Methodist chapel

“ The maintenance of an ornate and gorgeous ceremonial is important, for it has been shown that it has great attractions for the mass of the people, and has been able to win back numbers who, so long as simplicity was the order of the day, saw no difference between the service of a church and that of a dissenting chapel, and, in fact, preferred the latter because of its greater freedom and warmth. But of still greater moment is it that the Church should mark out distinctly the line which separates her from the sects ”

“ I have seen that it is possible for the stranger to pass through this great chapel, with its font of waters, and mountain pillars, and vaults of cloud, without being touched by one noble thought or stirred by any sacred passion; but for those who received from its waves the baptism of their youth, and learned beneath its rocks the fidelity of their manhood, and watched amidst its clouds the likeness of the dream of life, with the eyes of age,—for these I will not believe that the mountain-shrine was built or the calm of its forest-shadows guarded by their God in vain. ”

“ A chapel needs an altar with a foot-pace, and a credence, all of which may be smaller than those belonging to the chancel. Minor altars are not allowed unless they stand in a chapel. Chapels are intended for the Eucharist, not for choir offices.
Of all the objectionable ways of warming a church that of noisy iron gratings on the floor is one of the worst. They have a power of spoiling the effect of the architecture which is curiously beyond their importance; they are a danger at weddings and at other occasions; and they harbour rats. ”

“ We have such a chapel on the east side, why not establish one on Factory Hill? I would be glad to contribute for such a purpose.”
“It would not solve the difficulty, Judge,” responded the rector. “These people do not want missions and chapels when they are within walking distance of the church itself. The thing implies exactly the same sort of discrimination as would be implied by herding them in rear pews. They don’t want to be accommodated, they don’t want to be patronized, they want to be recognized as having equal rights with us in the House of God. ”

“ There is nothing particularly interesting in the chapel, which is in a state of dilapidation. But it is curious to speculate that here dwelt, in what was little more than a cavern, the man who, by the austerity of his life and his gloomy views, was able to found a religious Order which has endured for many ages, and is one of the few that escaped destruction during the revolutions and upheavals of the last century. The situation of the Chapelle is one of singular loneliness and desolation, and for eight months of the year at least it is buried in snow. ”

“ The monastery is built against the sheer side of the mountain, perched on a cornice, like a huge eagle's nest. The buildings have no pretense to architectural beauty, and consist of barrack-like houses built around a quadrangle. The chapel is at the farther end, and is, of course, the centre of interest. ”

“ But what is this white conventicle-looking edifice which crowns its heights? Surely it is the refuge of some Mormon congregation—the temple, perchance, of some pagan fanaticism? Nay verily, good sirs,—assuage your indignation, for this is a Church of your own communion, a sort of Chapel of Ease to the parish of St. John. The architect was “abroad” when this building was designed; for one less becoming the outward character of a Church it is impossible to conceive. It is dedicated to St. Paul, and was opened for divine worship in 1830. ”

“ It is a very easy thing to build churches and chapels. It is not such an easy thing—I believe it is an impossible thing (and that the sooner the Christian church gives up the attempt the better) —to get the godless classes into any church or chapel. ”

“ The west front is yet sound and good. Nothing particular strikes you on the entrance, but there are some interesting specimens of rich old stained glass in the windows of the transept. The choir is completely and cruelly modernised. In the side chapels are apparently several good modern paintings; and over an altar of twisted columns, round which ivy leaves apparently composed of ivory are creeping, is a picture of three figures in the flames of purgatory. This side chapel is consecrated to the offering up of orisons 'for the souls in purgatory.' It is gloomy and repulsive. ”

“ The sublime usually has more of a frown and straddle, and it is not until after you have looked about you for ten minutes that you perceive that the chapel is saved from being the prettiest church in England by the accident of its being one of the noblest. It is a cathedral without aisles or columns or transepts, but (as a compensation) with such a beautiful slimness of clustered tracery soaring along the walls, and spreading, bending and commingling in the roof, that its simplicity seems only a richness the more. I stood there for a quarter of an hour on a Sunday morning ”

“ Over all the jumble of old and new, modern and ancient, the setting sun floods the medley of colour and language and dress and Christian and pagan. And in the stillness that waits the coming of the twenty-four priests out of the kivas, the town crier walks out on the corner of a house top and cries aloud an announcement of a service to be held that night in the little mission chapel out there on the edge of the rock. ”

“ It is of no avail that we pray in the temple, if we have a dark underground shrine where our true adoration is rendered.
Oh, dear brethren! I am afraid there are a great many of us nominal Christians, connected with Christian Churches, posing before men as orthodox religionists, who keep this private chapel where we do our devotion to an idol and not to God. If our real gods could be made visible, what a pantheon they would make! ”

“ At the top of the great staircase that ascends from the entrance of the Audience Chamber there was recently “unearthed,” or unwalled, the main doorway to the chapel above. This had been built over so completely by the military that its presence was for years unsuspected. It has suffered much damage, but what remains gives indication of the rich beauty it once possessed. The Chapel has no pillars, being one great nave, its vault springing from engaged clustered columns, that run up the walls between the windows. The capitals of these columns are the only carving in this vast airy hall. ”

“ The building has always been used for various secular purposes, such as elections to scholarships and fellowships; the admission of scholars, fellows, and officers; the affixing of the College seal to documents, and the delivery of declamations by students. Within recent years lectures in the antechapel and an oration in the chapel have been delivered. I believe the view that a church or chapel is intended only for the performance of religious services is modern and unwarranted by history: at any rate our records give no authority for it. ”

“ The high-peaked Mbures or temples, once such a picturesque feature, have fallen into decay with the advent of Christianity, although one thinks they might well have been preserved, enlarged and converted into Christian churches, for the tasteful sennit patterns which adorned their beams and rafters would have made the chapel the most attractive house in the village instead of being, as it too often is, a cheerless barn-like structure, ill-proportioned without and barren within. ”

“ It is built of rough stones beneath a coating of plaster and has a cove roof covered with red tiles. The base of the altar still stands, traces of frescoes can be seen on the walls and on one side of the altar is an ambry or small, square wall-press. It was in this sorrowful little chapel that criminals about to be executed made confession and received the last offices of the Church.
A sadder place than this in which to die could hardly be realised. The land around is so harsh, the hill so heartless, the spot so lonely. ”

“ The chapel is a very pleasing imitation of the middle Gothic style, built from the designs of M. Robert, who, being a pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, gave up all prospects in the world for the hard and painful life of a priest in a petit séminaire: and not only he, but all who are there, seem to have their daily life supported by a spring of charity in themselves; and the great self-denial which accompanies it seems borne as if it were no weight at all, for they look for the recompense of the reward. ”

“ In such a home of recollectedness, doubly guarded against the dogging world without, is "rest without languor and recreation without excitement"; in such a place one is "never less alone than when alone"; and the fine sympathy with the needs of workaday humanity, which led mediæval architects to build such sanctuaries as this chapel here, or the Lady Chapel of so many churches, had led men in far earlier ages to find room even within the travelling tabernacle of a wandering tribe for a holy place and a holy of holies. ”

“ Your chapel was richly adorned, and five priests dwelt here always with old Sir Roland de Vaux. And now, where is your chapel, once the most beautiful in England; it is a pile of ruins, like your faith! I wander round in your villages. Your tenants have gone the way of their lord. Roman Catholicism is a dying power. Hideous chapels have sprung up in all your districts! The true faith is neglected! And who is to blame for it all? Your recreant family. You, who should have been the most zealous upholders of religion, have drifted down the stream of fashion, nerveless and indifferent. ”

“ The Choir (See the Chevet, p. 46.)
The ambulatory with its radiating chapels is of incomparable beauty. Excepting the larger central chapel, known as the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, which is nine-sided, each chapel has seven sides rising from a circular floor.
In each chapel, three windows similar to those of the nave, light the three hindmost walls. Blind windows imitate the true ones on the side walls.
At the base of the windows a narrow gallery, passing through the pillars, continues all along the side-aisles of the transept and nave—a peculiarity in Champagne architecture. ”

“ The chapel of the most narrow and exclusive sect is universal outside, even if it is limited inside, its walls and windows confront all points of the compass and all quarters of the cosmos. It may be small as a dwelling-place, but it is universal as a monument; if its sectarians had really wished to be private they should have met in a private house. Whenever and wherever we erect a national or municipal hall, pillar, or statue, we are speaking to the crowd like a demagogue. ”

“ Eighteen of the family, and for anything that can be seen to the contrary, the whole family, are doing well, both as to this world and that which is to come. Nearly all those who are in our Society meet in one class at their parents', who are just tottering into the grave ripe for eternity, and they have lately subscribed one hundred and fifty pounds towards the erection of a chapel in their neighborhood."
This chapel was erected that year, and used for a place of worship till 1881, when it was superseded by the present church, built at Point de Bute Corner in that year. ”

“ Near by are the ruins of an old battlemented tower, and on the other side of the stream, in a still wilder, more inaccessible spot, is the cave where the Madonna was found by a girl in search of fagots. The chapel is vaulted and adorned in Spanish fashion, with a retablo over the altar, on the panels of which are painted the mysteries of religion. The Virgin and Child are in silken garments; and an iron reja protects the sanctuary. People come here to pray in time of calamity, and often hang their votive offerings on the wall. ”

“ The chapel is built of a warm, yellow stone and has a roof of rounded tiles of such exquisite tints of ashen-grey, of dull red and of chestnut brown that it may be covered with a rippled thatch of autumn leaves. At the other end of the convent is a fine campanile of sturdy mason’s work. It is still proud and commanding, although its base is occupied by a stable and is stuffed with that dusty rubbish, that mouldy hay and those fragments of farm implements that the poor seem never to have the heart to destroy. ”

“ It is approached by a narrow, winding stairway from the outside of the church, and is about forty [260] feet from the ground. It was enriched in the time of Louis XV, but its decorations were much damaged by the Revolutionaries. The pictured coffer containing the relics of the saints is in a chamber closed by ornamented double doors, in which are also the pulleys and cords by which it is lowered to the floor of the church on the great day of the pilgrimage. All round the little chapel are the crutches and other offerings of those who have been cured by attendance at the shrine. ”

“ The plain and severe character of the interior p. 95probably represented, even then, the average Nonconformist taste in regard to chapel architecture. Æsthetically considered, it is no doubt indefensible. The windows are undeniably ugly; the pulpit—designed as a firm remonstrance against locomotion on the part of its occupant—is painfully stiff and square; and the general aspect of the building is somewhat dull and prosaic. But, as a suitable and convenient place for Nonconformist worship, there is very much to be said for this form of building. ”

“ And, having first published injunctions that all churches should conform themselves to the practice of her own chapel, she forbad the host to be any more elevated in her presence: an innovation which, however frivolous it may appear, implied the most material consequences. These declarations of her intentions, concurring with preceding suspicions, made the bishops foresee, with certainty, a revolution in religion. ”