Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.
Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:--
2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the construction of the new.
3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new one be built.
How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history recordeth not.
Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building. Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings, pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own hands she painted the whole of the interior--pulpit, pews, doors, etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration, scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed, and he preached from a bright green pulpit.
[Illustration: Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick]