It is surprising how much damage may be done to valuable old woodwork by an enthusiastic band of decorators, assisted by an indiscriminating curate, and how inharmonious may be the general effect of individual labours—­though charming taken separately—­where a comprehensive scheme is neglected.  I have counted fourteen differing reds—­not tones or shades of the same colour—­including the hood of the officiating clergyman, in one chancel at the same time, bewildering to the eye and distracting to the mind.  And I once saw a beautiful and priceless old Elizabethan table in a vestry, covered with a mouldy piece of purple velvet secured with tin-tacks driven into the tortured oak.  There are, or were, two lovely old Chippendale chairs with the characteristic backs and legs inside the altar-rails of Badsey Church; they are valuable and no doubt duly appreciated, not only for their own sake, but because they were the gift of dear old Barnard, the clerk, who spent fifty years of his life in the service of the church.

I once heard a curate preaching to an agricultural congregation at a harvest thanksgiving after a disastrous season, when the earth had not yielded much by way of increase, remarking that in such a time of scarcity we might be thankful that plenty of foreign corn would be available; good theology, perhaps, but scarcely expedient under the circumstances.

We found Sir Thomas Graham Jackson a purist in the matter of church restoration, and in my capacity as churchwarden and treasurer, I was fortunate in having to confer with a man of such pre-eminent good taste.  He would not allow some new oak panels, with which we had to supplement the old linen-pattern panels of the pulpit, to be coloured to match the old work.  “Time,” he said, “will bring them all together.”  Possibly the lapse of two hundred years may do so, but I saw at once that he was right in the principle that no sham should be tolerated in honest work, more especially in a sacred building.  We objected also to a new chimney which surmounted the junction of the nave and choir exteriorly:  it seemed to smack of domestic detail; but here again he satisfied us by saying that, as heating the building was a modern necessity, there was no reason to be ashamed of such an indispensable addition.  As a matter of fact, this chimney long ago became nicely toned down by its native soot, and is practically unnoticeable.

There is much American oak, I believe, now used in new churches and public buildings; it appears to resemble chestnut much more than English oak, and I doubt whether it will ever acquire the beautiful tone which time confers upon the latter.  It should, however, be recognized that much of the depth of colour of old oak panelling is really nothing but dirt, though the true dark brown tint of old age can be found underneath, and right to the centre of each piece.  Spring-cleaning of the past consisted very much in polishing with beeswax and turpentine, without removing the dirt produced by smoky fires and constant handling, so that extraneous matter became coated with the polish and preserved beneath it.  I have had occasion, when restoring old woodwork, to wash off this outside accretion, and when removed, the tone of the wood remained still dark, though lighter than before it lost its black and somewhat sticky appearance.