



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



51 Ijinrt €\}^\n m £nn\:i\ CljurrjirH. 



WHAT, among all the edifices tliat compose a country town or village, is that which 

 the inhabitants should most love and reverence, — should most respect and ad- 

 mire among themselves, and should feel most pleasure in showing to a stranger ? 



We imagine the answer ready upon the lips of every one of our readers in the 

 country, and rising at once to utterance, is — the Village Church. 



And yet, are our village churches winning and attractive in their exterior and inte- 

 rior ? Is one drawn to admire them at first sight, by the beauty of their proportions, 

 the expression of holy purpose which they embody, the feeling of harmony with God 

 and man, which they suggest ? Does one get to love the very stones of which they 

 are composed, because they so completely belong to a building, which looks and is 

 the home of Christian worship, and stands as the type of all that is firmest and 

 deepest in our religious faith and affections ? 



Alas ! we fear there are very few country churches in our land that exert this kind 

 of spell, — a spell which grows out of making stone, and brick, and timber, obey the 

 will of the living soul, and express a religious sentiment. Most persons, most com- 

 mittees, selectmen, vestrymen, and congregations, who have to do with the building 

 of churches, appear indeed, wholl}-^ to ignore the fact, that the form and features of a 

 building may be made to express religious, civil, domestic, or a dozen other feelings, 

 as distinctly as the form and features of the human face ; — and yet this is a fact as 

 well known by all true architects, as that joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, are 

 capable of irradiating or darkening the countenance. Yes, and we do not say too 

 much, when we add, that right expression in a building for religious purposes, has as 

 much to do with awakening devotional feelings, and begetting an attachment in the 

 as the unmistakable signs of virtue and benevolence in our fellow creatures, 

 in awakening kindred feeling in our own breasts. 



No. 1. 



Jan. 1851. 



