These screens serve also for a most edifying purpose; while the principal one across the chancel or choir sustains the great rood, with its attendant imagery and ornaments, the lateral enclosures are surmounted by ranges of metal standards for lights, to burn on great feasts, while the mouldings and bratishings are enriched with texts and sacred devices.
The rest of this work may be considered only as a justification and proof of what I have advanced in this brief essay, viz.—1st. That open screens and enclosures of choirs and chancels have existed from the earliest known period of Christian churches down to the present century, that they form an essential part of Catholic tradition and reverence, and that no church intended for Catholic worship can be complete without them. 2nd. That their introduction belongs to no particular period or style, and that their partial disuse was not consequent on the decline of pointed architecture, but to the decay of reverence for the sacred mysteries themselves, as I have found screens of all styles and dates. 3rd. That closed screens are only now suited to conventual and collegiate churches in this country, the cathedrals being required for the worship of the people, from whom the view of the altar has never been purposely concealed. 4th. 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.
[1] The church of St. Eustache, Paris, is a striking example of a pointed church, both in plan, disposition, and proportion, carried out in Italian detail; but even much later, the churches of St. Roch and St. Sulpice, in the same city, were constructed on Catholic traditions, although all trace of the ancient detail has disappeared; they are cruciform, choral, and absidal, with aisles and chapels, a clerestory, and vaulting supported by flying buttresses, and the latter has even two great western towers for bells. Notwithstanding their debased detail, these edifices have still the character of churches, and are adapted by their arrangement for the celebration of Catholic rites.
[2] I trust to be able before long to put forth an impartial statement relative to the destruction of Catholic edifices and ornaments consequent on the change of religion in England. After the most patient investigation, I have been compelled to adopt the conclusion, that the most fearful acts of destruction and spoliation were committed by men who had not only been educated in the ancient faith, but who were contented externally to profess its doctrines. I had originally fallen into popular errors on these matters in some of my early publications, and it is but an act of justice to affix the odium of the sacrilege on those who were really guilty. I feel quite satisfied that one of the most urgent wants of the time is a real statement of the occurrences connected with the establishment of Protestantism and the loss of the ancient faith; of course, I have to treat the subject in an architectural view, but still I trust to bring forward many facts that may lead to a better understanding and more charity on both sides, for we may all exclaim, "Patres nostri pecaverunt et non sunt, et nos iniquitates eorum portavimus."
[3] I have been credibly informed, that an amphitheatre was deliberately proposed, a few years since, as the best form of a Catholic church for London.
[4] These enclosures were also to prevent the distraction which large bodies of people moving about the church might occasion to the ecclesiastics.
OF THE ENCLOSURE OF CHOIRS,
FROM THE EARLY AGES OF THE CHURCH DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME.
It is most certain (writes the learned Thiers) that in the three first centuries there were churches, that is to say, places set apart for the faithful to meet in prayer and assist at the holy sacrifice; but we have no record respecting the internal arrangements of those places, which often were mere rooms in private houses, hence it is impossible to say whether any separation existed in them between the people and the clergy.