262 RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



with porticoes, in a kind of shabby imitation of Greek temples, 

 This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that name, 

 of the Northern States, for the last fifteen or twenty years. 

 The form of these churches is a parallelogram. A long row of 

 windows, square or round-headed, and cut in two by a gallery on 

 the inside ; a clumsy portico of Doric or Ionic columns in front, 

 and a cupola upon the top, (usually stuck in the only place where 

 a cupola should never be that is, directly over the pediment or 

 portico) such are the chef tfceuvres of ecclesiastical architecture, 

 standing, in nine cases out of ten, as the rural churches of the 

 country at large. 



Now, architecturally, we ought not to consider these, churches 

 at all. And by churches, we mean no narrow sectarian phrase 

 but a place where Christians worship GOD. Indeed, many of the 

 congregations seem to have felt this, and contented themselves with 

 calling them " meeting-houses." If they would go a step farther, 

 and turn them into town meeting-houses or at least would, in fu- 

 ture, only build such edifices for town meetings, or other civil pur- 

 poses, then the building and its purpose would be in good keeping, 

 one with the other. 



Not to appear presumptive and partial in our criticism, let us 

 glance for a moment at the opposite purposes of the Grecian or 

 classical, and the Gothic or pointed styles of architecture as to 

 what they really mean ; for our readers must not suppose that all 

 architects are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and 

 ornaments, to produce an agreeable effect and please the popu- 

 lar eye. 



In these two styles, which have so taken root that they are em- 

 ployed at the present moment, all over Europe and America, there 

 is something more than a mere conventional treatment of doors and 

 windows ; the application of columns in one case, and the introduc- 

 tion of pointed arches in the other. In other words, there is an in- 

 trinsic meaning or expression involved in each, which, not to under- 

 stand, or vaguely to understand, is to be working blindly, or striving 

 after something in the dark. . 



The leading idea of the Greek architecture, then, is in its hori- 

 zontal lines the unbroken level of its cornice, which is the " level 



