THE APPEAL OF THE ABBEY.
IT must have come as a shock to Englishmen, on opening their newspapers on Tuesday, to find a deeply-moving appeal from the Dean of Westminster on behalf of the Abbey. To be told that that noble and venerable church is " in danger of entering upon a phase of steady structural deterioration," and that the Chapter, destitute of resources and heavily in debt, is faced with " a desperate state of things," has been an unwelcome surprise for most of us. A moment's reflection has shown that not even Westminster Abbey could remain unaffected by the depre- dation of money and the rise of prices, and that its revenues, if barely adequate before the war, must now be wholly insufficient to maintain the services and to preserve the fabric against the incessant assaults of Time, the weather and the London smoke. Bishop Ryle, therefore, has done well to remind us of these unpleasant facts and to ask the English-speaking peoples for instant and substantial help. We have no doubt whatever as to the success of his appeal. The London papers, and particularly the Times with an eloquent leading article and an illustrated supplement which will be treasured for its remarkable photographs, have faithfully expressed the Englishman's deep-rooted affection for the Abbey as his chief national shrine. Even in these hard times, when it is impossible to expect the Treasury to do anything for the Abbey, English people of all parties and creeds will assuredly contribute as much as they can to such a worthy object. We are sure, too, that the Dean's request will evoke a willing response from over- seas wherever men of English race and English speech are to be found. Anyone who entered the Abbey during the war must have been impressed at the sight of the soldiers from the Dominions and the Crown Colonies and from America who were always to be found carefully inspecting the great church whose name, to them as to us, was a household word. The Canadian flags deposited on Wolfe's monument were a symbol of unity that none could observe without emotion. It revealed the true signifi- cance of Westminster Abbey as the church of the English- speaking world.
Some of our readers may perhaps be inclined to resent the Dean's world-wide appeal as a hint that England is not rich enough to maintain her most cherished historical monument. It may be true enough that, if English Churchmen had always done their duty by their Church, the Abbey authorities would not be in their present plight. But the point is that the Abbey is not our exclusive possession. We hold it, as it were, in trust for the men of our race who at different times have left the mother- country in order to found new colonies and nations in different parts of the world. When Captain John Smith and his companions set out to colonise Virginia in 1606 Westminster Abbey was many centuries old. They would have repudiated with scorn the suggestion that by going to live on the other side of the Atlantic they had forfeited their English patrimony, of which the Abbey formed an essential part. The Pilgrim Fathers had no liking for the government and ritual of the Church, but they were above all sturdy patriots. It is too often forgotten that they went to New England not merely to escape from Bishops but also to preserve their English characteristics. They might have lived their lives peaceably enough in Leyden, but they did not want their children to become Dutchmen, losing all sense of their race. To them, too, in remote New England, the Abbey was the hallowed spot where all their kings had been crowned and where many of England's greatest had been laid to rest. Thus it is not a question of asking, Americans to contribute to the pre- servation of an English church. We have simply to acknowledge their right to help a church which has the same historic meaning for them as for us. In the long annals of Westminster Abbey the century and a-half that have passed since the Americans parted company with us are but as a day. The Abbey as it stands has been virtually unaltered since 1776, and most of the monu- ments were in the church which Franklin and Washington, as British citizens, must have known well. The unfortu- nate political differences that arose between us and our colonies did not and could not dispossess the Americans of their hereditary interest in the Abbey or in any other historic monuments of England. We have never been able to look upon Americans as " foreigners." Popular usage, more potent than law, is decisive on this point, as every Englishman knows. The Abbey's misfortunes have at least the good effect of emphasizing this immensely important fact. As for the Dominions, so young and yet so splendidly vigorous and powerful, their claim upon the Abbey is precisely the same as our own, and they will not fail to assert it. The coming Pan-Anglican Conference will be a profoundly impressive demonstration of the world- wide influence of the English Church. But it must be remembered that the appeal of Westminster Abbey is wider still, because it is based on the historic sentiment of a race and is not limited to any one Christian creed. To praise the Abbey is perhaps superfluous. Yet it is not unfitting to remark that the English-speaking peoples may be justly proud of their church, which is the highest achievement of English art, and may bear comparison with man's greatest creations in any other country. The Abbey represents, too, the best work of English artists in many successive generations from early Norman times to the age of Wren, if not to our own day. Those who prefer English mediaeval architecture in its purest and most severe phase may seek in vain for anything to surpass the choir and the chapter-house of Westminster? while those who delight in the richly ornamented style of a later time will find nothing to equal, for sheer beauty of proportion and mastery of a difficult technique, the chapel of Henry the Seventh with the carved roof that is one of the wonders of the world. Few of us, however often we go into the Abbey, would profess to know it. Like Rome, the Abbey has always some surprises in reserve for its intimates. The great building that has evolved through a thousand years is in itself a history of English architecture at its best, and presents an infinity of problems to be solved. To artiste and to all who care for art it is of incomparable and abiding interest. And with the claims of art it blends the claims of history and of religion. The least imaginative, the most callously modern visitor must be affected as he passes through a church where Christian worship has been cele- brated daily for many centuries, and where in quiet chapels rest the famous dead from Saxon times to our own. West- minster Abbey amid the rush of London traffic stands apart, charged with the most sacred memories of the English-speaking peoples. What we have now to do, with right good will, is to preserve it for our posterity. While we sympathize most heartily with the appeal, we must add a word of warning. The Dean and Chapter should never forget that their duty is to preserve the Abbey and not to reconstruct it. When, as we hope, they find themselves possessed of ample funds, they will be sorely tempted to do more than is necessary, on the plea, current among builders, that they " ought to make a good job of it while they are about it." If that advice is taken, the Abbey will assuredly be ruined. Anyone who saw the great French cathedrals a generation or more ago, before the zealous and accomplished but entirely heartless architects of the Ministry of Fine Arts had got to work upon their " restoration," knows how much of their charm has dis- appeared in the process and why they look " faultily faultless, icily null." They may have been untidy and to some extent insecure, but they have been subjected to a wholly unnecessary amount of reconstruction. It would be a grave disaster if similar methods were adopted in Westminster Abbey, thanks to the generosity of the Eng- lish-speaking peoples. The motto of the Dean and Chapter should be Safety First." They must make good any part of the structure that is likely to fall. But they must certainly not seek to make every stone as neat and trim as if it had just come out of the mason's yard. The time- worn surface of the Abbey, like the patina on an old bronze, is part of its beauty. We do not think that Bishop Ryle and his colleagues are iconoclasts in any sense, but, in view of the pressure that is likely to be brought to bear upon them from people with less reverence for the past, we may be forgiven for reminding them of the true princi- ples that should guide them in the expenditure of the Abbey Fund. Gifts to the Abbey Fund should be sent to :—The Right Rev. the Dean of Westminster, D.D., The Deanery, Westminster Abbey, London, S.W. 1, and all envelopes should be marked Westminster Abbey Fund." Cheques should be drawn to " The Dean of Westminster or Bearer," and crossed " Bank of England."
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