"I should say that that in the chancel was built about A.D. 1350, and this in the nave about A.D. 1500. These flatter roofs of our perpendicular period do not any of them date much farther back than A.D. 1500[186]." "I quite agree with you in preferring the older high-pitch for our timber roofs. By-the-bye, it is a curious conception that this particular kind of roof has a likeness to the inverted keel of the ark[187]--itself an emblem of the Christian Church. But I prefer to regard it, as I do the windows, and doors, and arches of _pointed_ architecture, as an emblem of the _incompleteness_ of our worship here. As I look up through the intricate multitude of timbers, and my gaze becomes lost amid the dark top beams of the roof, my thoughts are insensibly led higher still[188]. There is something in these lofty open roofs that always seems to invite one's thoughts _above them_--so different from the flat ceilings of most dissenting meeting-houses, and some of our churches built a hundred years ago. To me these flat ceilings are very depressing." "Yes; and not a little irritating too, when you consider what splendid timber roofs in old churches, they often conceal. Ugly, however, and objectionable as they are, they have the one merit of being _unpretending_; and give me any thing rather than a _sham_--a lath-and-plaster roof with papier-maché or stucco bosses, and all sorts of painting and shading in perspective, in imitation of wood or stone, making the poor roof guilty of a perpetual _lie_. I do own that tries my temper immensely!" "There can be no doubt, too, that the high-pitch better suits our variable climate than any other. I fear, however, that many of those which were built but a few years since are not very enduring. Young, or badly-seasoned wood, thin, poor timbers, which cannot last long, have too often been put into the roof. Sometimes this has been the dishonest act of the builder; but we have been too much in the habit of building for _ourselves only_--not like our forefathers, who put up those big masses of timber over our heads. They built for themselves and for _posterity too_. "'They dreamt not of a perishable home, Who thus could build[189].'" "Ah, yes! and that is, of course, especially true of those who erected the noble _stone_ roofs of our cathedrals, and many parish churches too. Nothing, of course, can equal the stone roof with its beautiful carvings and mouldings, richly gilt and coloured. Nothing like stone for colour! How very beautiful is the deep blue, with its golden stars, over the altar in our own cathedral! They look well in our own church, but the colours are richer there, not so much faded. That representation of Heaven's canopy mantling over the most holy part of our church always seems to me so very appropriate and suggestive."