The ancient Church of S. Christopher le Stocks in Threadneedle Street suffered severely in the Fire, only the mere shell of the building remaining; it had been made a storehouse for a quantity of papers hastily rescued from some merchant's office and placed in S. Christopher's, where they perished and greatly damaged the church. It had been lately repaired and was endowed with 20_l._ in trust 'for a minister to read divine service there daily at 6 o'clock in the morning for ever. 50_s._ each yearly to the clerk and the sexton for their attendance, and 5_l._ yearly to provide for lights in winter time.' In 1671, Wren finished the repairs of the church, carefully preserving its pinnacled Gothic tower; in 1696 he further adorned the interior. It is curious that the first church which came under Wren's hands should have been one dedicated to his patron saint; curious also that this should have been the first of the churches destroyed by those who should have been their guardians. S. Christopher's was literally sacrificed to Mammon; it was destroyed for the enlargement of the Bank of England in 1781. [_JOINS THE ARTILLERY COMPANY._] In 1669 Wren appears in a new character as a member of the Honourable Artillery Company. He was admitted at their festival on August 17, when the company marched in state to a church in Broad Street, probably one of the many temporary ones put up after the Fire, and rewarded Dr. Waterhouse for his sermon with three of the newly-coined guinea pieces. A great banquet in the Clothworkers' Hall in Mincing Lane, where the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many other distinguished persons were present, concluded the festival.[130] It is hardly conceivable that Wren could have found time to be more than an honorary member, but scattered notices here and there of observations made when 'firing off my piece' seem to point to his having attended the drills of the company. One wishes there was a portrait extant of Sir Christopher in his uniform, wearing the red-plumed high hat which appeared on gala days! In 1673 Wren resigned the Savilian astronomy professorship, to which the pressure of his architectural work made it impossible he should any longer attend. No doubt it was with great regret that he gave up the post, with all its curious speculations, its boundless possibilities of discovery, and turned himself from the study of the heavens to the dust and turmoil, the endless difficulties and petty quarrels, which thwarted him at every step of his London labours. In truth, the pressure of business was enormous. Not a moment could be spared while the population of the City had neither churches, places of traffic, nor houses to dwell in; and the architect, whose plan had been marred, had to do the best he could in the midst of every kind of incongruity.