《考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 14 - TEXT TWO

Here is a plea to save the English parish church, still standing after the convulsions of the Reformation, the English civil war and social alteration. Roy Strong would like to see the churches preserved, just as he strove to preserve English country houses and country gardens while he was director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in the 1970s.
Early worship by Christians was deeply spiritual, ritualistic and physical. Images of saints adorned the walls of the church, where parishioners came for all the sacraments that represented the life cycle of ordinary people. Feast days and saints' days were many, the congregation stood during services, coming and going, talking and kneeling. The building boom of elaborately beautiful churches reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Reformation began in the 1530s, but lasted way beyond Thomas Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries, with the government of evangelical Edward VI continuing the work of stripping the churches and banning ritual. Worshippers were ordered to cease their devotions to images or relics, or “kissing or licking the same”. What the parishioner lost was enormous. The church was the meeting place for the community as well as a place of worship. Churchgoers were left to stare at a whitewashed wall, or an empty niche where a statue of the Virgin once stood. People were forced to give up religious ceremonies practised for 1,000 years. It is surprising how little rebellion there was.
Yet these upheavals were nothing, Sir Roy claims, in comparison to the puritanical purges of the civil war, during the mid-1600s, which devastated not only the fabric of the church but also the social communion of the congregation. Moreover, the loss of income, particularly from banning the making and selling of church ales, meant that the buildings started to crumble. The book's illustrations show churches stripped bare and others in which the gaudy tombs of the elite have replaced images of saints. A reusable coffin from the civil-war period (shown above) is an unfortunate early sign of recycling.
The Georgian era was not just a peaceful one for the church, but also an apparently lackadaisical one. Churches were restored and “exuded the light and clarity of the age of Enlightenment”. Most welcome of all, there was a return to music, introduced gently, so as not to bear the faintest whiff of popery. The aristocracy ran the parish church, their tenant farmers and workers making up the congregation. Plaques and family pews proliferated; the gentry even had their own fireplaces in some churches. They nearly always grabbed the job of clergyman for their sons. One historian called it “the age of negligence”, as the clergy distanced themselves from the congregation and absented themselves from their pastoral ministry.
Sir Roy ends with the church facing an uncertain future in the 21st century. He does indeed cover the whole story in a relatively “little” book. For his account of the Reformation, he draws from Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars (Yale, 1992). And this is ideal further reading for those keen to find out more.
1. The book mentioned in this passage is most probably _____.
[A] a plea to save the English parish church
[B] on the ups and downs of the English parish church
[C] about the change of design and style of the English parish church
[D] on the history of the English parish church since the beginning of Christianity
2. Which one of the following statements is TRUE of the Reformation?
[A] The Reformation was not ended until Thomas Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries.
[B] The government of Edward VI was not against the Reformation.
[C] The Reformation was carried out so as to banish the religious belief.
[D] The Reformation was causing less damage than the civil war to the church.
3. The puritanical purges in civil war are different from the Reformation in affecting the church in the following aspects except _____.
[A] destroying the social communion of the church
[B] cutting off the earnings of the church
[C] devastating the buildings
[D] banning the sale of church ales
4. The Georgian era was called by one historian as “the age of negligence” because _____.
[A] the aristocracy neglected the presence of the clergy
[B] the clergy did not function their duty
[C] the churches were neglected by the Reforma-tion
[D] the aristocracy disregarded the original cere-monies
5. In the last sentence of this passage, “this” refers to _____.
[A] The Stripping of the Altars
[B] Sir Roy's “little” book
[C] Sir Roy's account of the Reformation
[D] the history of the parish church