been sent there in 1567 "to destroy all superstitious articles," and of his mission thus the Colonel reported: "We came to Swineshead, here we found two altars, one was broken in taking down, one we took entire and laid in on the pavement." After reading this the vicar made search for the latter and found it in the flooring as described. So what one generation removes another restores; one blackens, the other whitens; one has a predilection for ceremony, another for simplicity: it is the everlasting swing of the pendulum first to one side then to the other, there is even a fashion in religion as in all things else, though we may not call or know it by that name. The Puritan claimed that he destroyed beautiful things not because he hated them, but of painful necessity because in churches he found that they were associated with shameful imposture and debasing superstition. To-day the modern Puritan does not appear to object to ornate fanes of worship, he even expresses his admiration of decorative art, it is the ritual and vestments he despises; for thus a famous American puritan writes of Ely Cathedral: "The beauty of Ely is originality combined with magnificence. The cathedral is not only glorious; it is also strange. . . . Its elements of splendour unite to dazzle the vision and overwhelm the soul. . . . When you are permitted to sit there, in the stillness, with no sound of a human voice and no purl of ecclesiastical prattle to call you back to earth, you must indeed be hard to impress if your thoughts are not centred upon heaven. It is the little preacher in his ridiculous vestments, it
