Stones of the Temple Part 23

82: At H.... church, Kent, for instance.

83: Chertsey, Surrey.

84: One of the churches in Edinburgh, for instance.

85: 2 Chron. vi. 13.

86: Nehem. viii. 4.

87: As at Magdalene College, Oxford. "Formerly, when the annual sermon was preached on the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist, from the stone pulpit before the chapel of Magdalene College, Oxford, the whole area before it was covered with rushes and gra.s.s, to represent, it is said, the wilderness: and doubtless also for the accommodation of the hearers; the seats being set for the University authorities."--_History of Pues._

88: Such an one formerly existed near the cathedral of Exeter.

89: Parker's "Glossary of Architecture," part i. p. 171. At the west end of Boxley Church, Kent, is a Galilee. There are very few--if any--other churches in which the ancient _Galilee_ is to be found.

90: Many of the wooden pulpits have dates upon them. The earliest of these is A.D. 1590, on a pulpit at Ruthin, Denbighs.h.i.+re.

91: "The Churchwardens, at the common charge of the Paris.h.i.+oners in every parish, shall provide a comely and honest pulpit, to be set in a convenient place within the Churche, and to be there seemly kept, for the preaching of G.o.d's worde."--_Injunctions given by the Queen's Majestie_, 1559.

92: It seems most probable that the last of these was the real object.

In some old discourses the following phrase is met with:--"Let us now take another _gla.s.s_," meaning another period of time to be measured by the hour-gla.s.s: and the preacher reversed the gla.s.s at this point.

Ancient hour-gla.s.ses remain in the church of St. Alban's, Wood Street, City; and at Cowden, Kent. The iron frames of hour-gla.s.ses still remain in the churches of Stoke Dabernoun, Surrey; Odell, Bedfords.h.i.+re; St.

John's, Bristol; Cliff, Kent; and Erdingthorpe, Norfolk, and doubtless others are to be found elsewhere. The Queen has lately presented an hour-gla.s.s of the measure of eighteen minutes for the pulpit of the chapel royal in the Savoy, to replace the old one, which was destroyed in the recent fire.

93: Some few of these sounding-boards are, however, very handsome. At Newcastle there is, or lately was, a sounding-board which was a representation of the spire of the church.

94: _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. 1. p. 364. Preaching-Crosses are also at Hereford, near the Friary of the Dominican (or Preaching) Friars; and in the churchyards of Iron Acton, Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and Rampisham, Dorsets.h.i.+re.

95: See a curious letter on this subject in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. 1. p. 527.

96: See Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy," p. 310.

97: S. Luke vi. 26.

98: The Vicar of the church here referred to has lately deceased, and his successor has commenced the much needed improvements. The Vicar's good daughter, who was quite a _sister of mercy_ in the parish, is not likely to be forgotten, though the old pew has gone. A beautiful window of stained gla.s.s has been erected to her memory by the paris.h.i.+oners.

99: This phase of the pew system is not over coloured. A few years since, a pew in the nave of Old Swinford Church was so nailed up; but other instances of this might be mentioned.

100: James ii. 1-4.

101: James ii. 5, 6.

102: Sermon by the Rev. E. Stuart, preached at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Munster Square, London.

103: 2 Cor. viii. 9.

104: Much information on this subject can be obtained from "The History of Pues: a Paper read before the Cambridge Camden Society, November 22, 1841."

105: Stone seats were often placed round the bases of the columns of the nave; examples are at St. Margaret-at-Cliffe, and Challock, in Kent.

106: _British Critic_; see _History of Pues_.

107: "'1612, 27 May.--Ye Ch. Wardens meeting together for seekeing for workmen to mak a fitt seete in a convennent place for brydgrumes, bryds, and sike wyves to sit in ijs.

--_Extract from Parochial Books of Chester-le-Street, Durham_.

"It is plain that at this period the privilege of a separate pew was confined to persons of the first rank; the rest sat promiscuously on forms in the body of the church, and the privilege is here extended only to sick wives and brides, who sat to hear the preacher deliver 'The Bride's Bush,' or 'The Wedding Garment beautified.'"--Surtees' _Hist. of Durham_.

108: Blomfield's _Norfolk_, vi. 317.

109: "Several congregations find themselves already very much straitened; and if the mode increases, I wish it may not drive many ordinary women into meetings and conventicles. Should our s.e.x at the same time take it into their heads to wear trunk breeches, a man and his wife would fill a whole pew."--_Satire on Female Costume. Spectator_, No. 127.

"At church in silks and satins new, And hoop of monstrous size; She never slumber'd in her pew But when she shut her eyes."--_Goldsmith._

110: "He found him mounted in his pew, With books and money placed for shew."

_The Lawyer's Pew_, Butler's _Hudibras_.

"A bedstead of the antique mode, Compact of timber many a load, Such as our ancestors did use, Was metamorphosed into pews; Which still their ancient nature keep By lodging folks disposed to sleep."

Swift's _Baucis and Philemon_.

111: _European Magazine_, 1813.

112: _History of Pues_, p. 77.

113: "1617. Barnham _contra_ Hayward Puellam.--Presentatur--for that she being but a young maid sat in ye pew with her mother, to ye great offence of many reverent women: howbeit that after I Peter Lewis the Vicar had in the church privately admonished her to sit at her mother's pew-door, she obeyed; but now she sits with her mother again."--_G.o.d's Acre_, by Mrs. Stone.

114: Whittaker's _Whalley_, p. 228.

115: "We have also heard that the paris.h.i.+oners of divers places do oftentimes wrangle about their seats in church, two or more claiming the same seat, whence arises great scandal to the Church, and the divine officers are sore set and hindered; wherefore we decree that none shall henceforth call any seat in the church his own, save n.o.blemen and patrons: but he who shall first enter shall take his place where he will."--Quivil, Bishop of Exeter, A.D. 1287.

116: In the vestry of the church of East Moulsey is suspended a map of considerable size, showing the land that has been left to the parish for the sustentation of the church. The land ought to produce 120_l._ but some years since the paris.h.i.+oners engaged in a law-suit respecting a pew in the church, and lost the suit, and the income from the charity land was year by year absorbed in the payment of the debt then incurred. One evidence brought forward to prove the faculty was the following inscription, which is still (or was till lately) _over the altar_, painted at the foot of a _daub_, having the Ten Commandments surrounded by drapery, &c.:--

"In lieu of the Commandments formerly written on the wall (when by consent of the parish he made his pew) these tables were placed here by--Mr. Benson, MDCCXII."

117: _Gentleman's Magazine_, A.D. 1780, p. 364.

118: We are so used to speak of the _seats_ in church, that we commonly forget the more proper appellation of _kneeling_. This, however, was not always so. An old metal plate formerly on a pew in a church in the diocese of Oxford, has this inscription:--

"No 83. Vicar and Churchwardens, two kneelings. Trustees of Poor House three kneelings."

119: See _History of Pues_, p. 37.

120: "Item. Paid to good wyfe Wells for salt to destroy the fleas _d._ in the _Churchwardens' Pew_ vi.