But, while the work of later generations differs in quality and spirit from that of the medieval craftsman, while it is necessarily more sophisticated and less spontaneous than his, no greater mistake can be made than to drive it out of our churches. The Reformation and Cromwell have been made responsible for much destruction: yet no one has destroyed so light-heartedly as the modern restorer, in his efforts to bring back churches to what is called their 'original state.' To-day, people are waking up to the value of post-Reformation masonry and furniture. They realise that when an eighteenth century church is swept away, and a handsome building, in an eclectic Gothic style, decked with the best products of modern arts and crafts, rises in its place, the advantage is questionable. Not merely does much good furniture inevitably perish, but a link with the past is destroyed. Eighteenth century pews may not be altogether suited to a fifteenth century church; but they remind us at any rate that the fabric in which they stand has a continuous history. The age which produced them followed its own taste and worked on its own lines, and did not merely strive after an ideal of harmonious imitation. Not only the work of recent centuries has been touched, but medieval work has been altered: screens have been mutilated and removed, old glass has been destroyed, even whole fabrics have been rebuilt with very slight regard to their earlier plan. It can never be impressed too strongly upon the average Englishman that, quite apart from their religious associations, the parish churches of this country form, as a body, one of the most remarkable historical monuments which any European nation possesses. We may regret, perhaps, that past generations have tampered with them; but for that very reason we should hesitate to tamper with them ourselves, or to replace incongruous work of the past by imitative work of our own. We may well use our individual energy and our new ideas in adding to their number; but our treatment of the older work, where it positively calls for renewal, should be tender, conservative, and self-effacing. The excellence of the medieval mason's work consists largely in his avoidance of self-consciousness, in its perfectly natural and spontaneous feeling: if we attempt to impose our individuality upon his work, we are in danger of supplying to future and, it may be hoped, wiser generations a contrast from which they will not fail to draw a melancholy profit. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Books exclusively devoted to the subject of the English parish church are few in number, and generally are in the form of descriptions of the churches of special districts, or of monographs on individual churches. 1. Among the older books in which special attention is paid to parish churches, the following may be mentioned: BLOXAM, M. H., _Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture_, 11th ed., 2 vols., London, 1882.