may here be noted, that in Gothic art vertical lines prevail over horizontal lines. When the two meet, the horizontal line stops, the vertical continues. Thus, every line becomes symbolic of religious aspiration, as, on the mounting lines of the pinnacled buttress, and along the sweep of the great cathedral arch whose apex is among the solemn shadows of the far-up vaulting, eye and thought are led, pointed, lifted, upward, heavenward.

It should be remarked, that not all Gothic buildings of even the pure period of Gothic architecture, are pure Gothic. In England, at least, many of the parish churches are supposed to have been the work of illiterate rural masons, ignorant of the principles of Gothic art, while attempting to copy its forms. On the other hand, the more important ecclesiastical edifices of the Middle Ages, are thought to have been designed and built by a secret society of artists and builders, bound to inviolable secrecy as to the principles of their art, and whose members traveled from place to place, as their services were required. Hence, the correspondence in style and unity of design that Gothic architecture attained, among various nations, about the beginning of the fourteenth century; and which, we may readily believe, resulted from the combined and organized action of many trained and cultivated minds, ardently devoted to their art, under the inspiration of religious zeal, and working in an age when knowledge was the property of the few, ignorance the heritage of the many. Of this society of builders, the present order of Free Masons is believed to be a lineal descendant.

In contrast, what are our modern partial and pseudo imitations of the old Gothic architecture, but more or less nearly approximated copies of some of its forms and features, regulated only by individual knowledge, taste, fancy or caprice, and marked with more or less disregard of the fundamental principles and practice of the old art, of the adaptation of the copied parts to the system of construction in which they are employed, and of the meaning

or meaninglessness, the truth or falseness, of their expression. Once more to quote the words of Mr. Garbett: "CONSTRUCTIVE TRUTH requires that a building shall never appear to be constructed on different statical principles from those really employed in its construction. The whole of modern Gothic architecture is a constructive falsehood, because it will presently be shown, that all the peculiarities of this style grew from the practice of constructing, within buildings, a vaulted ceiling of stone, and were solely adapted to a building with such a ceiling. Consequently, when applied to a building not so ceiled, the style must either be made useless and meaningless, by copying only its forms, without a motive; or else, if correctly copied, * it must then appear * * to have a vaulted ceiling, which it

*

has not; and in either case, the whole must be a lie from the foundation to the finials." Such building as is here spoken of inay, and sometimes does, retain very much of abstract and charming beauty, that has been truthfully developed in the living style; but the style, nevertheless, as a style, becomes, under such treatment, fragmentary, fossil, soulless. Yet I would not regard all of that grand old Gothic art, as altogether antiquated and obsolete. As, in substance, another has well said, in relation to the forma tion of a modern style of architecture: "We no more want new forms with which to build well, than we want new words with which to speak or write well." As in language, so in art, the forms, as the words, that have grown in the thought, and have been stamped with the approbation, of many wise and worthy, are better than the crude new coinage of the individual brain. New combinations there must be, in art, as in language; and, in the various combinations of each, the several factors must ever have a meaning and serve a purpose, else are they damned in the eyes, or the ears, of all earnest, honest men. Something of this adaptation of old forms to new uses in architecture, and to modern methods of construction, has been done heretofore, and is yet being done. More and better might be accomplished, if

more of honest, earnest, truth-loving effort were devoted to that end.

I cannot here forbear to quote some pertinent lines of Keble, breathed as in the atmosphere of some grand old Gothic minster, that throw upon the genius and the work of the old Gothic builders a light from heaven, to be thence reflected upon all kindred work and kindred offerings.

He too is blest, whose outward eye
The graceful lines of Art may trace,
While his free spirit, soaring high,

Discerns the glorious from the base;

Till out of dust his magic raise,

A home for prayer and love, and full harmonious praise,

Where far away and high above,

In maze on maze the tranced sight
Strays, mindful of that heavenly love

Which knows no end in depth or height;
While the strong breath of music seems
To waft us ever on, soaring in blissful dreams.

What though in poor and humble guise

Thou here didst sojourn, cottage-born?

Yet from Thy glory in the skies

Our earthly gold Thou dost not scorn;

For Love delights to bring her best;

And where Love is, that offering evermore is blest.

Love, on the Saviour's dying head,

Her spikenard drops unblam'd may pour;
May mount His cross, and wrap Him, dead,
In spices from the golden shore;

Risen, may embalm His sacred Name

With all a Painter's art, and all a Minstrel's flame.

Worthless and lost our offerings seem,

Drops in the ocean of His praise;

But Mercy with her genial beam

Is ripening them to pearly blaze,

To sparkle in His crown above,

Who welcomes here a child's, as there an angel's love.

To sum up, in conclusion: Architecture of some kind we must have. We must either blot or beautify the face of God's

man.

Earth, before the pleasured or offended eyes of the brotherhood of men, whose taste and thought we shall thus educate and elevate, or mislead and deprave. And since the noble and the base, the true and the false in Art, are to be reckoned among the subtle influences for good or evil, that help to make or unmake character, in our brother man, it becomes us, as true men and women, to do what we can to have our architecture good and true. Church architecture of some kind we must have. It behooves us, as Christian men and women, to see to it that that be noble architecture. Pleasures and luxuries we all crave. Let it be our pleasure and our luxury, to beautify and to glorify, with lines of veritable truth, and with hues of veritable beauty, that house wherein we meet to claim God's promised and peculiar presence. Let us gladly give to it precious things of heart, and head, and hand; give veritable jewels, as it were, worthy to adorn the Temple of the King of kings; not counterfeits, and base shams, unbecoming the dwelling of an honest One deep disgrace that has been, and which I have seen, let all who own the Christian name beware-the shame of calculating covetousness, of cold indifference and neglect, concerning even the decorous and decent ordering of that house which stands as the visible representative of our Religion, and of our Worship; lest, as to them of old, the prophet's words of warning, stern and solemn, be sounded in our ears: "Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, saying, this people say 'the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.'.... Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts; consider your ways. Ye have sown much and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts; consider your ways. Go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the

Lord. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of Hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit." Rather let us emulate the lofty zeal of the son of Jesse, the "man after God's own heart :" "I will not come within the tabernacle of mine house, nor climb up into my bed; I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelids to slumber, neither the temples of my head to take any rest, until I find out a place for the Temple of the Lord; an Habitation for the Mighty God of Jacob." If the root of the matter be in us, if our Christianity be worth anything, while we labor, let us also pray, that "He who teacheth man knowledge" may give us, so to build into His Temple, the wood, the stone, the clay; so to color with the light and to darken with the shadow, these material things; that they may be indeed instinct with heavenly beauty, and may reveal the spirit of a True Religion, even in the structure of its Earthly Habitation.

EDWARD F. BROWN.