Although the mother and child theme had obsessed Moore from the beginning of his career, he found himself hesitating to agree to the request for a sculpture of the Madonna and Child for the Church of St. Matthew, Northampton. He has said of the carving that it "was one of the most difficult and heart-searching sculptures that I ever tried to do". The implication of a religious subject caused him the most worry. He had to consider "in what ways a 'Madonna and Child' differs from a carving of just a Mother and Child - that is, by considering how in my opinion religious art differs from secular art". It is not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the 'Madonna and Child' should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the everyday Mother and Child idea'. Moore did not accept the commission outright; he said he would do some notebook drawings from which he could make small clay models, and then decide if they satisfied his idea of the subject. (A. G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, New York and London, 1984, pp. 290-291.)