262 RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 



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

 This has been tbe prevailing taste, if it is -woi-thy of that nattie, 

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

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

 windows, square or round-beaded, 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 tbe only place where 

 a cupola sbould never be^ — that is, directly over the pediment or 

 portico) — sucb are the chef cPoeuvres of ecolesiastical arcMtectufei 

 standing, in nine cases out of ten, as tbe rural cburohes 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 G-od.' 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, jn fti- 

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

 iposes, then the huildipg audits purpose would be in good keeping, 

 one with the other. 



Not to appear presumptive " and partial in our ciiticisin, 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^efcty lines and 

 ■ornaments, to produce an agreeable effect' and; pleaSe^fhe 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 applieatioa of columns in one case, and the introduc- 

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

 trinsic meaning- ©r -expressioii 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 ardiiteoture, then, is in itsliori- 

 zontail lines — -the unbroken level of its cornice, which is the "few? 



