figured the sacred building. Instead
of the low open seats great square high pews filled the nave. Hideous
galleries were erected which obstructed the windows and hid the
architectural beauties of former days. The old timber roofs were
covered, and low flat ceilings substituted. Brasses were torn up and
sold by dishonest churchwardens, and old monuments broken and defaced.
The old stained-glass windows were destroyed. The Communion table was
taken from the east end of the chancel, and seats erected round it.
Crosses were defaced everywhere, and crucifixes destroyed. Puritan
profanation and wanton destruction devastated our churches to a degree
which has never been equalled since the hordes of heathens and barbaric
Danish invaders carried fire and sword into the sanctuaries of God.

[Illustration: READING-PEW, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, LANGLEY CHAPEL, SALOP]

Much harm was done by the Goths and Vandals of the nineteenth century.
Many old churches, replete with a thousand memories of the past, were
pulled down entirely, and modern structures of "Victorian Gothic" style
erected in their place, which can have none of the precious associations
which the old churches had. Much harm was done to the old features of
many churches by so-called "restoration," carried out by men ignorant of
architecture and antiquities. But we are learning better now. The
Society of Antiquaries has done much to prevent injudicious restoration
and the destruction of our old churches, and if any incumbent and his
parishioners are thinking of restoring their church, they cannot do
better than to consult the secretaries of that learned body, who will
show how best to preserve the interesting memorials of the past which
time has spared.

CHAPTER XV

CHURCH PLATE

Spoliation--Few remains of pre-Reformation plate--Testimony of
inventories--Plate found in graves of bishops--Characteristics of
chalices in different periods--Inscriptions--Devices on patens--
Censers--Pyx--Monstrance--Chrismatory--Pax--Sacring bell--Elizabethan
chalice--Bridal cup--Post-Reformation plate--Hall marks.

We have already mourned over the wanton destruction of much that was of
intense interest and value in our churches; but the most systematic
robbery and spoliation of our church goods at the time of the
Reformation were carried out in the matter of church plate. Henry VIII.
stripped our cathedrals and conventual churches of almost all that was
valuable, and the unscrupu