Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

“ Previous to the year 1755, the choir of Amiens cathedral had retained its ancient and magnificent fittings,—altar, sedilia, jubé, all were perfect; but at that fatal period, Mons. de la Mothe, a pious and well-intentioned bishop, but a man of execrable taste, and devoid of all feeling for true ecclesiastical architecture, conceived the unfortunate project of modernizing this glorious choir: and, at an enormous expense, the ancient works were demolished, to be replaced by the incongruous masses of marble clouding and meretricious decorations that so wofully disfigure this noble church. ”

“ I therefore most earnestly conjure all those men who profess to revive true architecture to look to the wants and circumstances of the time, not to sacrifice principles, but to prove that the real principles can combine with any legitimate requirement of religion; let the bishops and clergy practically perceive that Christian architecture fulfils perfectly all their wants: let there be light, space, ventilation, good access, with the absence of drafts, which destroy devotion and excite prejudice against Pointed doorways. ”

“ Like all the Italian mediæval works, it is exquisitely beautiful in detail, and admirable in the sculptured enrichments; it is entirely surrounded by a screen, partly composed of bronze and partly of marble, divided in open panels of pointed tracery; this supports a cresting, with prickets for tapers, and at the four angles are images of angels bearing metal candlesticks of elegant design. In order to convey a more perfect idea of this beautiful and decorated altar, I have figured it among the illustrations. ”

“ The ribs of the groining were richly painted at the intersections, with images in relief on every boss. The pavement was irregularly studded with incised slabs of benefactors, who were permitted to repose beneath the floor of that edifice to whose support and glory they had contributed while living. But the most striking object that presented itself to the sight, was a most elaborate jubé or rood loft, extending completely across the entrance to the choir. ”

“ I must confess, with every wish to preserve my charity, I am moved to indignation when I hear proposals for erecting great sheds to serve as Catholic churches, places resembling a depot for railway goods or the housings of a wharf. What treatment is this for the divine mysteries! what treatment for the poor, who are brought to worship God in a place little, if any, better than the union, or market shambles themselves! One of the many great benefits conferred by church architecture, is its affording the poor man a glorious edifice where he may enter at will ”

“ Against this gloomy background the rood and its attendant images stood out in red reflected light, but the Jews themselves that scoffed on Calvary's mount were not more bitter in their scorn than the New Gospellers, who uttered loud shouts and cries as they beheld the object of their sacrilegious vengeance. The sound of hollow blows echoes through the church, the lower door is forced: ascending footsteps are heard on the staircase; then the rebounding tread of heavy feet on the loft itself, torches appear—axes gleam—heavy blows fall thick ”

“ One good woman triumphantly produces a cope she had concealed under a quadruple layer of mattresses; another hastens with the holy water vat, brightening it up as she came along; half the contents of the ancient sacristy returned to view as if by magic. But what gave greater joy to the old curé than all the rest, was the ancient rood, that had been removed from the jubé and concealed in a roof by a pious parishioner. It came supported by four of the strongest youths, carried in triumph. ”

“ No chapel or chaplain: the priest has long been driven out to live on a distant portion of the property; the old chapel is a disused garret, where a few moth-eaten office-books and unstrung beads tell of the departed piety of the older members of the family. But many years have elapsed since holy rites or holy men were there seen or heard. Stupified with disease, the wretched owner of a vast estate, childless and deserted, draws near his end. He has wasted a life which might have been one of usefulness and honour. ”

“ Cheap magnificence, meretricious show, is the order of the day; something pretty, something novel, calico hangings, sparkling lustres, paper pots, wax dolls, flounces and furbelows, glass cases, ribands, and lace, are the ornaments and materials usually employed to decorate, or rather disfigure, the altar of sacrifice and the holy place. It is impossible for church furniture and decoration to attain a lower depth of degradation, and it is one of the greatest impediments to the revival of Catholic truth. ”

“ Yet the very magnitude of the task should only serve to animate its disciples to heroic exertion in its propagation, and to rescue the Catholic faith from the external degradation into which it has fallen, and to reinstate it in all its former majesty, and to restore the reverend usages of the ancient fabrics, by which the sacred mysteries of the church may be set forth in a more lively and striking manner, strengthening the zeal and devotion of the faithful and drawing to the fountain of truth those souls whom the theatrical choirs and modern abuses have deterred from uniting. ”

“ The cathedral, though it has suffered most severely from extensive alterations in the seventeenth century, has still preserved a most curious stone rood loft, debased in style, but still carrying out the principles of the old traditions. It was approached by two flights of steps, the choir being elevated over a crypt, which gives it a most imposing appearance. On the top of the first platform is an altar, and immediately over it a stone pulpit, with a brass lectern, on the left side, in the form of an eagle, doubtless for the deacon to sing the holy Gospel to the people. ”

“ Screens are, in truth, the very least part of the cause of their animosity to the churches of their Fathers, for if any man says he loves pointed architecture, and hates screens, I do not hesitate to denounce him as a liar, for one is inseparable from the other, and more, inseparable from Catholic arrangement in any style, Byzantine, Norman, Pointed, or debased. We have now to contend for the great principles of Catholic antiquity,—tradition and reverence against modern development and display. ”

“ It is quite possible to embody the pure idea of the divine heart under a mystical form that should illustrate the intention without offending the sense; but when this most spiritual idea is depicted by an anatomical painting of a heart copied from an original plucked from the reeking carcase of a bullock, and done with sickening accuracy of fat and veins, relieved on a chrome yellow ground, it becomes a fitting subject of fierce denunciation for every true Christian artist, as a disgusting and unworthy representation for any object of devotion. ”

“ Our churches should now combine all the beauty and symbolism of antiquity with every convenience that modern discovery has suggested, or altered ecclesiastical discipline requires. The revival would then become a living monument and a true expression of the restoration of religion in the land. But I grieve to say, from what I see of the majority of pointed churches now erecting, that they are calculated to inflict greater injury on the cause than even the Italian abortions, which can only excite disgust, and drive men to the opposite opinion, and therefore practically of some service. ”

“ Real Protestants have always built rooms for their worship, or walled up the old churches, when they have fallen into their possession, into four or five distinct spaces, as in Scotland. But the separated church of England, though Protestant in position, in name, and in practice, has retained so much of the old traditions in her service, and is linked by so many ties to older and better times, that she naturally turns back to them with affection and reverence, and seeks, as far as her maimed rites and fettered position will admit, to restore the departed glory of the sanctuary. ”

“ Yes, it is mainly to these causes that the reproaches of debasement, that are so frequently urged against us by Protestants, are to be traced, nor can we scarcely wonder that those who judge by externals and do not penetrate beneath the surface, should come to such conclusions, judging by what is presented before them even under the most glorious vaults of Christendom. But when we turn to true Catholic art, what do we behold? the works of men profoundly versed in symbolism and the holy scriptures: indeed, the great portals of the foreign cathedrals are Bibles in stone. ”

“ How we must admire the appropriate fitness of each consecration to the peculiar object to be devoted to the service of Almighty God, from the walls of the temple and altar of sacrifice to those heralds of solemnity, the bells, whose brazen notes can animate a whole population with one intention and one prayer! ”

“ The Dominicans were great preachers, and consequently their churches are like immense naves, with lateral chapels between the buttresses; the high altar placed against a reredos, behind which was the choir for the religious. Christian architecture lends itself perfectly to all these varieties: a Carthusian, a Dominican, or a Franciscan church may be and were quite in accordance with true ecclesiastical architecture, and yet most differently disposed, to suit the various religious rules. ”

“ Though all this should fill us with admiration, there is nothing to excite surprise, when we reflect on the very sacred nature of the Christian mysteries—no sign typical and prophetic, as under the Mosaic law, but our blessed Lord truly present and abiding in the temple in the holy sacrament of the altar,—it is by no means wonderful that the Christian worship should assume a form of solemnity formerly unknown, and we are only astounded that with the perpetuation of the doctrine the practice of external solemnity should have so lamentably become decayed in the latter times ”

“ If we terminate the panorama with the arched lantern of S. Mary-le-Bow, the old tower of S. Michael, Cornhill, and a great number of lesser steeples, we shall have a faint idea of the ecclesiastical beauty of Catholic London. But to return to our more immediate subject, each of these fine churches was provided with its screen and rood. Numerous are the entries in the old churchwardens' accounts yet remaining of pious offerings made by the citizens to beautify the devotional sculptures which decorated them, and to provide tapers and branches to deck them for the returning festivals. ”

“ The subject on which I am about to treat is one of far more importance than the generality of men may be willing to admit; it is not a mere question of architectural detail, respecting a few mullions and a transverse beam, but it involves great principles connected with discipline, and even faith, and it is a question in which all those who either wish for the revival of ancient solemnity and reverence, or even the preservation of what yet remains, are most deeply interested. ”

“ But, alas, we have a class of men to oppose the revival of ancient symbolism, on whom the examples of fifteen centuries of Catholic antiquity fail to produce the slightest recognition of respect. The past is to them a nullity, and they would fain have us believe that the present debased externals of religion are to be equally received and propagated as those which were generated during the finest ages of Christian art. ”

“ First, that veiled altar and ardent lamps tell of the divine presence abiding among men: ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus. What sanctity this imparts to the whole fabric, and how dead do even the most stupendous churches appear when denuded of the sacramental presence; the ground itself in such a place is holy: not only the disposition of the fabrick itself, but every enrichment, every detail harmonises in setting forth one grand illustration of the faith. ”

“ Room-worship, where all see, is the modern shell in which innovators and nineteenth-century men could exhibit those sacred mysteries for which Catholic antiquity raised those glorious choirs and chancels, witnesses of their reverence and our degeneracy. ”

“ That those who oppose the revival and continuance of open screens are not only enemies of Catholic traditions and practices, but the grounds of their objections militate as strongly against every symbolic form and arrangement in ecclesiastical architecture, and, therefore, till they retract their opposition they are practically insulting the traditions of the church, impeding the restoration of reverence and solemnity, and injuring the progress of religion. ”

“ Then if we consider the divine song of the church, its serenity, its melody, and indeed its almost sacramental power in infusing faith into the heart as {113} its tones flow into the ears of the assistants, while the rhythm most perfectly expresses the sense of the sacred words thus solemnly sung, without vain repetitions and distracting fugues, but as is ordered by the Roman ceremoniale, sit devota, distincta, et intelligibilis, so that men listen, not to curious sounds, but sing in prayer and with one voice, glorify God in unison of heart and sound. ”