17 JANUARY 1846, Page 14

ST. BENNET FINKS.

Tan Church of St. Bennet Finks is as cosy and pretty a little church, inside as can be imagined. It is just the thing for one of the little City parishes—for a congregation (in the days when people lived in the City) who were all next-door neighbours in the same street. The area is an oval, with an organ-gallery in a recess at one end, a corresponding recess for the altar at the other, and a roof rising into concentric ovals resting on a ring of pillars joined by arches. A screen of carved oak behind the pews keeps out the cold air. A dim religious light pervades the build- ing—but that may be owing to uncleaned windows. In this, snuggery successive generations may have worshiped, as we- learn from the date on the painted glass above the altar- since Anno Domini 1695. True Blue Churchmen have wor- shiped here, as beareth witness the slab that covers the mortal remains of Nathaniel Colleston7 avouched by his pithy epitaph, composed in the critical year of 1713, to have been for sixty years " a true Protestant and sincere friend." Here, then, have assembled families who sympathized with the Seven Bishops. With its paintings on either side of the altar, it must have been a fine thing in its day, though dust has now settled thick on its glories. But St. Bennet Finks will soon belong to the things that have been ; the new Exchange is shouldering it out of the way. Its door stands open, but not for those who come to pray. The wainscoting and carved screen are chalked " Lot II" and "Lot II." The very pulpit and reading-desk are to be di- vorced by the auctioneer. The organ is gone. Moses on one side of the altar, and Aaron on the other, are to be put up as separate lots. Nay, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Table of the Law, are all to be sold separately : perhaps a higher price is thus looked for, on the calculation that the last may be wanted to adorn some synagogue, and the other two to furnish forth a Christian chapel. The area is thronged, but with curious in- spectors of the wood-work, to ascertain its soundness. One in- dividual, with much the air of a denominational minister, entered the pulpit as if to see whether it would fit him ; and his affection- ate helpmate followed him. In fact, the buyers and sellers in this temple comported themselves with as little decorum as the ped- dling artists and book-makers who desecrate the tombs and tem- ples of Egypt with their tricks of trade. The tomb of "the true Protestant and sincere friend" was trodden under foot with as little of sentiment as if he had been a King Rameses ; and Moses and Aaron may be parted to figure in other Museums, divorced from every associated object that gave them meaning and inte- rest, just like the young Memnon in the British. So soon have even the "True Protestants" of the Revolution sera died away from human thoughts and sympathies.