The rain dripping from the canopy was not the artful aftermath of a tropical rain - as it is now - but actual rain leaking through the glass.

The rain hammered down in a steady, thunderous assault, and leaked in tap-water streams through the roof, but it was better than standing in the woods.

Besides dripping through several holes in the tattered roof, rain leaked in around the chimney, adding yet another layer of stain to the dingy plaster.

By the 1950s, with the rain leaking in and inner stairs unsound, the congregants cordoned off the sanctuary.

Judge Russell Clark found them unhealthy, unsafe, "literally rotted," so decayed that the rain leaked into classrooms.

The rain pattered on the linen roof and some leaked through onto an altar that held a crucifix and two empty candle-holders.

When Ms. Demeulemeester and her husband first moved in, rain leaked through the roof.

A $1 million, refrigerator-sized computer for property reassessment had been kept in a room where rain leaked, so a plastic sheet had been strung above it.

Now the rain was leaking steadily through the ceiling.

It was an old cloak, worn thin in spots, but he appeared not to care whether rain leaked through.