A SHORT CHAPTER ON COUNTRY CHURCHES. 261 



and features of the human face ; and yet this is a fact as well 

 known by all true architects, as that joy and sorrow, pleasure and 

 pain, are capable of irradiating or darkening the countenance. Yes, 

 and we do not say too much, when we add, that right expression 

 in a building for religious purposes, has as much to do with awak- 

 ening devotional feelings, and begetting an attachment in the heart, 

 as the unmistakable signs of virtue and benevolence in our fellow- 

 creatures, have in awakening kindred feeling in our own breasts. 



We do not, of course, mean to say, that a beautiful rural 

 church will make all the population about it devotional, any more 

 than that sunshine will banish all gloom ; but it is one of the in- 

 fluences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which* we 

 are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and 

 bury ourselves like the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns. 



To speak out the truth boldly, would be to say that the ugliest 

 church architecture in Christendom, is at this moment to be found 

 in the country towns and villages of the United States. Doubtless, 

 the hatred which originally existed in the minds of our puritan an- 

 cestors, against every thing that belonged to the Romish Church, in- 

 cluding in one general sweep all beauty and all taste, along with 

 all the superstitions and errors of what had become a corrupt 

 system of religion, is a key to the bareness and baldness, and ab- 

 sence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of 

 New England which are for the most part the type-churches of 

 all America. 



But, little by little, this ultra-puritanical spirit is wearing off. 

 Men are not now so blinded by personal feeling against great spi- 

 ritual wrongs, as to identity for ever, all that blessed boon of har- 

 mony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make 

 what we call Beauty, with the vices, either real or supposed, of any 

 particular creed. In short, as a people, our eyes are opening to 

 the perception of influences that are good, healthful, and elevating 

 to the soul, in all ages, and all countries and we separate the 

 vices of men from the laws of order and beauty, by which the uni- 

 verse is governed. 



The first step which we have taken to show our emancipation 

 from puritanism in architecture, is that of building our churches 



