we may behold the simplicity of primitive devotion, and the native fashion of British buildings in that age, and some hundred years after. For we find that Hoel Dha, king of Wales, made himself a palace of hurdle-work, called Tyguyn, or the White House, because, for distinction sake, the rods whereof it was made were unbarked, having the rind stripped off, which was then counted gay and glorious, as white-limed houses exceed those which are only rough-cast. In this small oratory Joseph with his companions watched, prayed, fasted, preached; having high meditations under a low roof, and large hearts betwixt narrow walls. If credit may be given to those authors, this church, without competition, was senior to all Christian churches in the world. Let not then stately modern churches disdain to stoop with their highest steeples, reverently doing homage to this poor structure, as their first platform and precedent; and let their chequered pavements no more disdain this oratory's plain floor, than her thatched covering doth envy their leaden roofs. And although now it is meet that church buildings, as well as private houses, partaking of the peace and prosperity of our age, should be both in their cost and cunning increased, (far be that pride and profaneness from any, to account nothing, either too fair for man, or too foul for God!); yet it will not be amiss to desire that our judgments may be so much the clearer in matters of truth, and our lives so much the purer in conversation, by how much our churches are more light, and our buildings more beautiful than theirs were.'

Such, according to authorities which, upon this point, there can be no valid reason for disputing, was that edifice which, if not the first Christian church in the world, was assuredly the first in England. The first Saxon Churches were all built of wood.* 'Then,' says old Trevisa,' had ye wooden churches, and wooden chalices, and golden priests; but now golden chalices, and wooden priests." In the course of a few centuries the land was filled with cathedrals, monasteries, and village churches; the former vying with, and the latter exceeding any similar edifices in any part of Christendom. Nothing indeed of the kind can be more beautiful, nor more beau

As late as the seventh century, the Scotch (it is of the Scotch, and not the Irish, that Bede is speaking here) are known to have built their churches of oak, and thatched them with reeds. The episcopal church of Lindisfarn, which afterwards became so beautiful a structure, was originally built after this fashion by St. Finan, who came from Iona. One of his successors removed the thatch, and cased the whole building with lead. The reader may be pleased with having before him the original authority for these curious facts in the history of our church architecture. Interea Aidano Episcopo de hac vitá sublato, Finan pro illo gradum Episcopatus a Scotis ordinatus ac missus acceperat : qui in insula Lindisfarnensi fecit ecclesiam Episcopi sede congruam. Quam tamen more Scotorum non de lapide, sed de robore secto totam composuit, atque arundine texit. Quam tempore sequente reverendissimus Archiepiscopus Theodorus in honorem B. Petri Apostoli dedicavit. Sed et Episcopus loci ipsius Eadberht, ablatâ arundine, plumbi laminis eam totam, hoc est, et tectum et ipsos quoque parietes ejus cooperire curavit.'Bede, l. iii. c. 25.

tifully

tifully appropriate to their design, than the best of our parish churches, those of Somersetshire for instance, with their gothic towers, which were erected in the best age of religious architecture, and those of Lincolnshire, with their fretted spires, seen far and wide over a country which contains no other objects either of beauty or sublimity. The Quakers have a mortal objection to the steeple; and in their orthodox phraseology they never call a church by any other name than a steeple-house-a hatred conceived in the same unlucky spirit which made them proscribe sweet sounds, gay colours, graceful apparel, and good English. The other dissenters have no such prejudices; but of the numerous places of worship which they have erected, there is not one which has the slightest pretensions to architectural merit, even among those in the construction of which economy has not been the first consideration. Heaven be praised, that our forefathers had a truer sense of the beauty of holiness, and built churches and cathedrals for us instead of meetinghouses! We hope and trust that this proud and visible distinction will be preserved on the present occasion; that the new churches may all be steeple-houses;' and that the good old fashion, sanctified by the practice of so many ages, and the feelings of so many generations, may in no instance be departed from on considerations. of expense-motives so temporary in their action and effect should have no operation on works intended to last for posterity:-let us remember what Erasmus said of Canterbury Cathedral,-tantá majestate sese erigit in cœlum, ut procul etiam intuentibus religionem incutiat.'

6

It is worthy of notice that when the plan of a new Post Office was laid before Parliament, a member, remarkable for his zeal for economy, objected to a noble portico, because of the expense; the portico was rejected accordingly, and a public building, which is to stand for ages, is to be erected, not upon the most convenient and appropriate and beautiful, but upon the most economical plan, for the sake of saving a sum in the year's expenditure, which, if equally apportioned upon the inhabitants of Great Britain, would not amount to a poll-tax of half a farthing! These are things which make an Englishman, who feels for the honour of his country, groan in spirit when he thinks of them. Our King Henry VII. says Stavely, built a ship, and he built a chapel, and both these, as it is said, at an equal charge. His ship remains not, ne tabella quidem, not so much as a plank of it. But his chapel stands to this day, and is likely to stand till the last, a lasting monument of the founder's piety and devotion.'

Let us remember,' says a clergyman whose pamphlet lies before us, that when we cease to have a VISIBLE CHURCH, we not only endanger our very existence as a professional body, but the character of the middle and lower classes of society becomes proportionably dete

riorated

riorated or debased. The common people cannot philosophize themselves into religion. There must be outward, visible and tangible evidence of the services of our Maker, and our towers and spires should continue to raise and point to Heaven, if we wish to preserve the morals of the community from relapsing into a morbid state.'

Upon this subject the great moral and philosophical poet of the age has expressed himself with characteristic feeling and sublimity. O ye swelling hills and spacious plains,

Besprent from shore to shore with steeple towers,
And spires whose silent finger points to Heaven ;'
Nor wanting at wide intervals, the bulk

Of ancient Minster, lifted above the cloud
Of the dense air, which town or city breeds
To intercept the sun's glad beams;—may ne'er
That true succession fail of English hearts,
That can perceive, not less than heretofore
Our ancestors did feelingly perceive,
What in those holy structures ye possess
Of ornamental interests, and the charm
Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
-Thus never shall the indignities of Time
Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the Elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;
And if the desolating hand of war

Spare them, they shall continue to bestow

Upon the thronged abodes of busy men

(Depraved, and ever prone to fill their minds
Exclusively with transitory things)

An air and mien of dignified pursuit ;

Of sweet civility-on rustic wilds.'

Our pews have often been objected to by foreigners as deforming the churches, and marking far too strongly the distinction of ranks in a place where that distinction ought, as far as possible, to be forgotten. The custom, however, has been too long established, and is too closely united with our domestic habits to be laid aside, even if these objections were altogether valid. That a church, considered simply with regard to its architectural effect, appears to more advantage when its area is clear, than when it is encumbered with pews, cannot be denied; but that consideration is perfectly inadmissible: what will be most convenient when the edifice is full, is the point to be regarded, not what will be most picturesque when it is empty. And whether our English system be not preferable to that of the Catholic churches on the contineut, where dirty women during the service ply with dirty chairs to be let

out

out for the sitting, will not admit of a question. The separation into families belongs moreover to our national character, and to some of its better parts; the quietness, the reserve, the decorum of our manners require it, and the sanctity of private feeling is thus preserved in the act of public worship. With regard to distinction of ranks, it may be observed, that the sense of those distinctions is much more effectually precluded by the present distribution in which every one knows his place, than it could be by a promiscuous assemblage, which, were there not other and greater objections to it in our state of society, would be liable to this decisive one, that the contrast would be rendered more glaring by juxtaposition, and persons in whom no thought of their relative conditions would otherwise have entered, would have that thought irresistibly forced upon them when they found themselves side by side; the scheme therefore would produce the very evil which it was intended to prevent. And this consequence is so unavoidable, that in those conventicles where the principle is professed, common sense has introduced a wiser practice. Even in quaker meetings every one knows his place, and they who are most respected for their station in life always occupy the chief seats in the synagogue.

When St. Wulstan was building the present cathedral of Worcester, and the former and ruder edifice of St. Oswald was destroyed to make room for his splendid structure, they who stood by him observed that he shed tears at beholding the demolition, and they told him that he ought rather to rejoice in the enlargement of the church over which he presided. He replied, Ego longè aliter intelligo, quòd nos miseri sanctorum opera destruimus, ut nobis laudem comparemus. Non noverat illa felicium virorum ætas pompaticas ades construere, sed sub qualicumque tecto seipsos Deo immolare, subjectosque ad exemplum attrahere: nos è contra nitimur ut, animarum negligentes curam, accumulemus lapides. However natural the feeling which Wulstan thus expressed may have been, the fashion of erecting fine cathedrals was certainly no indication that piety was on the wane. It is when old places of worship are dilapidated, or allowed to go to ruin, while no new ones are erected in their stead, that the decay of the mystical as well as of the material church has begun. There was nothing puritanical in Wulstan's feeling; it was just as well as natural: the demolition of a fabric which time and many circumstances had sanctified, forced upon him a melancholy sense of the vanity and instability of all human works, and he could not but think of the chances and changes which his own edifice must undergo, and the destruction to which it must needs come at last, long as it would outlast him, his monument, and perhaps his very name. Very different from this is the spirit which sometimes appears in monastic history, and represents the splendour

splendour of religious buildings as a sinful waste of money which might be piously bestowed on other purposes. Such remarks proceeded from the same spirit which defaced too many of our cathedrals, demolished our painted windows, sold our church organs to the tavern-keepers, strove hard to eject the altar, and for two centuries prevented us from having a school of painting in England, by refusing to admit pictures into the churches.

That spirit happily exists no longer. The organ is now introduced even in meeting-houses, and it is no longer pretended that the eye may not rest upon a church-picture with as little interruption to devotional feelings as upon a monumental tablet, or a bare wall. 'The mind of man, even in spirituals,' says South,' acts with a corporeal dependence, and so is helped or hindered in its operations according to the different quality of external objects that incur into the senses. And perhaps sometimes the sight of the altar and those decent preparations for the work of devotion may compose and recover the wandering mind much more effectually than a sermon or a rational discourse. For these things in a manner preach to the eye when the ear is dull and will not hear; and the eye dictateth to the imagination, and that at last moves the affections. And if these little impulses set the great wheels of devotion on work, the largeness and height of that shall not at all be prejudiced by the smallness of its occasion. If the fire burns bright and vigorously, it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled; there is the same force, and the same refreshing virtues in it kindled by a spark from a flint, as if it were kindled by a beam from the sun.'

A forcible appeal in behalf of painting has been made upon occasion of these new churches by Mr. Haydon and Mr. Elmes. Mr. Elmes proposes that a committee should be appointed 'similar to that which investigated the merits and value of the Elgin marbles; that various architects, painters, and sculptors shall be examined by it as to the best way of using the national wealth that will be appropriated to this purpose; that this committee shall be empowered to decide on the merits of our present living artists, and give commissions for building the new churches to such architects as they shall approve; that each architect so appointed shall execute his work on his own responsibility and at his own peril, and not exceed the sum entrusted him to expend; that each new church shall have one historical picture by some living painter, who shall be commissioned in a similar way to the architect by the same committee, and the architect desired to prepare his altar-piece accordingly, with double walls, &c. to resist the damp and to keep his church in a regular state of temperature; that five per cent. out of each sum appropriated be set aside for the expense of the historical picture, its frame, &c. that the committee be empowered to inquire into the

best