Esthetic Evolution. 231 



that style must subordinate all details of arrangement 

 to the general design adopted. The next requirement is 

 one of extreme importance and of deep significance 

 that, namely, of essential harmony with Rome. 



The arguments brought forward by the first writer are 

 forcible enough. It is most true that thorough-going 

 ultramontanes in France, Germany, and Holland have 

 built in the pointed style, and it may be added even 

 the Society of Jesus itself has habitually, as we all 

 well know, made use of it in England and elsewhere. 

 Nevertheless, there is a mode of favouring gothic which 

 is not only anti-Roman but essentially anti-Christian, and 

 a danger attends the too eager advocacy of the former 

 which in no way attends the most zealous support of 

 Italian architecture. 



A strong assertion of the claim of gothic to be the 

 " Christian " style, to the exclusion of all others, is al- 

 most tantamount to a reproach on the Church for 

 having consented to its abandonment in favour of a 

 revived " pagan " style. It harmonises with the view 

 (so strongly put forward by Michelet in this connection) 

 that Christianity culminated at the period of Innocent 

 III. and S. Louis at the time of the purest and most 

 perfect gothic architecture, that of the S. Chapelle and 

 that since then Christianity itself has been progres- 

 sively decaying and disintegrating. 



But the Christian Church, as has been before said, 



