world of ours periodically with his encyclicals, and who is known by the name of Pius IX., must, if he knows anything of England, know something of Preston; and if he knows anything of it he will have long since learned that wherever the faith over which he presides may be going down the hill, it is at least in Preston “as well as can be expected,” and likely, for a period longer than be will live, to bloom and flourish.

Our text is—­St. Wilfrid’s Catholic Church, Preston.  This place of worship is situated in a somewhat sanctified place—­Chapel-street; but as about half of that locality is taken up with lawyers’ offices, and the centre of it by a police station, we fancy that this world, rather than the next, will occupy the bulk of its attention.  It is to be hoped that St. Wilfrid’s, which stands on the opposite side, will act as a healthy counterpoise—­will, at any rate, maintain its own against such formidable odds.  The building in Chapel-street, dedicated to the old Angle-Saxon bishop—­St. Wilfrid--who was a combative sort of soul, fond of argumentatively knocking down obstreperous kings and ecclesiastics and breaking up the strongholds of paganism—­was opened seventy-six years ago.  It signifies little how it looked then.  Today it has a large appearance.  There is nothing worth either laughing or crying about so far as its exterior goes.  It doesn’t look like a church; it resembles not a chapel; and it seems too big for a house.  There is no effort at architectural elaboration in its outer arrangements.  It is plain, strong, large; and like big feet or leathern shirts has evidently been made more for use than ornament.  But this style of phraseology only refers to the extrinsic part.  Inside, the church has a vast, ornate, and magnificent appearance.  No place of worship in Preston is so finely decorated, so skilfully painted, so artistically got up.  In the world of business there is nothing like leather; in the arena of religion there seems to be nothing like paint.  Every church in the country makes an effort to get deeply into the region of paint; they will have it upon either windows, walls, or ceilings.  It is true that Dissenters do not dive profoundly into the coloured abyss; but weakness of funds combined with defective aesthetic cultivation may have something to do with their deficiency in this respect.  Those who have had the management and support of St. Wilfrid’s in their hands, have studied the theory of colour to perfection, and whilst we may not theologically agree with some of its uses, one cannot but admire its general effect.  Saints, angels, rings, squares, floriations, spiralizations, and everything which the brain or the brush of the most devoted painter could fairly devise are depicted in this church, and there is such an array of them that one wonders how anybody could ever have had the time or patience to finish the work.