230 Contemporary Evolution. 



requirements above enumerated it is unrivalled. Cen- 

 turies must indeed elapse before any later style can 

 boast as many saintly associations as can that one which 

 ranged from the birth of S. Bernard to that of S. 

 Ignatius. These associations, moreover, have especial 

 force in England, owing to the apostasy which syn- 

 chronised with the abandonment of that style. Again, 

 it is evident that no other style is so emphatically and 

 exclusively Christian in its origin. 



It may also be fairly maintained that gothic is now 

 widely acceptable ; but it should not be forgotten there 

 is also a wide-spread hostility to its use, and that with 

 the very congregation with which the recent spread 

 of the Church in England is so signally connected 

 the Oratorian, it does not appear to have found favour. 

 Far be it from me to be faint in acknowledging the 

 deference due to the judgment of our immortal Bishop 

 Milner, but there is another authority equally great on 

 the opposite side that of Dr. Newman. The fourth 

 character, adaptability to varied circumstances, is one in 

 which gothic has indeed the advantage over Italian. 

 The very essence of gothic is the subordination of means 

 to ends ; irregularity and asymmetry, instead of being 

 blemishes, add to the very attractiveness and pictur- 

 esqueness of the pointed structures which display 

 them. Not so with Italian architecture rigid as to its 

 requirements in these respects, all buildings erected in 



