IX. 



A SHOKT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 



January, 1851. 



WHAT, among all the edifices that compose a country town o? 

 village, is that which the inhabitants should most love and 

 reverence, should most respect and admire 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 interior ? 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 committees, se- 

 lectmen, vestrymen, and congregations, who have to do with the 

 building of churches, appear indeed wholly to ignore the fact, that 

 the form and feature of a building may be made to express religious, 

 civil, domestic, or a dozen other feelings, as distinctly as the form 



