ruins of Roman theatres are not uncommon: do we fail to be recalled by them to the idea of the Roman stage? are not the several parts of the material building highly figurative and suggestive of the rules and orders of the abstract drama?

With respect to churches: let us suppose the institution and ritual of the Church to be what we know it was; and that we have to adapt some architectural arrangement to the performance of this ritual. Is there anything which will dictate any general form rather than another? Surely there is. We will not speak now of the propriety of setting aside a place for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, or of the propriety of retaining the plan of the typical Temple; but we are considering simply what is required by practical necessity. The worshippers who are to assemble in our church are not all on an equality. There are some who are endowed with high privileges as being those consecrated to the immediate service of the sanctuary. In early times so real a thing was the distinction between the Clergy and the Laity, that the Church being divided into these two classes, the material edifice displayed a like division and the Nave and Chancel preach to posterity the sacredness of Holy Orders, and the mutual duties arising from the relation in which the flock stand to their shepherds. But in early ages the Laity were not all classed en masse as with us now. Among them were the Faithful, the Catechumens, who had not yet been admitted to Holy Baptism, and the Penitents or those who had lapsed. True to itself, church architecture provided then a separate place for each of these divisions. Does not the ground plan of such a church symbolize minutely the then state of Church discipline and the conditions of Church worship? The reality and meaning of such an arrangement may be shown thus also. After the Reformation the

great distinction between Clergy and Laity became lost or undervalued accordingly the chancel-screens in many places disappeared, as symbolical in their absence as in their existence. But still there was a necessity for some material arrangement to protect the Altar from insult: and so Altar-rails came in, manifest symbols of that spirit which made their introduction allowable, if indeed not necessary:* still these very rails, and the penned up reading-pue, teach that the Clergy, at least when performing a function, are divided from the laity.

Now it is of no consequence whatever, whether the early builders of churches intended this particular arrangement to be symbolical. The arrangement being adopted becomes necessarily, even if unintentionally, symbolical, by the process we have endeavoured to trace, and so things essentially symbolical give rise to intended symbolism : for it is a simple historical fact that the weathercock, whatever practical utility may have first suggested its use and peculiar form, has been for many centuries placed on the church spire for its intentional symbolism.+ And the process is repeated: for suppose one only of the conventional symbolical meanings of the weather-cock had been discovered the thoughtful mind goes on to find out other figurative senses in which its use is appropriate, and these

* In the correspondence of the Rev. W. Humphrey, whose atrocious treatment by the Church Missionary Society has so lately excited the indignation of all true Churchmen, it appears that one of the noble designs of this zealous Priest was to restore for the peculiar congregation over which he was appointed, consisting of Faithful, Catechumens, and Unbelievers, the distinct arrangement of the ancient Church: the modern plan of having but one area for the lay worshippers being found inconvenient and injurious. That is to say, our modern Church arrangement may suit and does symbolize the present state of the Church with us, but does not suit and does not symbolize the state of the missionary Church of India.

+ See Rationale, p. 27.

conventional meanings become in their turn intentionally symbolized by future church builders. This may be illustrated also in the following way. The Jews, in the rite of Baptism, had probably no other idea than a reference to "the mystical washing away of sins." But when S. Paul had once given to that rite the new idea of a burial with CHRIST in the Baptismal water, and a rising again with Him, this typical meaning became an example of intended symbolism to all those who should hereafter use it.

As we began this part of our subject with hesitation, so we finish it with some degree of apprehension. To some what has been said may seem more than ordinarily visionary, and ridiculous: yet others, we hope, will feel that, however feebly and inadequately expressed, there is some truth in what has been advanced concerning the relation between the material and immaterial: that the latter wielding and moulding the former into an expression of itself, makes it in turn a type of that which it expresses. So that if on the one hand, to take our particular branch of the subject, the theoretical ritual and ordinances of religion imply and require certain peculiar adaptations of the material building in which they are to be celebrated; then in turn the circumstances of the material fabrick suggest and symbolize the peculiar conditions of ritual which induced them. In short we have endeavoured to prove that from our very nature every outward thing is symbolical of something inward and spiritual: but, above all things, outward religious actions are sacramental; and particularly any prescribed ritual, of which the first characteristick is that it is figurative: that the Catholick ritual is eminently symbolical, and from its nature very strikingly influences all its material appliances that Church architecture is the eldest daughter of

Ritual: that the process, according to which architecture was influenced by the requirements of Ritualism was at first as simple as that by which the form of a theatre sprang from the conditions which were to be fulfilled by its builder: that thus a church (built in the fully developed style of Christian architecture) even if not built with any intention of symbolizing, (though it is an historical fact that the symbolism of each part was known and received before the erection of any church of this style,) became nevertheless essentially a "petrifaction of our religion": a fact which, once admitted and realized, becomes to succeeding Church builders, whether they will or not, a rule and precedent for intentional symbolical design.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANALYTICAL ARGUMENT.

WE must arrive at the same conclusion, if we consider the subject in an analytical way. For example; suppose a person, hitherto unacquainted not only with the general peculiarities of Christian churches, but also with Christianity itself, were to enter a Cathedral; or (which will be a fairer case) were to visit a Catholick country, and examine its churches as a whole, would he not, if possessed of only ordinary intelligence, observe that the cross form, for example, was of most common occurrence, and, in the case of the larger buildings, was perhaps the only plan adopted? And would he not then naturally enquire why there should be this marked preference for a form, in itself inconvenient for purposes of hearing or seeing,* and open to great mechanical objections, such as the almost resistless pressure of the four arms on the piers which stand at the angles of intersection? But if he learnt that the religion for which these temples were designed was that of the Cross, he would at once see the propriety of this ground plan, and would confidently and truly conclude that this form was chosen in order to bring the Cross, by this symbolism, vividly and constantly before the eyes of the worshippers. To deny intended symbolism, in the case of such a person, would clearly be absurd: shall it be less obvious to us? Our traveller would probably, being point, examine these buildings more

satisfied on this

* That is, a Catholick arrangement of the church being presumed.