am about it, and make a good job of it, howsomever.'
A caricature in new stone of the old window had taken its place.
In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in the Perpendicular
style with some gilding and colouring still remaining. Some
repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its place a new screen
of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the builder, more genial than
ever, 'please God, now I am about it, I'll do the thing well, cost
what it will.' The old screen had been used up to boil the
work-men's kettles, though 'a were not much at that.'"

Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.

Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull
down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn
conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:--

1. That a new church should be built.

2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the
construction of the new.

3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new
one be built.

How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history
recordeth not.

Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange
enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building.
Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings,
pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the
hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those
modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly
bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and
saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been
destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out
in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An
old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for
many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a
little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a
serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the
matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and
bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which
farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the
brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own
hands she painted the whole of the interior--pulpit, pews, doors,
etc., and