Tales of English Minsters: St. Paul's

by Elizabeth W. Grierson

‘That was all very well,’ answered the objectors to the scheme; but how did Dr. Wren propose to take down the walls and level the old foundations?

He suggested gunpowder; and with a little care he could have blown down the walls quite safely, but a stupid master-builder thought that he could do the work himself, without the architect superintending, and he set to work one morning, and used such a big charge of the explosive that a great many of the half-ruined houses in the neighbourhood fell with the force of the explosion, and people got such a fright that they objected to gunpowder being used at all.

The famous architect was not dismayed, however, at this opposition. He believed in the proverb that says, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ So he procured a great beam of wood, forty feet long, and had it covered at both ends with iron. Then he slung this beam up in a wooden erection, something like a triangle, and used it as a battering-ram to break down the walls. At first it appeared as if it would be in vain. The workmen battered at the walls for a whole day, and not a stone fell. But Wren persevered, and the next day he was rewarded, for the great buttresses fell at last with a crash, and he was able to proceed with his work.

And this he did most thoroughly. Someone has said of him that he ‘built for eternity,’ and, as far as any man can do so, the saying is true.

Everyone knows that the security of a building depends greatly upon the kind of foundation it rests upon. No matter how well built it is, no matter how showy the walls may be, if the foundation is not firm and solid, sooner or later it must fall to pieces, unless something is done to repair it.

Christopher Wren knew of this danger, and the first thing that he set his workmen to do was to dig down forty feet into the earth to find out if the ground on which he intended to build was quite solid and secure. Doubtless many people laughed at him, and said that he was too particular, but he did not care, and they stopped laughing when it was discovered that right down at the north-east corner there was a pit, and if the new Cathedral had been built over this, sooner or later the ground would have sunk, and the wall of the building have cracked, and in all probability fallen to pieces. However, Dr. Wren made his workmen dig deeper, till they got to the bottom of this pit; then he filled it up with a pier of solid stone. It took him a whole year to do this, but at the end of that time he was ready to begin the church, knowing that underneath it was a foundation that was absolutely secure.

Then arose the great Cathedral that we see to-day. It took some thirty years to build, and when it was finished, the highest stone in the lantern that rests on the dome was laid in its place by Sir Christopher Wren’s son.

But now we learn something about Sir Christopher that shows that he was a good as well as a clever man. Do you remember what is said in the Bible about people who can rule their own spirits, and are slow to be angry? That they are really greater than the men who conquer cities, and whom the world admires. Tried by this standard, Sir Christopher was a really great man. For he was not only clever enough to build St. Paul’s Cathedral, but he could rule his own spirit, and not vex himself over the way in which his enemies treated him.

The story of Sir Christopher Wren’s life—for he was knighted as a reward for his work—is as interesting as any of the stories connected with St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was the son of a Wiltshire clergyman, and his love of architecture dated from a time when the roof of his father’s church had grown so old that it threatened to fall down. And, as often happens in a country parish, there were not very many rich men living there who could give money to pay for the building of a new one. So the Vicar determined that, instead of paying for an architect, he would draw the plans, and superintend the building of the roof himself.

And we can imagine how little Christopher would hear all about the new church roof, and how he would look over his father’s shoulder and watch him when he was drawing the plans, and how he would spend all his play-time in the church, looking at the joiners putting up the wooden beams, and the other workmen working on the walls, while his father went up and down, superintending everything, and very likely lending a helping hand himself. Perhaps it was in these early days that the boy determined that he, too, would build churches when he was grown up.