"I almost think," said Mr. Acres, as they left the church, "the outside of our church walls are as interesting as their interior. The north wall is evidently the earliest part of the church. It contains some Roman bricks, placed herring-bone fashion, among the old Norman rubble. This, doubtless, was erected immediately after the destruction of the little Saxon church with its wooden walls[60] which once stood on this very site; then come the Early English walls of the chancel, then the very interesting specimens of brick-work of the sixteenth century in the tower and western walls. But you have given Mr. Dole and us all such a long and useful lecture on the _inside_ of the walls, that we must not stop to say any more about their outside." "I must just say this, my friend, respecting the outside walls, that I can forgive a builder for any fault more easily than for want of _reality_ in the exterior of a church. For the sake of decoration and neatness it may be desirable that the internal walls should be covered with cement or plaster, but there is no excuse for so covering the church externally. If mean materials are used, let the mean materials appear; but it is unpardonable to use the mean and spread over it a false pretence of the costly. Brick walls are often very beautiful, and not inferior to flint or stone; but if they are of brick, let the brick be seen, and let it not pretend to be _stone_." Illustration: Wall Painting _CHAPTER XIII_ THE WINDOWS "I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Isa. liv. 12. " ... Sometimes thoughts proud and wild Have risen, till I saw the sunbeams steal Through painted glass at evensong, and weave Their threefold tints upon the marble near, Faith, Prayer, and Love, the spirit of a child!" FABER. Illustration: Church of St. John, Brandenburg Illustration: Doorway, St. Stephen's Church, Tangermünde THE WINDOWS