A CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 



these two styles, which have so taken root that they are employed at the present 

 moment, all over Europe and America, there is something more than a mere conven- 

 tional treatment of doors and windows ; — the application of columns in one case, and 

 tlie introduction of pointed arches in the other. In other words, there is an intrinsic 

 meaning or expression involved in each, which, not to understand, or vaguely to under- 

 stand, is to be working blindly, or striving after something in the dark. 



The leading idea of the Greek architecture, then, is in its horizontal lines — the 

 unbroken level of its cornice, which is the " level line of rationality.'''' In this line, 

 in the regular division of spaces, both of columns and windows, we find the elements 

 of order, law, and human reason, fully and completely expressed. Hence, the fitness 

 of classical architecture for the service of the state, for the town hall, the legislative 

 assembly, the lecture room, for intellectual or scientific debate, and in short, for all 

 civil purposes where the reason of man is supreme. So, on the other hand, the leading 

 idea of Gothic architecture is found in its upward lines — its aspiring tendencies. No 

 weight of long cornices, or fiat ceilings, can keep it down ; upward, higher and higher, it 

 soars, lifting every thing, even heavy, ponderous stones, poising them in the air in vault- 

 ed ceilings, or piling them upwards towards Heaven, in spires, and steeples, and towers, 

 that, in the great cathedrals, almost seem to pierce the sky. It must be a dull soul 

 that does not catch and feci something of this upward tendency in the vaulted aisles 

 and high, open, pointed roofs of the interior of a fine gothic church, as well as its 

 subdued and mellow light, and its suggestive and beautiful forms : forms too, that are 

 rendered more touching by their associations with christian worship in so many ages, 

 not, like the Greek edifices, by associations with heathen devotees. 



Grantiiig that the Gothic cathedral expresses, in its lofty, aspiring lines, the spirit 

 of that true faith and devotion which leads us to look upward, is it possible, in the 

 narrow compass of a village church which costs but a few hundred, or at most, a few 

 thousand dollars, to preserve this idea ? 



We answer, yes. A drop of water is not the ocean, but it is still a type of the 

 infinite ; and a few words of wisdom may not penetrate the understanding so deeply 

 as a great volume by a master of the human heart, but they may work miracles, if 

 fitly spokem For it is not the magnitude of things that is the measure of their 

 excellence or power ; and there is space enough for the architect to awaken devotional 

 feelings, and lead the soul upward, so far as material form can aid in doing this, 

 though in a less degree, in the little chapel that is to hold a few hundred, as in the 

 mighty minster where thousands may assemble. 



And the cost too, shall not be greater ; that is, if a substantial building is to be 

 erected, and not a flimsy frame of boards and plaster. Indeed, we could quote 

 numberless instances where the sums expended in classical buildings, of false propor- 

 tions but costly execution,* which can never raise other than emotions of pride in the 

 human heart, would have built beautiful rural churches, which every inhabitant of the 



have se.eu with pain, lately, one of those great temple churches erectecl ui a country tovim on the Hudson, at a 



20,000. It looks outside and inside, no more like a cliurch, than does the Custom House. And yet this sum 



have built the most perfect of devotional edifices for that congregation. 



