spitals, pilgrim churches by
the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their
devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at
Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as
well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used
for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or
parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and
destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly
invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim
way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or
stable.

It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines
is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing.
Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too
near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more
respectful distance. "Restoration" has doomed many to destruction. Not
long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water
necessitated the converting of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir
and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme
for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the
damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of
several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there
for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the
value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and
eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All
Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St.
Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining;
St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old
City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above
were damaged and repaired. "Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by
Wren," is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him
fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he
accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists
or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great
principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all
obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for
the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship
of the English National Church. And how have we tre