beside the erection of monster offices, warehouses, or railway stations; and to make room for some of these, the churches of St. Mary Somerset, in Thames Street, and St. Bene't Gracechurch, at the corner of Fenchurch Street, are now in course of being "improved off the face of the earth." Before they disappear it may not be improper to note some few particulars of interest in relation to the doomed edifices and their predecessors. Each of these churches, it must be remarked, has served for two parishes ever since the Fire of London in 1666. To St. Mary Somerset was joined St. Mary Mounthaw, and to St. Bene't Gracechurch, St. Leonard, Eastcheap. The whole four churches then perished, and two only were rebuilt; now these two have been pronounced two too many.

It had for many years been a subject of remark that the City churches had, generally speaking, very thin congregations; and the late Bishop Blomfield is entitled to the credit, or the blame (for the differences of opinion have been very great), of originating the plan that is now being carried out in the case of two City churches, and which in all probability will be extended to others. In the second year of her present Majesty's reign (1838) an Act was passed (1 and 2 Vict., cap. 106) which, with the view, as stated, to "abridge the holding of pluralities," and to "make better provision for the residence of the clergy," provided means for effecting the union of adjoining benefices where the total population did not exceed 1,500 persons, nor the value of he whole amount to more than £500. In 1850 an amending Act (13 and 14 Vict., cap. 98) was passed, by which the value of the united benefices was allowed to reach £800; but it was not until 1855, which was near the close of Bishop Blomfield's official life, that the project assumed a practical aspect, the Church-building Commissioners being then, by the 18 and 19 Vict., cap. 127, empowered to transfer surplus revenues from suppressed City churches to poor districts in the suburbs; but a very important feature of that statute was that no burial-place could be sold, neither could the site of any church be disposed of, if there had been burials therein.

This restriction, we believe, was inserted in the Act very much against the wish of Bishop Blomfield, and its natural effect was to render the proposed plan impracticable, as the chief advantage that was looked for in a pecuniary point of view could only proceed from the sale that was thus forbidden. Hence, when the present bishop succeeded to the see, he at once perceived that

the Act, thus clogged, would remain little more than a dead letter; he therefore set to work to remove the many obstacles in his way, and the result was at last seen in the passing, in 1860, of the 23 and 24 Vict., cap. 142. By this Act all needful powers were given, but as seven years have elapsed before its provisions were put into force, it cannot be said that the measure has been hastily adopted. As the statute is now in force, and is understood to be about to be applied to other parishes, it may be as well to state its main provisions in brief, untechnical language.

The Act sets aside all limits of population or value contained in former Acts, and allows the sites of both churches and burialgrounds to be disposed of, for any purpose whatever, on the consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London or Winchester (according as to whether they may lie in London or Southwark), and of the Secretary of State for the Home Department being given. The mode of putting the Act in operation is as follows. The bishop (of London or Winchester) is to issue a commission to five persons to inquire whether it will be for the benefit of the diocese in general, and for the relief of spiritual destitution elsewhere, that the parish church of (- -) should be pulled down, the site and materials sold (the altar-piece, communion-plate, organ, and font being reserved, and all monumental tablets preserved), and the proceeds applied to some other purposes, to be indicated by them, the benefice being annexed to the adjoining parish of These commissioners (who are to be unpaid) are to be three beneficed clergymen of the diocese-two named by the bishop, and one by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's or of Westminster-and two laymen,-appointed, in the City, by the corporation, and elsewhere by the parish vestries concerned. On the report of the commissioners, a "scheme" is to be drawn up by the Church-building Commissioners, which must have the approval also of the bishop; and if the vestries take exception to it, their objections must be considered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. If this latter body is satisfied, the "scheme" will become law on being embodied in an Order of Council and published in the London Gazette.

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During the debates in Parliament on this Act, some fears were expressed that the churches that were to be "disused" might be put to purposes that members of the Church of England could not approve of; but this objection is met by a clause which pro

vides that any church that is left standing can only be used as a school or for occasional services. In such cases we may presume that no " deconsecrating services" will be thought neces

sary.

The first of these services took place at the church of St. Mary Somerset, on Friday, Feb. 1, 1867, and the second at St. Bene't Gracechurch, on the following Friday. The proceeding in each case being exactly alike, it will be necessary only to mention the first, which was thus reported in the paper of the following day

"There were many strangers present at the service, and the very small body of parishioners was tolerably well represented. The Litany Service was read by the Rev. Dr. Stebbing, and the Communion Service by the Rev. E. H. Fisher, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Resident Chaplain to the Bishop of London.

"At the close of the Communion Service Mr. Fisher, still standing within the rails of the Communion table, read a letter from the Bishop of London, explaining that the church would not again be used after that day, and that in future St. Nicholas Cole Abbey would be the church of the united parishes, where also the monumental tablets would be preserved.

"The letter was ordered to be entered in the vestry books of the respective parishes.

Mr. Fisher then ascended the pulpit, and selected for his text the 4th chapter of St. John's Gospel, verse 21-'Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.' He adverted to the opening sentences of the service for the consecration of churches, in reference to the object holy men had in view in erecting churches exclusively devoted to the worship of God, and showed that during the last eighteen centuries men, following the example of Solomon and Jacob, had erected to the honour and glory of God catacombs or basilica, stately cathedrals or humble parish churches. In all ages,

indeed, men under some form or another had worshipped the Father, although in forms which had long faded away. Such solemn dedications of God's temples no man of proper feeling would wish lightly to set aside, but still they must necessarily be subject, like all other things, to the mutations of time. The most sacred associations were of infinitely less value than the excellency of spiritual worship, which might be wholly inde

pendent of any place at all, for they had the assurance that where two or three were gathered together in Christ's name, there was He in the midst of them. It must needs be that the severance of all associations which bound the parishioners to their parish church must have cost them a pang; but it must be remembered that this course was taken that the purity of spiritual worship might be secured.

“Mr. Fisher then pronounced the benediction, and the congregation of St. Mary Somerset left their church for the last time."

These matters premised, as necessary to the completeness of our subject, we may now proceed to describe the "deconsecrated" churches.

The church of St. Mary Somerset stands at the foot of Old Fish Street Hill, where that narrow lane joins Thames Street. It was built by Sir Christopher Wren, and was finished in 1695, at the cost of £6,579. The length is 83 feet, the breadth 36 feet, and the tower rises to the height of 120 feet. The interior is a mere oblong room, with conventicle-looking windows, and coarsely painted figures of Moses and Aaron on each side of the altar. The pavement is of black and white marble. A handsome font and the wainscoting of the vestry are the gift of a pious citizen, John Toolye, who was deputy of the ward in 1699. At the southwest angle of the church stands the tower, which is of a peculiar but graceful design. At the top are eight square pedestals, of which four are crowned with urns, and four support pyramidal obelisks. This tower is a somewhat remarkable object from the neighbouring bridges, and it is to be hoped that it will be reproduced in the new church at Hoxton, the erection of which cannot be afforded, it seems, without drawing on the bounty of the unknown founder of St. Mary Somerset in the fourteenth century.

The parish of St. Mary Mounthaw, which, after the great Fire, was united to St. Mary Somerset, is the older of the two. The site of its church is only a few yards off, on the opposite side of Old Fish Street Hill, and, unfortunately, it is not kept in decent order. Peeping through a grating in an ordinary door, we see only a very small plat of waste ground, which is little better than a rubbish heap; yet this and the adjoining mean houses occupy the site of the palace of the Bishops of Hereford, and the church was once their private chapel. Bishop Ralph Maidstone purchased, about the year 1235, their town mansion from the noble family of the Montalts (whence the corrupted name Mounthaw),

and it was occupied by him and his successors when attending Parliament until 1517. Bishop Boothe then sold it, and the great hall was converted into a sugar-house; but consecrated buildings had not then become objects of sale, and the church remained properly cared for until swept away with so many more by the Fire. Bishop Skip, of Hereford, was buried in it in 1552; and Robert Plumber, the churchwarden in 1610, is recorded as having "beautified it with a very fair picture of King James I." Among its incumbents may be mentioned Thomas de London, who was a great pluralist, being not only chaplain to Edward III., but a canon of Lincoln, of York, and of St. Martin's-le-Grand; John Oliver, Dean of Cardinal College (the precursor of Christ Church, Oxford), a fierce opponent of Bishop Gardiner; John Fox (not the Martyrologist), who, in the time of Edward VI., was deprived for refusing to give up certain relics; and Thomas Thrale, who was sequestered by the Long Parliament. James Harwood, B.D., another incumbent, who was driven out for using the Common Prayer, served with the royal army throughout the Rebellion, and at the Restoration was made a prebendary of Lincoln. Somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of the bishop's palace was the sumptuous house of Robert Belknap, a chief justice of the time of Richard II. When condemned on a charge of treason, his mansion was granted to the famous William of Wykeham.

The church of St. Mary Somerset was founded in the year 1335. John, Bishop of Dromore, in Ireland, was one of its rectors; he died in 1433. Another was Henry Reynolds, who was deprived by Queen Mary; and another was John Cooke, who was ejected by the Long Parliament. Both of them lived to be restored to their benefices. In the old church were several remarkable tombs, as of the Bishop of Dromore; John, son and heir of Lord Dacre, who died in 1489; Bernard Brocas, servant of the Earl of Surrey, and others of the sixteenth century. The only memorials of any interest in the modern church are a slab within the chancel rail, with a brief Latin inscription to Gilbert Ironside, Bishop first of Bristol and then of Hereford, who died in 1701.

The church of St. Bene't Gracechurch was erected at a very early, though uncertain date. It was not entirely destroyed in the great Fire, and several of its monuments were preserved little damaged in the ungraceful and little ornamented edifice now in course of demolition, which Sir Christopher Wren built in the year 1685, at the cost of £3,583. Ere the destruction