ls and other remains of English
ecclesiastical architecture had been reduced by the successive
spoliations and mutilations in the times of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and
Cromwell, and by the "vile" restorations of later days. It maintains the
thesis that pointed architecture is not only vastly superior
artistically, but that it is the only style appropriate to Christian
churches; "in it alone we find the faith of Christianity embodied and its
practices illustrated." Pugin denounces alike the Renaissance and the
Reformation, "those two monsters, revived Paganism and Protestantism."
There is no chance, he thinks, for a successful revival of Gothic except
in a return to Catholic faith. "The mechanical part of Gothic
architecture is pretty well understood, but it is the principles which
influenced ancient compositions, and the soul which appears in all the
former works, which is so lamentably deficient. . . . 'Tis they alone
that can restore pointed architecture to its former glorious state;
without it all that is done will be a tame and heartless copy." He
points out the want of sympathy between "these vast edifices" and the
Protestant worship, which might as well be carried on in a barn or
conventicle or square meeting-house. Hence, the nave has been blocked up
with pews, the choir or transept partitioned off to serve as a parish
church, roodloft and chancel screen removed, the altar displaced by a
table, and the sedilia scattered about in odd corners. The contrast
between old and new is strikingly presented, by way of object lessons, in
a series of plates, arranged side by side, and devised with a great deal
of satirical humour. There is, _e.g._, a Catholic town in 1440, rich
with its ancient stone bridge, its battlemented wall and city gate, and
the spires and towers of St. Marie's Abbey, the Guild Hall, Queen's
Cross, St. Cuthbert's Church, and the half-timbered, steep-roofed, gabled
houses of the burgesses. Over against it is the picture of the same town
in 1840, hideous with the New Jail, Gas Works, Lunatic Asylum, Wesleyan
Chapel, New Town Hall, Iron Works, Quaker Meeting-house, Socialist Hall
of Science, and other abominations of a prosperous modern industrial
community. Or there is the beautiful old western doorway of St. Mary
Overies, destroyed in 1838. The door stands invitingly open, showing the
noble interior with kneeling worshippers scattered here and there over
the unobstructed pavement. Opposite is