RURAL CHURCHES. 659 
I think I am correct in saying that religious buildings 
have exercised a greater influence in evolving, developing, 
and fixing the various styles of architecture than the far 
larger number of buildings devoted to secular use. 
In former days, men lavished the best they had on the 
sanctuary in which they worshipped, as the temples of Egypt> 
Greece, and the Orieni, the mosques of the Saracenic world, 
and the churches, cathedrals, and abbies of Christendom 
bear ample evidence. 
In modern times—especially in the rural districts of new 
countries—the ancient order of things is reversed. Secular 
public buildings are often ornate; but only isolated 
instances occur of any attempt to erect a church which shall 
be in itself an act of worship, a shrine worthy of the object 
of our adoration. 
I write this as an architect, and I ask the question, 
is it merely a passing phase, inseparably connected 
with the settlement of people in new lands—where 
we must temporarily bow to the inevitable, and have 
the necessary room now, trusting that the beautiful may 
replace it hereafter—or is it, that men are really not 
sincere in their professions; otherwise, how can the wealthy 
be content to live themselves in expensive and ornate 
dwellings, and then worship the Creator, whom they 
profess to esteem above all earthly things, in an unworthy 
building ? 
If men mean anything when they express their gratitude 
to the Giver of all things for his bounty, their mode of 
thankfulness—so far as church buildings is concerned— 
as at all events the advantage of economy. 
Apart from this aspect of the case let us glance at 
another, the educational and the Aisthetic. 
Possibly religious buildings will never again be the sole 
instrument of evolving and fixing a national style of 
architecture. Still, I venture to think that they will con- 
tinue to play an important part in influencing natural taste. 
Who can doubt, but that the three or four generations 
who have grown up in this State since its first settlement, 
and who have been in the habit of attending weekly since 
their earliest childhood some hideous erection in the rural- 
districts, have not had their appreciation of the artistic, 
and appropriate, thereby dwarfed. The eye requires educa- 
tion as well as the mind, and the mere fact of its being 
compelled to look on ugly and false things, renders it less 
capable of appreciating the refined and the true. 
It is well that our important public buildings should be 
of high artistic merit; but they can only be in a few given 
