishonest to take gi'avestones for one's 
 own purposes, and even to give them away to others for doorsteps 
 and lintels, or the like uses. 
 
 Nothing is more strange than the modern taste in monuments: 
 the same people who would gladly get rid of the few statues of 
 Saints and Martyrs of old which have been saved for us, will them- 
 selves put up images to modern preachers, and perhaps even to vdcked 
 men, and this over or close to the very Altar itself ! 
 
 A word about the register, which is often now-a-days imder your 
 charge, though it belongs properly to the Clergyman. Great care 
 should be taken of it ; and there should not be a liigh fee requii-ed 
 for 'searching' it or getting a certificate from it. Neither as is 
 sometimes done, should all access to the register be denied except on 
 Sundays. Those who must search registers have something better to 
 do on that day than to wander about and buy certificates. The parish- 
 clerk ought not to be trusted Avith the register. Sometimes he takes no 
 care of it at all : sometimes he is very uncivil about it. Neither should 
 this person be allowed to hinder strangers from looking at monuments 
 and the like unless they give him a fee. Uncourteousness on his part 
 throws much of the blame upon you, who might in many ways put 
 a stop to it. 
 
 It is a very good plan to enter in the Register an account of all 
 that is done for the repair or adornment of the church : such records 
 are really valuable, and are very easily made. 
 
 It is very hard to speak about vestries, as we have very few of the 
 old sacristies left as patterns. Sometimes the parvise, or room over 
 the porch, where there is one, is used as the vestry: but it is sel- 
 dom large enough, and is not easy of access, besides being often kept 
 as a room for deeds and records. I know of one case where this room 
 is used as a lawyer's office, and where business is managed least of all 
 fitted for a church. In another place it is made into a town-hall ; in 
 a third, into a drinking-room. If you must build a new vestry, 
 never put it, as is sometimes done, at the East end behind the Altar : 
 you may make it like a chapel or chapter-house, north or south of the 
 Chancel, if you like. Never block up a Transept for this, or a porch : 
 nor should the tower be so used. If you must have a place railed off 
 within the church, you should make it as little seen as may be, and 
 should have a good parclose or carved screen around it. 
 
 Take care also to hinder parish-meetings from being held either in 
 the vestry or in the church itself. The way in which the holy buildings 
 are sometimes profaned by those who never go into them at other 
 times, is enough to make the very stones cry out. 
 
 You ought to have a loose board on which to fasten the notices
 
 15 
 
 foi" these parish-meetings, and for election and game-law papers. I 
 have seen many fine old panelled dooi-s quite spoilt by broken nails 
 and wafers and paste. 
 
 You are bound by the 58th Canon to 'provide a decent and comely 
 surplice with sleeves, at the charge of the parish' : one too often finds 
 the surplice dii'ty and ragged and covered with iron-mould : which 
 is disgraceful to a parish. 
 
 In parishes such as yours there are often endowed services which 
 ought always to be kept up : for they sprang from a good motive, 
 although we may well grieve that the Church's daily voice had been 
 stopped so as to make such bequests needful. Nor should you ever let 
 slip any old parish-customs, such as giving out bread to the poor at 
 Christmas, putting up holly at Chi-istmas, and yew at Easter, or the 
 like. Yet in this also there is room for care as to the way of recording 
 these benefactions. The tables on which they are painted ought to 
 be put where they will not interfere with any tiling else : but uever 
 on gallerj'-f routs, or in any too conspicuous place. 
 
 Some of the things about wliich I have spoken may be harder to 
 mend, and some easier : but let it be remembered that all are possible 
 with patience and zeal. Let every one do a little ; and as formerly 
 almost every Churchwarden made his name kno^-n by defacing some 
 old ornament, or bringing in some evil, so henceforth let each in his 
 year endear himself to the parish by getting rid of some barbarism, or 
 bringing back some old custom. And if any one should be persuaded 
 even by these lowly words so to work for God's Church, let me tell 
 him he is not alone in his good deeds. I could tell of earnest and pain- 
 ful labours by Churchwardens who are not so rich as most of those to 
 whom I now write. I could tell of sacrifices of time and money and 
 self wliich would startle many in these lazy days. And there are others 
 who have done their little ; who have brought back Fonts to theu* old 
 places, and saved them from defilement, or the like. It is not for me to 
 thank these ; for there is One for Whose sake they did these things. 
 Who ^^^ll not forget their labours. Such men, worthy of a better age, do 
 not look for praise or name: and I may pain them perhaps by having 
 said even thus much. But they will forgive me this wi-ong if they 
 think how their example may lead othei-s to do the like. Shall I 
 compare these with the greater part of those who were Churchwardens 
 before them ? It is even now a scom and repi-oach with those who 
 have left our communion that our Churchwardens have so often made 
 a gain of their high office ; have done towards God what an honest 
 man would not do towards his fellow. I have seen, for instance, a good 
 old stone church faced throughout with brick, most needlessly and 
 Avrongly, by a churchwarden builder ; another wainscoted ^within and 
 repewed by a carpenter ; or painted all over by a painter, or plaistere<l 
 all over by a plaisterer. But such tilings I hope will no longer be seen 
 amongst us. 
 
 And besides the sin of such conduct, think also how much it spoils
 
 16 
 
 a church. What need has a stone church of brick facing and paint 
 and roughcast ; and beautiful carved wood of paint and whitening ? 
 It is a good thing to pick out the clogged-up mouldings, and bring to 
 light long-hidden beauties, by scraping off the many coats of white- 
 wash : and I have before shown how this may best be done. The 
 Chancel is often spoilt by a Grecian screenwork quite inisuited to 
 the church. I would always get rid of tins, oven if there be only a 
 plain stone wall behind it : this is much better than so poor and tawdry 
 a covering. 1 have seen the whole of an East end painted to look like 
 marble : it would have been much better left plain. For in a church 
 every thing should be real and good, and with no false show. Where 
 a parish is really poor, a simple and reverent plainness is much better 
 than tinsel and trumi»ery ornaments, and is much more suited to the 
 majesty of Con. But this is no excuse, it is clear, for niggardliness, 
 or for an outlay lower tlian our means would allow. 
 
 It is a sad feature in modern church-building to put all ornament 
 outside and where it can be seen, leaving all the rest mean and bare : 
 for what is this but to take thought only of ourselves, instead of God's 
 glory ? But I hope people are now beginning again to look upon the 
 church as a holy place ; and you may greatly help forward tliis better 
 feeling by enforcing, as you can do, the uncovering of the head in 
 church even on week days. I have seen even Churchwardens, 
 unwittingly I am sure, keep their own hats on : and there is no 
 telling how much ill springs from such bad examples. For then the 
 sexton and clerk and bell-ringers all think fit to do the same; and 
 idle boys in turn copy these. On the other hand, the greatest good 
 may come from setting a pattern of due reverence. Even workmen 
 will take their caps off, and will stop their thoughtless whistle, when 
 they see every one else giving such honour to God. Why should we 
 uncover our heads on Sundays, and not on other days ? Surely the 
 presence of a congregation cannot make the place holy : but He is 
 always present, in AVhose sight even angels hide their faces. The 
 good old feeling of awe however is in most breasts hidden only, not 
 quenched: I have seen many, when the question was put to them, 
 pull their hats off with hearty shame and confession of their unmeant 
 fault. This bad habit is much encouraged by the custom of screening 
 off in town churches a large place under the western gallery as a 
 vestibule, in which people think they have a right to put their hats 
 on. You should always have a Porch instead of allowing a thing like 
 this : but do not let it be a poor shabby building of brick, or as I have 
 even seen it, of mud. Let it be of stone, suitable to the church, and it 
 should have two seats. 
 
 Your duty often becomes most trying when any alteration in your 
 church is mooted. It becomes you then to watch the scheme very 
 earnestly. If you have not studied Churcli Architecture enough your- 
 self, (as is very likely, for who has time for all tilings?) you should, 
 after consulting the Clergyman, call in the aid of some one who has :
 
 17 
 
 otherwise things may be, and often are, put up, which arc quite un- 
 suited to the style of the building. Thus it is dangerous to put up a 
 new screen unless it be copied ft-om some old worlc in the church. But 
 when an enlargement of t)ie church is set on fi>ot, it is then not only 
 advisable, but quite necessarj', to get assistance from such as are skilled 
 in these matters. However, as a broad rule, never build a Transept 
 when the church was not meant for one : for thus you cannot help 
 spoiling the whole proportion. In a small church with only a Nave, 
 it is well to build an Aisle; and often double Aisles may be made, 
 (as in the beautiful new church of S. Peter, Leeds,) the windows of the 
 old Aisles being kept in the outer wall of the new. I would never 
 lengthen the church without due advice : as you may thus mar the 
 fair proportion which all parts of a church should have to each other. 
 The one thing to be remembered in meddling with a church is this : 
 that we are not enlarging a house, or fitting up a hall, but have to do 
 with a building hallowed in itself, and so well devised that there is 
 probably not a single point in it biit has its own and deep meaning. 
 
 Your duties indeed are now becoming every day more weighty : 
 for as we grew more civilized we seem to have grown more sacrilegious, 
 and to have learnt a new lesson, that every thing, however holy, must 
 give way before what we call "publick convenience." At one time, 
 we were quite shocked to hear of a porch made away with to improve 
 a road. But now you may be, as so many of your body of late years 
 have been, called upon to get rid of your church altogether, to make way 
 for a new or enlarged street, or for a new insurance-office, or the 
 like : or to cut off a corner from the church, or the tower, or even to 
 shave off the east end, as was done in an archiepiscopal city. In such 
 cases you must act as becomes those who are allowed to watch over 
 the earthly House of God ; manfully, temperately, and guilelessly. 
 You may or may not meet with success : if not, you will have done 
 at least your part, and made your protest; and it will remain 
 only to make the evil as light as may be. But you must withstand 
 to the last any attempt to pull down your church only because it 
 is in people's way, and when, if rebuilt at all, it must be rebuilt in any 
 corner the street-commissioners may give. Thus in London, no great 
 while since, an old church was pulled down, and a new one, octagonal 
 in shape, built on one side : each of the eight sides except that to the 
 north having two galleries. The Altar is put in the northern alcove, 
 although the eastern would have done at least as well. So one wrong 
 step is almost always followed by another. If however you must remove, 
 insist on having such a plat of ground as may do for the only allow- 
 able plans for a church, a cross or an oblong. For now that our towns 
 are no longer walled, there is so far less reason than there was 
 formerly for cramping a church : and if no cost is spared to get a spot 
 good enough for a secular building, how much less should it be spared 
 for a church ! 
 
 But now to go back to smaller things. I need not again ask you
 
 18 
 
 to take care of what sttiiiietl gla«s hus been left. Voii should pick all 
 the pieces out and fill some one window with them, placing them in a 
 pattern. Leave a border of plain ground glass round the edge, if you 
 have not enough to fill the whole light. Above all tilings avoid having 
 windows, as we now sometimes see them, of plain glass with a streak 
 of red, or yellow, or green all round. Nothing can be more frightful 
 than such a glare. In old glass sometimes the pattern is spoilt because 
 some of the pieces llaA^e been unskilfully put in wrong side outwards : 
 now this it would be very easy to put right. Sometimes fancy coats 
 of arms are made up without any regard to the laws of heraldry: 
 but heraldry is an old science, and one full of meaning to those who 
 know it, so that to them a sham shield is worse than foolish. Indeed 
 it is as bad as to see an unmeaning and silly inscription purposely set up 
 in a church. If any one wishes to give a modern stained glass window 
 to a church, you should withhold your consent till some fit person has 
 looked carefully at the design, so that no wrong emblems may be 
 admitted, and above all that no piece of the mullions, or tracery, or 
 cusps of the window be cut away for it. Lastly, it is bad to have the 
 royal arms in stained glass in the east windov.- : for though no one loves 
 the Crown more than I do, yet I do not like to see its mark where 
 some higher and holier symbol ought to be. And for the same reasons 
 I would not renew the royal arms painted on board, and put up over 
 the Chancel-arch. There is no authority for this, and surely it is at 
 least an vmseemly successor of the holy Rood or Cross which used to 
 stand there. 
 
 But why need I speak of what used to be over the Chancel-arch, 
 when that arch itself is so shamefully malti'eated ? Besides the- deep 
 meaning to be found in its position between the Chancel and the Nave, 
 typifying the faithful death of the Christian as the soul passes the 
 barrier between Earth and Heaven, it is often one of the most 
 beautiful ornaments of the church. I will tell you from real examples 
 what is sometimes done to it. I have known a fine old Norman arch, 
 which had stood some seven hundred years, and had outlived every 
 other part of the church, taken down at last to give, as was said, 
 more room. I have knoAvn Chancel-arches enlarged, or the sides pared 
 down and got rid of, for the same purpose. With strange inconsistency 
 this arch is at other times blocked up to the very cieling, thus cutting 
 off the Nave from the Chancel, and hindering the Communion Service 
 from being ever read in the right place. Nor has the arch into the 
 Tower fared better. Nothing is easier, and nothing will make the 
 church look better, than to open these at once. Here also I may speak 
 of the fault of boarding up a Transept, whether for a school, or a 
 vestry, or any other purpose ; and of putting a wooden screen across 
 the Niwe for the sake of warmth. 
 
 The Roodscreen which used to stand under the Chancel-arch should 
 be carefully kept up wherever it remains. Sometimes it has been 
 moved to the belfry-arch, and there set up with the carved work
 
 19 
 
 inside : sometimes it is turned to the use of a great [w\\, or when left 
 standing is cut through, that the pews in the Chancel may have a 
 fair view of the pulpit. Sometimes the beautiful caiving is made into 
 rails for the steps of the pulpit, or worked into galleiy front? or pew- 
 sides. Wherever this has been done, you should gather the pieces to- 
 gether, and put them back into a screen. WTien there are but very 
 few of them you may work them on to a door, and so give a very good 
 effect. Very often the Roodscreeu has been cut down just above the 
 lowest panels, and these have been boarded or baised up to make com- 
 fortable pew-backs. If you can strip these you will often find very 
 curious car\'ings and paintings. 
 
 The Nave-arches sometimes have fared no better than that at the 
 Chancel. Sometimes the pier is quite taken away and two arches 
 thrown into one, to give perhaps a better view of the pulpit, and thus 
 a most shapeless and ugly arch produced. Sometimes the piers are 
 jagged and notched for a gallery to rest upon. As 1 said before, if 
 you must have a gallery, let it rest upon uprights behind the pillars, 
 not ujjon the piUai-s themselves. But sometimes to give more room 
 the pillars are quite taken away, and thin posts put up instead : and 
 even where the gallery was at firet laid upon posts these have been 
 kept, while the gallery was brought forward to the piers themselves. 
 There is, I hope, only one case in England where the pinnacle of a 
 tomb is used as a gallery-post, and this, I gi-ieve to say, was allowed 
 by a Society which, when it shall be at liberty to consider what is due 
 to taste and reverence in proportion to its means and good will, will 
 be, even still more than it has been, one of the Church's best and 
 ablest handmaids. As it is, that body itself probably little knows how 
 many churches have to rue in this respect ever having come under 
 the hands of the ' Incorporated Society for building and repairing 
 churches and chapels/ Never have anything to do with fvtbig piers 
 by way of beautifjdng them; nor with painting them yellow, perhaps 
 with the capitals and architrave black for contrast. Neither ought the 
 obelisks on old monuments to be tipped with lamp-black for effect. 
 
 There is however one thing worse than all this : to take away the 
 capitals and arches, " because they are of no use," and hold the roof 
 up by wooden props! This was done, and this the reason given for it, 
 in a village of Worcestershire : and in the same county's Cathedral 
 city, no longer ago than last year, a church was pulled down because 
 it was in the way of another. After this, to block off a north Aisle 
 because the church is too large, and then to build a gallery because 
 it is too small, will seem trifling. I know also of a north Aisle which 
 was pulled down, that the sale of the materials might pay for beau- 
 tifying a door : and (though this is a less matter) of poppy heads 
 being sawm off, because they were in the waj' ! 
 
 After all I have said you will see for yourselves how gi-eat an 
 advantage it would be, if you could ever repair any damaged windows.
 
 20 
 
 or open them if they are blocked up : or raise a roof which hides the 
 top of a window ; or move houses or sheds which interfere with the 
 churcli on the outside. I need not remind you how good a work it 
 would be if you could ever rescue from desecration any ruined or 
 disused church. There are more such to be found in our country 
 than would be readily believed : but they are often in a very bad state. 
 I know a beautiful chapel that has lieen used as a dwelling house, its 
 Chancel as a kitchen, Avitli the Altar fitted up as a fire-place with a 
 brick chimney ! These might very often l)e restored so as to become 
 district chapels, and would he much better than a new cheap room. 
 
 Pev'aaps after reading sucl\ a list many wdll think that it is too 
 late to try to stop sucli a flood of cliange and evil : but I could give a 
 list almost as long of such faults lately amended, and therefore believe 
 that the zeal for the Lord's House wliich has so lately sprung up 
 will work widely enough to set right all. 
 
 I have put off tUl now speaking of Damp, though, as I said before, 
 I tliink it perhaps the greatest ill that can befall a church. There 
 can be no doubt but that the graves close to the church- walls, 
 clogging up the drains and making the heap of earth against 
 them higher and Iiighei", are the chief causes of damp. In how 
 many clmrches is there a flight of several steps do'wn to the door 
 from the heaped-up church-yard ! In one case the outside level is 
 that of the top of the pews, and those high pews too, within. About 
 this I may mention one place by name, though against my general plan, 
 since it is not a parish-church; I mean the ancient and beautiful church 
 of the Hospital of S. Cross, near AV'inchester. Ilei-e, — though this 
 is by no means the woi-st case I could bring forward, — the earth in 
 the close is now a good deal higher than the floor of the clmrch: 
 so that last winter when the thaw took place a great body of 
 watei- forced itself through the west door, and could scarcely be 
 kept out of the Choir, wdiich I am sorry to say is pewed off^ to the 
 great damage of the building. In the north Aisle to the Chancel 
 also this beautiful cliurch is much hurt by damp. Now no one 
 can deny that such a state of things as this should at once be 
 mended : and how can this be done but by clearing away the earth 
 which has become piled up round the foundations ? And here I may 
 say, that I am sorry a Review which deserves all our thanks for 
 what it has so ably done for Church Architecture among us, has, 
 while most kindly praising my former 'Few Words,' partly mis- 
 understood my meaning in what I said about damp *. I never 
 meant that the earth should be cleared away lower tJian the blocking- 
 course or break in the masonry, which almost always marks the 
 proper earth-line. So far down as this may safely be cleared, and 
 then a trench should be made deep enough to carry off the water 
 which may fall from the eaves : and this trench should be lined or 
 
 • British Critic, July 1841, p. 252.
 
 91 
 
 paved with brick or stone, and made to deliver the water out of the 
 church-yard, and at any rate clear away from the foundations of the 
 walls. If this be done with judgment it vdll seldom if ever be fol- 
 lowed by the 'spreading of the walls': and even if it should be, 
 this would be because the wall had been weakened by the pile of 
 wet earth wliich had been left to lie against it, rather than because 
 the wall had never stood without so hurtful a prop. However you 
 should always watch the wall so cleared, and, whenever you can, get 
 the advice of an architect. 
 
 The loathsome smells which taint some churches often arise from 
 damp, as well as do those green stains which so hurt the eye. \VTien 
 you find tliis you should keep the church as open and airy as 
 possible ; and make drains and clear away the earth, as well as for- 
 bid the burvang of any more bodies near the church or within it. 
 Indeed this should be stopped at any risk, and in every case. I 
 shall not soon forget seeing a church in which a vault had just given 
 way. It was deep and full of broken coffins, but had no smell; 
 for this had long ago escaped through cracks in the roof. How un- 
 clean is this for the House of God, and how unspeakably hurtful 
 for those who worship in it ! You should, among the first things, 
 see that the pavement is good and well cemented. Nothing is more 
 needful than a free passage of air over the floor : but this is much 
 hindered by pews. I remember once taking up the bottom of a pew 
 to reach a brass, and being almost overcome by the stench. You 
 should therefore, if you have pews, have holes made in the skirting- 
 boards for a free passage of air. 
 
 One thing more. All old churches were dedicated to God in 
 honour of some Saint. Now, in some places not a soul in the whole 
 parish knows the name of the Patron Saint of the church. This is 
 a sad contrast to some little villages in Wales, where this is 
 knoAvn by all even the poorest. But, to be sure, comfort and 
 civilization have not made so much way there as with us. There 
 is however something worse than this : in one church there is in 
 the vestry a long puritanical inscription scoffing at the Blessed 
 Saint, S. Alkmund, to whom the church is dedicated. And this is 
 allowed to remain! 
 
 In some few churches there are old libraries which have been 
 bequeathed for the parishioners' use. These should be kept up, as 
 there are often very valuable books in them. I liave seen where the 
 books have been torn to pieces, it would seem on purpose. 
 
 Wherever also there is a lettem witli a large Bible or otlaer book 
 chained to it, you should take much care of it. And even if the books 
 are gone the lettem should be saved : and not left to lie about in some 
 dark place. One would scarcely believe that any one would think a 
 brass eagle-desk a piece of lumber : yet such is sometimes the case. 
 This is the place also to remind you of having the Bible, Prayer-Book,
 
 22 
 
 and Office-Books of the church in good repah*. And there ought to 
 be ribands to point out the Lessons, the Psalms, and other parts of 
 the service : for the untidy plan of allowing the clerk to turn down 
 one or more leaves for the Clergyman not only fills the Books with 
 'dog-ears', but wears them out in a very short time. The parish 
 should never be niggardly in what is necessary for divine service: 
 and I would strongly advise you (when you want new books) to get 
 the beautiful edition published at the Cambridge University Press, 
 with the Kubricks properly printed in red. 
 
 Sun-dials should be kept up, unless where they have been put on 
 the stem of the old Cross. You should care for this old Cross, and 
 keep it clean : for none but wicked men would have broken that 
 emblem of all our hopes. Clocks, which have now supplanted that 
 old sun-dials, often spoil a church ; their very shape is unsuited to 
 pointed architecture. Do not seek to make them suit a Tower by 
 blocking a window or cutting away a moulding for them : for you 
 cannot succeed, and you will perhaps spoil the building in the attempt. 
 Let them remain, if they must remain, in their ugliness. 
 
 And now I have done. And though I know how feebly I have 
 raised my voice, yet it has been raised with the one view of trying to 
 recall some of my brethren of the laity of England to a sense of what 
 God claims from those who are entrusted here with the overcharge of 
 His House ; and of giving what little aid to them a life devoted to 
 Church-antiquities may have enabled me to give. If I have had much 
 fault to find, it is not from a love of finding fault, far from that, but 
 from a hope of amending. And if many have been persuaded by my 
 former Words to do something for God's Church, although with such 
 scanty means, it is not much to hope that some of those to whom I now 
 write, Avho mostly are so much better able to afford such cost, will 
 also do their part. You to whom I have now been speaking are often 
 men of wealth and influence : you have fair houses and costly furni- 
 ture, and all comforts you can wish for. I earnestly call upon you to 
 thmk of the claims which the church, which you are allowed to watch 
 and guard, has upon your aid : the church, within which you were 
 by Holy Baptism made members of the spiritual Church ; in which 
 it may be you knelt before the Bishop in Confirmation, and in Holy 
 Matrimony plighted your troth in the dearest earthly tie ; the church 
 which you have perhaps daily entered for prayer and praise, and 
 how often for Holy Communion! around which your fathers and 
 brethren who have departed in faith are resting in the sleep of 
 peace ; in which lastly the solemn Funeral Service will ere long 
 be heard over your bier. It is no slight band which ties you to 
 your Parish-church: it is no far-off call which is rousing you to 
 do your dutyt Your oaths, your honour, your manliness, must force 
 you, one would think, to fill the office wliich you have taken as a 
 good man should : a happy office surely, to watch that church round
 
 23 
 
 which all your hopes are or ought to be centered ; and a high office, (it 
 cannot be said too often) to care for the holy House where God Himself 
 deigns to dwell. 
 
 Join then for your Church's sake the zealous band who are now 
 on all sides working, each in his way, for God's glory. I cannot 
 promise you fame, but you will not desire that. I can promise you 
 the love of all who are working in the same good cause ; and, what is 
 more, a lasting record of your labours by Him in WTiose name and 
 for "Wliose sake you labour.
 
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 ^('^