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but Wren improved upon it a great deal in the course of its 
being carried out and it developed finally into the present 
majestic building. 
The foundation stone was laid in the year 1675. Another 
ten years saw the choir erected and the beautiful edifice 
was ready for divine service in the year 1697. Later the 
north-west Chapel, St. Dunstan’s Chapel, was opened for 
service, and at the commencement of the reign of Oueen Anne, 
who often attended the Cathedral in state, the nave was 
ready. Wren continued to work at the great dome until 
1710. He was then an old man of 78. He had the pleasure 
of seeing the topmost stone laid in that year and the work 
was then at an end, having been accomplished under one 
architect and under one Archbishop. 
Wren was not treated at all well in the way of being paid 
for his great work. He only received £200 a year, afterwards 
cut down to £100, as it was thought he was unduly prolonging 
the task for his own benefit. He stood this treatment uncom- 
plainingly, being a man of wonderful piety, a great Christian, 
and possessed of a most serene and lovable disposition. He 
worked hard for the glory of God and for the benefit of pos- 
terity, and the present St. Paul’s Cathedral remains to-day 
as his monument. The building cost altogether about 
£875,000, which was raised by means of subscriptions, and 
by a coal tax on all sea-borne coal brought into the City of 
London. It speaks well for the English people that so large 
a sum could be raised at the time, seeing that during the 
previous 50 years the City had, amongst its many vicissitudes, 
passed through a plague, a great fire, a revolution, Jacobite 
plots innumerable, a change of dynasty, and various wars. 
Of course the building was not ornamented in any sense. 
Its decoration is only just beginning. On an inspection of 
the inside of this grand edifice we find that we have a great 
Church and a Roman temple together in one. The building 
is 513 feet in length and the dome is 365 feet in height. When 
we consider that the scheme of St. Peter’s at Rome was 
carried on under 19 Popes and engaged twelve architects, 
we appreciate the wonderful fact that Christopher Wren 
should be the sole architect of this mighty conception, and 
that too in the face of all manner of difficulties. Wren had 
a strong dislike to the Gothic in architecture, and the absence 
of buttresses is a noticeable feature of the Cathedral. The 
great dome, which stands out so prominently in the bird’s-eye 
view of the metropolis, although open to adverse criticism 
regarding its construction, is a majestic piece of work. Inside 
It is octagonal in shape. The railings round the Cathedral 
