Percy Dearmer

“ The extreme boldness of the mouldings, the absence of shafts and capitals and of all ornament, give them a primitive vigour, and their great intermingling curves, which contrast so magnificently with the little shafts of the piers beyond, seem more like a part of some great mountain cavern than a mere device of architectural utility.
At the same time as the arches were built, flying buttresses were inserted further to secure the tower, and they can be seen blocking up the triforium and clerestory of those bays, in nave, choir, and transepts, which adjoin it. ”

“ It is not hate that men seek after, but love, the love of comrades and of country. They will seek that noble life of 'great difficulties', and will get it somehow. Has Christianity then nothing to offer them nowadays but consolation, and—to use an expressive word which our soldiers have invented—a 'cushy' feeling? Has the Church no remembered echo of that Sursum corda, which is the oldest phrase in the Christian liturgy? ”

“ On this western side, too, the foliage which fills the spandrels of the lowest arcade is at its best; it is indeed the purest and truest piece of decorative work in the whole cathedral. Each moulding in this beautiful porch, from the filleted ribs of the groins to the bands round the shafts, and the moulded edge of the stone bench, is most carefully thought out, and adapted to its position, in a way that every architect will appreciate. ”

“ But passing under the screen, all is changed. We find ourselves in one of the most charming and distinctive interiors of a country of interesting churches. The curious and happy arrangement of the great pillars and triforium, the variety and originality of the sculptured capitals, the rich pendent vaulting of the choir, and the touch of mystery in the further chapels, all combine to give to this [50] creation of a long and chequered history an attraction peculiarly its own. ”

“ The heroes of to-day, Foch, Haig, Beatty, Wilson, are the more popular because they do not hide their religion.
It is that man is at heart a fighter, that men as well as women adore the knightly spirit, and long for the uplifting thrill of battle. And the human instinct is right; for each man's life is a battle, and the progress of the race is one long struggle: foes are ever about us, and giants that have to be slain. ”

“ The church does not stand alone; it is neither crowded by incongruous buildings, nor yet isolated from those buildings which are its natural and necessary complement. Palace, cloister, Lady Chapel, choir, chapter-house, all join to form one indivisible whole. The series goes on uninterruptedly along that unique bridge, which, by a marvel of ingenuity, connects the church itself with the most perfect of buildings of its own class, the matchless vicars' close. ”

“ The first time one sees it one is most struck by its squat appearance; it seems almost to have been built as little more than a convenient stone capping for the tower; and, indeed, each time one returns to Oxford one is impressed afresh by this lowliness; so that one fancies for a moment that it may have subsided a little during one's absence. But it quickly resumes its old dignity—the kind of dignity that one sometimes notices in short people—and every day it seems to grow a little higher. ”

“ THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
Christianity is war: it is also peace confidence and happiness as well as onslaught and struggle; meditation as well as sacrifice. The gift of the Spirit is indeed the gift of Christ—not peace, but a sword; but, and therein lies the paradox of his infinite range, the gift is also the quiet flow of wisdom. Inspiration is not only enthusiasm ”

“ The nave, recast in forms of art such as Ina and Eadward, such as Gisa and Robert, had never dreamed of, with the long range of its arcades and the soaring sweep of its newly-vaulted roof, stood, perfect from western door to rood-loft, ever ready, ever open, to welcome worshippers from city and village, from hill and combe and moor, in every corner of the land which looked to Saint Andrew's as its mother church. The choir, the stalls of the canons, the throne of the Bishop, were still confined within the narrow space of the crossing ”

“ It is really wonderful that the cathedral of an English diocese, and the chapel of one of our greatest colleges, should remain in a condition which would disgrace the meanest hamlet. In the first place, it will hardly be credited by those whose eyes have not witnessed the sacrilege, that a portion of the church is actually desecrated. In so vast a college the hire of a single room cannot be dispensed with, but the House of God must be defiled; a bay of the south transept and one of the adjoining chapels are blocked off to form a residence for the verger. ”

“ To class it with reverence as the knowledge of God would make no ultimate difference to its meaning; for to know God is to know truth. The scientist, as well as the artist and the saint, owes his gift to the Spirit of God. All truth is sacred and only falsehood is secular. The obscurantist divine is an adversary of the Holy Ghost, and the open-minded scholar a servant of the Holy Ghost. Knowledge is the power of appreciating Truth.
But the saint, the artist, the scholar, like the statesman or the general, represent only the highest examples of common human activity. ”

“ Indeed, this exquisite group of piers has never been surpassed, and nothing can be found that better illustrates the subtlety and extreme refinement of the last stages of Gothic architecture at their best. At whichever point one stands fresh beauty is apparent. It is merely a device for connecting Lady Chapel with choir, while leaving a wide path free for processions, yet what a gem of perfection has been drawn from the need! ”

“ Love, I take it, does begin with that 'feeling of being in a wider life', love both to God and to Man; and for the rest love cannot be defined—it can only be sung about. The general character of S. Paul's list suggests that it is not so much love to God that is here meant, as a state of Charity, springing from love to God, dwelling in it, and extending itself to all living creatures. The heart is melted and the heart is on fire. The barriers of self are broken down, and we have an absorbing interest in, and an intense affection for, all that is outside self—supremely for God. ”

“ The buttresses of the porch have slender shafts at the angles, which are finished off with foliage of a remarkably free and graceful kind; it should be noticed as an example of those subtle touches that are so abundant in this porch. On the buttresses are pinnacles with an arcade, at the top of which little openings cast a shadow that gives a lightness to the whole effect. A smaller pinnacle is at the apex of the gable, and underneath it an ornament of twisted foliage. ”

“ We need not be afraid of becoming too ecclesiastical; our fault is that we are never ecclesiastical enough, but are content to say in our hearts that we believe in our own church, and some cognate organizations, instead of in that universal brotherhood and kingdom which is the mother of us all.
The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of holy individualism, the Spirit of Liberty, moving men to struggle against both secular and ecclesiastical domination, whether it works by persecution or by bribery. ”

“ Yet if religious people showed the characteristic fruits of the Spirit, how popular they would be!
The truth is that Christianity is very difficult for us all. 'How very hard it is', wrote Browning in a burst of simplicity, 'to be a Christian!' So far from being an old-fashioned religion, it is so blazingly modern that we have only begun to touch it here and there. ”

“ The North Porch is perhaps the finest piece of architecture at Wells, though it generally receives far less attention than it deserves. It is certainly the oldest part of the church, and must have been the first work which Bishop Reginald undertook, about 1185; in style it retains much of the Norman influence. The mouldings of the noble entrance arch are numerous and bold, and twice the Norman zig-zag occurs, though enriched with leaves in a manner that suggests the coming Gothic. A weather moulding, exquisitely carved with deeply undercut foliage, covers the arch. ”

“ The Holy Ghost is also the Spirit of holy fellowship, the Spirit of Charity, which moves men to love one another— and for that end, to get to know one another not only within their own fragments of the broken body of Christ, but among those also which are alien to them. Our modern era has seen the Liberty of the Spirit spreading over the world; and now, after four centuries of struggle, we know ourselves to be at the beginning of a movement towards a new Fellowship of the Spirit. ”

“ It is strange that here, at the outset of the Gothic period, the chief characteristics of the old Greek spirit should be so apparent, the same restraint, the same simplicity, the same exquisite appreciation of light and flowing drapery: in other things there is difference enough, the form is less perfect, the action is less free, though there is a deeper sentiment and a higher power of spiritual expression; but in the essentials of sublime statuary there is a singular agreement. ”

“ The gifts are given to every man in his degree, and the Holy Spirit is in each one of us. Each of us has some desire for truth, for goodness, for beauty, and some appreciation of them, some instinct that they are the more excellent things which cannot be explained— because they are themselves the explanation. Each, of us in some degree has counsel, and in some measure puts forth power. Each of us is inspired.
Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are our life, and the Spirit comes to give it us more abundantly. ”

“ The ingenuity, too, of these strange flying buttresses becomes more and more evident; the "ungainly props" are seen to be so worked into the tower they support, that they almost seem like part of the original design of the first builders. One discovers that it is the organ, and not the arches, that really blocks the view, and one marvels that so huge a mass of masonry can look so light as to present, with the great circles in the spandrels where the arches meet, "a kind of pattern of gigantic geometrical tracery." ”

“ We all must, during the years of struggle for freedom, have imagined sometimes the horrible difficulty of our marshals, admirals, presidents, and prime ministers, the agonizing process of making some irrevocable decision; and, as we watched the gradual unfolding of the plans of Marshal Foch, we must have realized the quality of real power, how courage is needed for right counsel, not less than for right action, how the highest form of power is after all intellectual as well as moral, and how inseparable in all right undertaking are Counsel and Might. ”

“ The head of the Mother and the upper half of the Child are gone, but the drapery that remains is of quite perfect grace and dignity. A serpent is under the feet of the Madonna, who is sitting on a throne; angels censing are on either side without the quatrefoil. A good deal of the old colour which once gave this central group a peculiar brilliancy can still be traced on this protected sculpture; the background was ultramarine, the mouldings red and gold. The figures were also gilded in part, and there are marks on the wall to show that a metal nimbus was once attached to it. ”

“ She exists not only to realize brotherhood within her own borders, which she has yet to do; but to promote the brotherhood of all mankind, which she has done from the beginning, and is still doing—till to-day we dream, and hardly dare to dream, that the first stage of her task is being accomplished. So the Spirit of God, with sighs that cannot be uttered, will not rest till the World is the Church, and all the kingdoms of the world are become the kingdom of Christ, and the whole world is mighty and wise, and tender with charity. ”

“ CHAPTER I HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
3 "The Gothic Cathedral," wrote Froude, an author who held no brief for the Gothic period, "is perhaps, on the whole, the most magnificent creation which the mind of man has as yet thrown out." The Cathedral Church of Wells, wrote Froude's predecessor in the same historical chair, is "the best example to be found in the whole world of a secular church, with its subordinate buildings." "There is no other place," Professor Freeman went on to say, "where you can see so many of the ancient buildings still standing, and still put to their own use." ”

“ Instead of being only the description of a strong and just ruler, an exceptional man, indeed a unique man—the liberating Messiah whom the Jews longed for—the description now becomes that of the ordinary Christian. Every one is expected to show these ruling qualities, just because he is a Christian. Here then is the banner of democracy unfurled, ages before it had come into practical politics! Democracy has as a matter of fact always followed in the wake of Christianity, and has never existed in any but Christian nations. ”