240 Contemporary Evolution. 



If what is here advocated should find favour, it would 

 none the less have been impossible at the period referred 

 to. The Renaissance and subsequent architecture was a 

 necessary transitional step ; the return to pagan models 

 was, probably, the only mode possible for progress, even if 

 that progress should hereafter take the course here sug- 

 gested. " Reculer pour mieux sauter " will then be found 

 to have been the real signification of the retrogression, 

 although, of course, the actual enthusiasts for classical 

 revivals were not conscious of the future which they were, 

 in fact, but beginning to prepare. 



We would urge then, that while full of veneration for 

 every manifestation of the Church, while reverencing its 

 outward expression from the first to the nineteenth cen- 

 turies, we should carefully keep ourselves clear from all 

 exclusive attachment to any one of those passing modes 

 whether basilican, gothic, Italian, or what not in which 

 its, spirit found material expression. In the words of the 

 first writer here referred to,* we should be careful not " to 

 adore the works themselves instead of the God who in- 

 spired them," or " to worship the mere garments in which 

 the Church has decked herself." The view taken by 

 fanatical admirers of " Christian " (i. e. y pointed) architec- 

 ture is very different from that taken by the mediaeval 

 builders themselves, who actually fancied that they were 



* Loc. tit., p. 449. 



