A CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES 



do not, of course, mean to say, that a beautiful rural churcli will make 

 population about it devotional, any more than that sunshine will banish all gloom ; 

 but it is one of the influences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which we 

 are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and bury ourselves like 

 the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns. 



To speak out the truth boldly, would be to say that the ugliest church architecture 

 in Christendom, is at this moment to be found in the country towns and villages of the 

 United States. Doubtless, the hatred which originally existed in the minds of Puri- 

 tan cvncestors, against everything that belonged to the Eomish Church, including in 

 one general sweep all beauty and all taste, along with all the superstitions and errors 

 of what had become a corrupt system of religion, is the key to the bareness and bald- 

 ness, and absence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of New-Eng- 

 land — which are for the most part the type-churches of all America. 



But, little by little, this ultra-puritanical spirit is wearing off. Men are not now 

 so blinded by personal feeling against great spiritual wrongs, as to identify forever, 

 all that blessed boon of harmony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, 

 which make what we call Beauty, with the vices, either real or supposed, of any parti- 

 cular creed. In short, as a people, our eyes are opening to the perception of influ- 

 ences that are good, healthful and elevating to the soul, in all ages, and all countries — 

 and we separate the vices of men from the laws of order and beauty, by which the 

 universe is governed. 



The first step which we have taken to show our emancipation from puritanism in 

 architecture, is that of building our churches with 'porticoes, in a kind of shabby 

 imitation of Greek temples. This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that 

 name, of the northern states, for the last fifteen or twenty years. The form of these 

 churches is a parallelogram. A long row of windows, square or round-headed, and 

 cut in two by a gallery on the inside ; a clumsy portico of Doric or Ionic columns in 

 front, and a cupola upon the top, (usually stuck in the only place where a cupola 

 should never be — that is, directly over the pediment or portico) — such are the chef 

 (Cavrres of ecclesiastical architecture, standing, in nine cases out of ten, as the rural 

 churches of the country at large. 



Now, architecturally, we ought not to consider these, churches at all. And by 

 churches, we mean no narrow sectarian phrase — but a place where Christians worship 

 God. Indeed, many of the congregations seem to have felt this, and contented them- 

 seWes with calling them " meeting-houses." If they would go a step farther, and 

 turn them into town-meeting houses — or at least would, in future, only build such 

 edifices for town' meetings, or other civil purposes, then the building and its purpose 

 would be in good keeping, one with the other. 



Not to appear presumptive and partial in our criticism, let us glance for a mo- 

 ment at the opposite purposes of the Grecian or classical, and tlie Gothic or point- 

 ed styles of architecture — as to what they really mean ; — for our readers must not sup 

 pose that all architects are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and 

 naments, to produce an agreeable effect and please the popular eye 



