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and even desirable, yet that no work of an individual artist ought 
ever to be touched at all. 
And, again, a third opinion exists, which I will explain more 
fully before I conclude. But first let me lead you to the results 
which must ensue if either the plan of Mr. Stevenson or that of 
Mr. Street be adopted without considerable modification. If Mr. 
Stevenson wins the day, notwithstanding that I entirely go with 
him in his effort to exorcise the demon of restoration, and agree 
that the picture he has so ably drawn of the ravages committed by 
his opponents is not over-coloured in any material particular ; yet 
to hold that ourselves and our posterity must for all time submit to 
contemplate the barbarism which ignorant hands have perpetrated 
in our old churches in times past without emotion, and either to 
sit in high pews while our church services are performed in three- 
deckers, or retire for all time, is a proposition to which I, for one, 
cannot assent; and on the last point, for this additional reason, 
because the architect who, to the best of my belief, both Mr. 
Stevenson, and I myself, recognise to be the greatest England 
ever produced (I allude to Sir Christopher Wren), was as strongly 
opposed to the erection of pews as any church architect of the 
present day. His opinion is contained in a short but interesting 
paragraph from his suggestions to the Commissioners for Building 
New Churches, under the Act of Parliament of 1708, and written 
when he was seventy-six years of age. ‘A church should not be 
so filled with pews but that the poor may have room enough to 
stand and sit in the alleys, for to them equally is the gospel 
preached. It were to be wished there were to be no pews, but 
benches ; but there is no stemming the tide of profit and the 
advantage of pew-keepers, especially since by pews in the chapel 
of ease the minister is chiefly supported.” Thus it is clear that if 
Sir Christopher had been a free agent, he would have rejected 
pews, and it is morally certain that he abhorred three-deckers, 
because I do not think there is any one church of his (at least that 
I have seen) where this inconvenient deformity was part of the 
original design. 
Far preferable to this well-intentioned but narrow view is the 
