And we can imagine how little Christopher would hear all about the new church roof, and how he would look over his father’s shoulder and watch him when he was drawing the plans, and how he would spend all his play-time in the church, looking at the joiners putting up the wooden beams, and the other workmen working on the walls, while his father went up and down, superintending everything, and very likely lending a helping hand himself. Perhaps it was in these early days that the boy determined that he, too, would build churches when he was grown up. Then he had an ‘Uncle Matthew,’ who was Bishop of Ely, and as he grew older he would go and visit him, and would wander across from the Palace into Queen Etheldreda’s beautiful Minster Church, and stand and look up in wonder at the Lantern Tower; and his uncle would tell him the story of how it once fell, and how Alan de Walsingham built it up again, and perhaps it was that which gave him the idea, which he carried out afterwards at St. Paul’s, of a great church with an enormous dome in the centre of it, under which thousands of people could assemble, as they do on Sunday afternoons at St. Paul’s to-day, and listen to the sermon of some great preacher. He did something else first, however, for he was very fond of watching the stars, and when he went to Oxford he watched them so closely, and learned so much about them, that he was made Professor of Astronomy. But although he was made Professor of Astronomy, he seems to have gone on all the time studying architecture, and drawing plans of churches, and at last King Charles heard of him, and asked him to draw some plans of churches for him. In this way he became known as a clever architect, and when the Great Fire took place, and a large part of London had to be rebuilt, he not only built a new Cathedral, but forty-two other churches as well; besides which he built Marlborough House, and a great part of Greenwich Hospital. [Illustration: _Photochrom Co., Ltd._ ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL: NELSON’S MONUMENT (_Page 59_)] So you see that he had a useful, busy life, and it was a very long one as well, for he lived till he was an old man of ninety-one. He was not very kindly treated towards the end of his life, and this was because of what is called ‘political jealousy.’ It had been the Stuart Kings who had brought him into notice, and given him the post of Surveyor-General; but when the House of Hanover came into power, their followers said, ‘Oh, we cannot have any of the friends of the Stuarts holding good posts; we must take them from them, and give them to those of our own party.’ And so Sir Christopher Wren’s office was taken from him, and given to another man, and something else was done that vexed him quite as much as losing his post.