No sooner were we standing inside the blackened walls than he began to wax eloquent over the beauties of the architecture that had been disclosed by the work of the flames.
“Originally,” he said, “the church was a plain oblong, with a Norman apse probably, in the east, and that peculiar octagonal turret surmounting the west gable. There was no glass in these parts then; and as the wind from the north is generally very cold, the windows were all on the south side.
“When the need arose for a larger sanctuary and choir, yonder early English arch and chancel took the place of the Norman apse.
“Then in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the feudal superior of that time erected the lady chapel as a chantry, in which masses for the repose of his soul were to be said.
“The turret at the angle between the nave and lady chapel has in it a corkscrew stair, leading to the parvise, or priest’s room, over the groined roof of the chapel. About a hundred and fifty years ago the church was in need of repairs, and it was then that Puritan vandals shut off the sanctuary with a lath and plaster wall, and transformed the nave into the hideous, gloomy barn it was before the fire.
“Can you blame me, Gray, if in my heart I longed for a fire, or some such disaster, to tear down the awful disfigurations?
“It is a positive joy to me to look on these bare walls.”
“I thoroughly sympathize with you, doctor; and to me the bare walls are an object lesson of great value. Fire is a great cleanser. The conflagration which broke out here on Sunday cleared away all that belonged to the debased period, the age of Philistinism, but did no real harm to the solid and beautiful masonry of the ages of faith. Now that the vile rubbish has been removed one can see the framework of a church that was built for the service of God, and for the cultivation of the devotional spirit. That east window with its delicate stone tracery, through which the rising sun casts its glorious rays upon priest and people, reminding them of the greater sun—the sun of righteousness who arose in the east bringing healing to the nations—the altar and aumbry and piscina telling of reverence and order in the celebration of the Eucharist—in fact there is everything now to indicate a church of a truly primitive type.”
“Aye, Gray, and so is it ever in regard to the spiritual life. When we look around in the Christian Church to-day we see truth disfigured and mutilated and obscured by opinions that are entirely of human devising. When the days of trial come, as come they must—the Church of God will have to hold her own against the powers of evil; then all that is primitive and apostolic will stand scatheless amid the fierce fires of tribulation, and will come forth—like the three children from the burning fiery furnace—with no trace of the fire upon it, while all that is purely of human creation will crumble to ashes.”
“Wouldn’t it be grand, doctor, if this old church of St. Ternan could be restored as it was in pre-Reformation days, without any of the foreign accretions that roused the indignation of the truly spiritually-minded?”