A meeting was held in the Mansion House on Monday,
under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, with the view of raising, as a thank-offering for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, a national fund for the completion and decoration of St. Paul's in the gorgeous style originally contemplated by Sir Christopher Wren, a style essential to the character of the building. It seems that the Committee for the Completion have raised £40,000 with great difficulty, and that the Ecclesiastical Commission will contribute (for the more substantial part of the repairs) £25,000, but -that these sums will not cover anything like what is wanted to make St. Paul's the richly-gilded and splendid building which fir Christopher Wren designed it to be. A handsome sub- scription of over £3,000 was raised in the room, and a generous promise was read from Mr. William Gibbs to give a thousand pounds on condition nine other people do the like towards the completion of the Cathedral ; and if the first ten thousand pounds are raised, then Mr. Gibbs will offer another thousand pounds on the same condition, so that he hopes to make his two thousand pounds a bait for £18,000 more, and it -ought, we think, to be an adequate bait. Mr. Baldwin Brown has in our own columns made a generous appeal to the Noncon- formists to come forward and aid in this national work, without waiting to see the fate of " disestablishment and disendowment." Certainly as a great work of Architecture only, the strictest of Dissenters might contribute to its completion, even if he abjured the imputation of ever worshipping himself beneath that ample dome,—a fair symbol of the Catholic breadth and loftiness with which every State Church should endeavour to include the spiritual wants of all sects, as well as all classes, in its work.
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