Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/17

13 therefore, plead the necessity of the case. If we would have others do their duty we must do our own. It is no good sign for a man to neglect the least function of his office, and gives us no pledge of diligence in the greatest. I have, therefore, felt myself bound to count nothing within the sphere of official duty to be trivial or unimportant. I confess, too, that I see no propriety in cheap materials and clumsy forms, no laudable simplicity in nakedness and bareness, nor anything congruous with the idea of the Divine presence in faded and scanty furniture, and paltry vessels of a worthless material. The poorest parish Church, and the rudest furniture, if they be the best that can there be had, are raised at once, by the relation in which they stand to Him whom unseen we adore, into an equality with the richest. The most costly, if they are provided to gratify a self-indulgent taste or a fastidious eye, or treated as an integral part of the living and reasonable service of the spirit of man to the Father of Spirits, are depressed in meaning and worth far below the rudest. The worship of the Church never pierced the heaven with greater energy, nor found more acceptance on high, than when it went up from upper-chambers and from catacombs. But we are in no danger of mistaking the outward array for the inner life of the Church, of putting architectural exactness for the sacrifice of a devout spirit, and zeal about points of order for living fellowship with God and earnest toil for the elect's sake Christian art is