Pugin’s tempestuous nature was, it may be conceived, fretted and goaded by the unavoidable checks and restraints necessarily laid upon him. But as it stands he has succeeded in leaving a fine work behind, which one day a wealthy congregation will take in hand and, perhaps, adapt to the original design.[26] [Illustration: OUR LADY’S ALTAR IN THE ORATORY.] We pass to the last built of the important Catholic edifices, and which, perhaps, after St. Paul’s, is the most imposing and ambitious ecclesiastical building in London, namely the Oratory. For spaciousness, splendour of adornment, fine music, and the style of the services this is an extraordinary institution, considered as the work of an unestablished and unendowed communion. Some forty years ago the Oratorians were to be found at a public room in King William Street, Strand. During the second Great Exhibition, of 1862, they moved to South Kensington, where they erected a new church next door to the Museum. Here was also built a large monastery, a hall for Societies, etc., the final development of which was the present imposing fane. Some years ago a competition was declared, and the design of Mr. H. Gribble selected. Whatever objections may be taken to particular details and treatment, there can be no question as to the successful result, and the crowds who visit it, much as sightseers do foreign cathedrals, are impressed and astonished at its proportions and magnificence. At almost every hour of week days some of the curious are found there; while on Sundays, after the services, a long stream of visitors promenade round and round, surveying the chapels and altars. The cost of this building is said to have been close upon £80,000, and though completed inside, its façade and outer dome has still to be supplied. This will entail a further cost of over £20,000. Its construction was followed with much interest by architects, owing to the fact that concrete, cast _in situ_, was used for the dome and arches of the nave and transept, a practice adopted by some of the old Italian architects.