beautiful eighteenth-century church of Holy Trinity, Leeds, which stands in
the heart of that city and is, as it were, the St. Martin's-in-the-Fields of those crowded industrial streets. The church is in good repair and has an adequate endowment and makes no call on diocesan funds. Bishops are becoming the slaves of finance. They do not realise that a beautiful church is a more lasting witness to the Faith than they are. I was shocked when standing in the sunlit ruins of St. Agnes, Kennington, London, that masterpiece by George Gilbert Scott, Junior, and the finest Gothic Revival building in the south of London, to hear the Bishop of Kingston and his assistants express their desire not to see the church rebuilt. Even the churchwardens (there is no incumbent at present) backed them up with the argument that if the church were rebuilt the expense of heating it would be beyond their means. Wag this the attitude which built our cathedrals and churches of the past ? St. Agnes could easily be repaired. The fittings have been taken out and preserved. Money from the War Damage Commission is flagthcoming. The importance of the building architecturally will no doubt bring additional money from other sources. Yet one has only to mention aesthetics to a Bishop to be regarded as a trivial person, fiddling while Rome burns. It is curious too how bishops and clergy are most of them totally ignorant of aesthetic matters, which they regard as of less than secondary importance. Yet they do not hesitate to pronounce on these matters with an arrogance which no layman would dare to use when discussing theology with his diocesan.
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