Stones of the Temple Part 18

It was the day before the Festival of the Ascension, and Ascension Day being not only one of the greatest festivals of the Christian year, but being, moreover, the day on which the people of St. Catherine's were used to commemorate with great rejoicing the restoration of their now beautiful temple, old Matthew and the Vicar were busily engaged a.s.sisting those of the parishioners, old and young, who had the time to spare and were sufficiently skilful, in decorating the church with flowers and evergreens.

"I remember, sir, when I was a boy, we used to call those twelve pillars that the ladies are putting the flowers on, the _twelve Apostles_," said old Matthew.

"It's a common number in large churches," replied the Vicar, "and the name for them which you remember is not an unusual one. I remember one church where there are eleven pillars, and the old s.e.xton told me they stood for eleven of the Apostles, and that there would have been twelve, but Judas was omitted. The pillars of the church, as the chief supports of the fabric, are said to represent the Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs[171]. As I have often told you, there is hardly a part of the church without its special meaning: 'even the smallest details should have a meaning, or serve a purpose[172],' and whatever has a meaning serves a purpose, and whatever serves a purpose, has a meaning, and a very important one too. The four main walls of the building have a similar meaning to the pillars. They are supposed to represent the four Evangelists[173]. The stones of which they are composed represent Christians--the living stones of the spiritual building[174]; the cement which joins them together is charity, 'the bond of perfectness[175]' which binds together the members of the Christian Church. The door[176] represents the means of entrance to the invisible kingdom; the windows remind us of that sacred presence which keeps out the storm of angry and sinful life, and admits the light of Christ and His Word. You see, Matthew, the old church builders were themselves _Churchmen_; sometimes even bishops were famous architects, like Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, and William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester; and then they made themselves felt in all their works--I mean, they gave a religious character and meaning to all parts of the structure they reared. And so there were always a hundred preachers in the Church, though not a tongue uttered a single word."

"I understand what you mean, sir--the stones were the preachers."

"Just so, Matthew; and then the churches were always open, and people used to go and meditate and pray there at all hours; for in church they found themselves surrounded by so much that reminded them of Heaven and G.o.d's presence, and sacred things, and so little to remind them of the world and of sin, that they could think and pray there better than any where else. But in after times the old churches became neglected and dilapidated, and the new churches were so mean and cold and bare, that there was every thing to chill and nothing to warm devotion, and so people gave up the good old custom of going to hear the stones preach, and to say their daily prayers to G.o.d in His sanctuary. But the time is coming back again, I am thankful to say, and church builders are again good Churchmen, and regard the building of churches as a sacred art and a religious work; and the people are less contented to be ignorant about these things; and the churches are no longer closed from Sunday night to the next Sunday morning, as they used to be."

"I haven't read my Bible right, Mr. Ambrose, if it isn't a very wicked thing to allow G.o.d's House to go to decay. In our old church people seemed to have forgotten all about the '_beauty_ of holiness,' both in their manner of worship and in the house where they worshipped. They had their own houses 'ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion,' and this house was 'laid waste[177].' I have been told how grand Queen Victoria's Palace is, and how beautiful the Parliament House is, and I have often thought that surely, sir, the house of the great King of kings, and the great Ruler of all our rulers should be grand and beautiful too. But our churchwardens not only didn't try to make the old church beautiful, sir, but hid as much as possible of whatever beauty they found."

"Too true, my friend," said the Vicar: "these old pillars had become so coated over with whitewash that their rich carved work could hardly be seen at all. Whitewash was the cheapest thing they could use to hide the green damp and the plaster patches, and for that reason I suppose they used it."

The work of decoration went on rapidly; the many busy hands soon effected a wonderful change in the appearance of the church, which gave it a very festive character. The choicest flowers were placed at the back of the altar, others were used in various ecclesiastical designs, or woven into wreaths of evergreens. The texts of Holy Scripture painted above the arches from pillar to pillar were neatly framed in borders of evergreens, and wreaths of the same were already twined around many of the columns[178].

The capitals of all the pillars were carved in imitation of the many wild flowers and ferns which grew in the neighbourhood[179]. Although these had been carved not less than five hundred years ago, the same wild flowers were still to be found in the parish; and every year on Ascension Day it was the custom at St. Catherine's to decorate each of these pillars with the same natural flowers that had been imitated in stone. It was a pretty custom, for as the natural leaves and flowers faded or were removed, their more enduring likenesses were disclosed, and remained throughout the year the faithful representatives of their bright and gay originals.

"Well, my dear," said the Vicar, addressing Ellen Walton, his churchwarden's little daughter, "you have really shown great taste in arranging those ferns; they look beautiful indeed."

"I deserve but little credit, sir, for any taste of my own," she replied, "for I have but copied the stone carving as near as I could."

"Yes, but you _do_ deserve great credit, as every body does who copies exactly that which is worth copying. The workman who so cleverly imitated in stone these beautiful works of G.o.d, in order to adorn G.o.d's House throughout the year with memorials of His goodness in making our summer fields so lovely, deserved much praise; and now, though yours is a lighter task, that you have given life, as it were, to his work, by your nice arrangement of leaf to leaf, and flower to flower, I must give you some praise too. But I see you are anxious to ask me a question."

"Yes, sir. I was talking to Sally Strike this morning about the decorations, and she says they are all nonsense and unmeaning; she says, too, it's very wicked to put flowers about the church, for it's nothing but a heathen and idolatrous custom. Of course, I don't much notice what she says about it, but I don't very well know what to answer her, and I was going to ask you, sir, to be kind enough to tell me."

"Sally Strike doesn't often say any thing very wise, my dear, and this is no exception to the rule. You had better answer her out of her own mouth. Ask her, when she gathered all the flowers her own garden could produce to decorate the little 'Rehoboth'--as they call that meeting-house on Wanderer's Heath--when they held their last 'love feast,' and had tea and cake in their chapel, did she put the flowers there to make the place look gloomy, or to make it look festive and gay?

Or, why did she do the same thing a little while ago, when they gave a children's treat in their meeting-house? Was it because it was a time of sadness or of rejoicing? No doubt, she will tell you it was the latter.

Well, we decorate our churches for a similar reason. We regard all the Christian festivals as seasons for great gladness and rejoicing, and whilst at other times we are obliged, for the most part, to content ourselves with such ornamentation of G.o.d's House as our own poor imitations of the forms and colours of Nature can supply, on these high days we press into the service of the temple the lovely originals of all those forms and colours, fresh and pure as when they first left the hand of their Divine Maker.

"'Tis true that the heathen used flowers in decorating their temples and altars, and also their victims prepared for sacrifice[180]. But they used them just as Sally Strike uses them at her meeting-house, for the _sole_ purpose of _decoration_. Now, though we use flowers to give a festive appearance to our churches, our use of them has, too, always a meaning beyond that: how they remind us of the _love of G.o.d_ in arraying this earth with so much beauty for our enjoyment; how they remind us of the pure and lovely delights of the Paradise that is lost; and of our future resurrection[181] to a Paradise of yet greater beauty. And it is from our Bibles that we learn to give, too, an _emblematic_ meaning to particular flowers, so that, whether carved by man, or moulded by the hand of Nature, each one teaches its own useful lesson. There we find the lily mentioned as the emblem of G.o.d's providence; the rose as the type of youthful beauty; the cedar, of manly strength. Nay, my dear Ellen, we may even find in Holy Scripture itself our authority for decorating our churches with these pure and unsinning works of G.o.d. You remember, no doubt, the verse to which I allude: 'The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee: the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary[182]'."

"Thank you, sir, I quite understand your explanation. But Sally Strike said she didn't object to the way the church used to be decorated thirty years ago, when plain twigs of evergreen were put at the corners of the pews, and some large branches fixed here and there on the walls; but she does not like the triangles and circles and crosses, and the other designs we now use."

"And yet nothing could be more silly than the dislike, though I fear it is one in which many--for mere want of thought--share. Surely, the twigs themselves must be at least as harmless when bound together as when used singly; and certainly it is better that they should be formed into beautiful and religiously _suggestive_ designs, than scattered unmeaningly about the church. The cross, often repeated, reminds us, you know, of the one grand pervading truth of our religion; the circle, of eternity; the triangle, of the Holy Trinity. We almost even forget the beauty of the design itself in the beauty of its symbol."

_CHAPTER XXVIII_

THE ROOF

"Thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, the roof thereof."

Exod. x.x.x. 3.

"Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more: So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars,--spread that branching roof, Self-poised, and scoped into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Ling'ring and wand'ring on, as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."

WORDSWORTH.

Ill.u.s.tration: Keynsham Church

THE ROOF

"I'm glad to see you both among the helpers to-day," said the Vicar, as he shook hands with William Hardy and Richard Atkinson, "though I know this must cost you at least the value of a day's work."

The village carpenter and mason were always accustomed on these occasions to give their services gratuitously.

"Very glad indeed to come and do the best we can, sir," replied William Hardy, "though we couldn't quite agree about it at home, my wife and me, till we'd talked it over a bit."

Now Hardy's wife, though not generally unamiable, was like many other wives in this respect; namely, she had acquired a habit of always questioning the wisdom or sincerity of her husband's actions, which she could now no more shake off than she could her own ident.i.ty.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said the Vicar; "but how was it?"

"Well, you see, sir, my wife says to me, 'William, you might turn your time to better account than going up to the church with Richard Atkinson to-day. You'd be able to earn five shillings, and that would just pay for the new ribbon for my bonnet, which indeed I do want very much.' 'I really believe you do, my dear,' says I, 'and so I must just alter my plans a little. I thought I wanted a new Sunday hat very much indeed, and I was just going to buy one at Master Dole's the other day, when thinks I to myself--no, I mustn't buy it, because I shall lose a day's earnings at church next week, so I'll give the new hat to the church, and have one for myself six months hence. But that's no reason why you should lose your ribbons, so I'll over-work for a few days, and earn the ribbons that way.' You see, Mr. Ambrose, I was thinking of that text, 'G.o.d forbid that I should offer to the Lord my G.o.d of that which doth cost me nothing.' Well, sir, them words softened her a good deal; but then she says to me, 'William, what's the _use_ of all them ornaments at the church? I really do call it waste of time and money.' 'My dear,'

says I, 'there's something better than _use_, I mean as you and I talk of use, there is such a thing as doing things out of love and reverence for G.o.d, and for nothing else, and that's what I should like to do if I can. There wasn't no more _use_ in the precious ointment which the good woman poured on our Saviour's head, than in these ornaments we put up in His church. And you know who it was that called that a _waste_, and you know who it was too that praised her for what she did[183].' 'I think you're right,' says she; and so I came away."

"And so you were, my friend. But it's hard to persuade people that there is such a thing as _a worship of adoration_, prompted simply by a sense of love, grat.i.tude, veneration, entirely apart from all idea of benefit, advantage, or use to ourselves in _any way_. As you rightly say, however, _there is_.--But I see the children have finished the frames for the clerestory[184] windows, so you had better put them up."

"You mean the windows just under the roof, sir?"

"Yes; it is not safe for them to climb so high."

"I suppose you won't attempt to carry your decorations higher than that, Mr. Vicar?" said the Squire, as he approached to see how the work was going on.

"No, that must satisfy us. Indeed, this roof is so rich in colour and carving that we could hardly make it look more festive than it does."

"It is, indeed, a grand old roof; but I rather prefer the high-pitched roof of the chancel to this flatter one of the nave, though certainly nothing can be more beautiful than its carving. The figures of angels on the corbels[185] supporting the princ.i.p.al timbers are exceedingly well done. What do you imagine to be the dates of these two roofs?"

"I should say that that in the chancel was built about A.D. 1350, and this in the nave about A.D. 1500. These flatter roofs of our perpendicular period do not any of them date much farther back than A.D.

1500[186]."

"I quite agree with you in preferring the older high-pitch for our timber roofs. By-the-bye, it is a curious conception that this particular kind of roof has a likeness to the inverted keel of the ark[187]--itself an emblem of the Christian Church. But I prefer to regard it, as I do the windows, and doors, and arches of _pointed_ architecture, as an emblem of the _incompleteness_ of our worship here.

As I look up through the intricate mult.i.tude of timbers, and my gaze becomes lost amid the dark top beams of the roof, my thoughts are insensibly led higher still[188]. There is something in these lofty open roofs that always seems to invite one's thoughts _above them_--so different from the flat ceilings of most dissenting meeting-houses, and some of our churches built a hundred years ago. To me these flat ceilings are very depressing."

"Yes; and not a little irritating too, when you consider what splendid timber roofs in old churches, they often conceal. Ugly, however, and objectionable as they are, they have the one merit of being _unpretending_; and give me any thing rather than a _sham_--a lath-and-plaster roof with papier-mache or stucco bosses, and all sorts of painting and shading in perspective, in imitation of wood or stone, making the poor roof guilty of a perpetual _lie_. I do own that tries my temper immensely!"

"There can be no doubt, too, that the high-pitch better suits our variable climate than any other. I fear, however, that many of those which were built but a few years since are not very enduring. Young, or badly-seasoned wood, thin, poor timbers, which cannot last long, have too often been put into the roof. Sometimes this has been the dishonest act of the builder; but we have been too much in the habit of building for _ourselves only_--not like our forefathers, who put up those big ma.s.ses of timber over our heads. They built for themselves and for _posterity too_.

"'They dreamt not of a perishable home, Who thus could build[189].'"