not generally the seats were divided into parts and made to turn on hinges, so as to be laid up against the back of the pews in prayertime, in order that the people might lean against the pew-rails in standing up, and when prayer was over they were let down with a slam throughout the house. Another circumstance better worth imitation was the height of the pews* in old times, which gave a convenient support to the congregation standing in prayer. The people who now commend the fathers for maintaining that attitude, and would perpetuate the custom, should consider that the low partitions now common between the pews make it more fatiguing than of old, and have done much to bring about a change in the habits of our congregations. Another peculiarity which we remember in some of the old churches, might be restored with advantage at least in our smaller edifices: the staircases leading to the gallery were contained within the audience-room, in the angles of the house, instead of being in the porch as now. Wherever there is a gallery there can be no need of concealing the necessary access to it, but on the contrary a staircase, if properly made, may very properly be shown, as a thing obviously in its place; and by having it in the house, less room is needed for the porch. But the old churches excelled most of their successors chiefly in what we have already noticed, in having outwardly more of the appearance of houses of wor *The term slip, applied to narrow pews, we believe is an Americanism. It should be carpeted to prevent noise, and defended by a close railing. It would make the gallery seem more properly a part of the house than now, and boys would take less liberty of tramping up and down. As a curious example of old things becoming new, we observed this arrangement in a costly modern edifice, the Duane street Presbyterian church in New York, and still more lately in the Swedenborgian chapel in Boston. ship, as distinguished from every other kind of building. This effect was produced especially by the solid construction of the towers, surmounted generally by spires, which though plain were far more significant and graceful than most of the cupolas (in charity they must be called) adorned with gingerbread joinery, which have risen in their places. But we may have more to say on this head; and we have not time now to linger any longer among these recollections of things that have scarcely left a sample in our land. Of Since many congregations are, of late, showing some commendable ambition and liberality in repairing old edifices or erecting new ones, while yet, through want of judgment or care, they often fail to please judicious observers, and afterwards even themselves grow dissatisfied with their work; we have thought it might be needful and timely to turn the attention of our readers more particularly to this subject. course we write not for architects, nor for those traveled amateurs whose tastes are too foreign and expensive to be congenial with the tone of our institutions, or consistent with the resources of our people. We have, therefore, no desire, if we had the ability, to discourse learnedly and obscurely about the several Grecian orders, or the Gothic style, about entablatures, modules and sof fits, or groins and mullions and crock ets. We do not affect to be professionally acquainted with architecture, which is, of itself, a comprehensive art, with a large vocabulary of its own. But we would get the attention of those ministers and laymen who are commonly active in devising or adopting the plans, or furnishing the means for church building; and we would lay before them such hints as the great interest we feel in the subject, and the attention we have been able to bestow upon it, suggest for remedying prevailing errors and defects. Our people have not yet come to appreciate the highest value of the arts as fully as some of the older European communities, and this is as true of architecture as of the other arts of design. In this department, many sensible good people' are more backward and deficient than in any other kind of improvement pertaining to high civilization. The building of a church is not suf ficiently regarded as a work of art, as related to sublimity or beauty, and putting forth an influence by which those who are accustomed to see it or to worship in it are insensibly af fected, not only in their taste but even in the tone of their religious sentiments. Some persons, we know, are always ready to put aside with contempt, all considerations of this kind connected with religion, as profane fancy or disguised worldliness. The laws of art and the suggestions or influences of association in culti vated minds, pass with such persons for mint and anise and cummin'a sort of scriptural nickname, in their use, for things which they have failed to appreciate, yet are not at liberty to condemn. Be it so, that matters of taste are not among the weightier matters of the law,' yet the smallest things connected with religion ought not to be left uncared for, while the greatest are properly esteemed. Good morals will never flourish the more for the neglect of good manners. If the house of God is left without symmetry or fitness, his spiritual house' will not be the more perfect. The services of the sanctuary, we believe, will be the more acceptable to God, if the sanctuary itself is not suffered to be distasteful to man. Certainly the arts may be made in some way and in some degree, subservient to the doctrines and duties of Christianity. The sense of the beautiful, as a part of our nature, ought to be consulted, cultivated, and turned to the highest account, in the service of pure religion. And we can not think of any ་ instance in which such a connection is more obvious and direct than between architecture and worship. The demands of our nature we hold to be a sufficient argument on this point; but the coldest utilitarian can not deny that an imposing or attractive edifice creates in the minds of the worshipers associations favorable to the effect contemplated, and may alone often bring the undevout within the reach of the more powerful agencies that are at work within. Nor is this influence the less valuable because silent and gradual. If it can not be exactly computed, it is yet observed and felt. We would have good people give it a larger place in their estimates and arrangements. We would encourage and strengthen the alliance between true religion and refined taste, wherever it may be found, and especially between evangelical worship and instruction, and that department of art which lies nearest to them, or the best examples of those architectural forms which they must of necessity employ. And if there are those who will remain indifferent to the attractions of art and the affinities of religious sentiment, we would stimulate such persons on the score of sectarian emulation. Those denominations and those particular societies that are too niggardly or sluggish or prejudiced to make their houses of worship more agreeable or convenient, and will not keep pace with the public mind in this direction, but persist in defying or disregarding the laws of taste, will suffer as they ought to suffer by comparison with others. They will fail to gain adherents, they will lose some they now have, among those whom they would most wish to secure, the youthful part of the community, who inevitably prefer for their innocent satisfaction, if not for their religious edification also, those sanctuaries where they find not only the essentials but the natural aids and embellishments of devotion. This consid eration operates in some instances where every other fails. Again we are disposed to en bad odor when he said, 'Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?' courage rather than to check or dis-This he said not because he cared countenance the liberal expenditure in church building, of which many congregations have, within a few years, given conspicuous examples. Some fears have been expressed on this subject, and occasionally a note of alarm is sounded in the papers, as if the religious community were in danger of ecclesiastical prodigal ity and bankruptcy. We are acquainted with the facts alledged, yet feel no new concern of this sort. The people of the United States are more in danger of making money too fast than of squandering too much, and they are in danger of wasting it in every other way rather than in church building. It is wor thy of observation too, that in the city of New York the most costly enterprises of this kind have sprung up in rapid succession within the last ten or twelve years, the series taking date from the disastrous times of 1835, 6, when fashionable extravagance and overwrought speculation were prostrated, and business itself arrested, for a season; so that the liberality of the wealthy seems to have received a new impulse, and to have been partially diverted by unexpected methods into at least one safe and useful channel, that was before neglected. The objection, that costly churches are not strictly necessary to religious purposes, we can not allow to be of any moment, for reasons implied in what we have said before. It is always sufficient ly answered by pointing to Solomon's temple, with all its divinely ordained splendors, and to the 'pound of ointment,' very costly,' with which Mary anointed the Savior's feet and won his approbation. The most plausible form of the objection is, that the sums lavished in this way might be expended in charity to the poor and to the heathen. But Judas put such reasoning into for the poor, but because he had their house of worship, but such a case is of too rare occurrence to be taken into the account.* We admit also that vanity and the love of display and unhallowed emulation do in fact enter more or less into the motives that actuate congregations in their most liberal expenditures of this kind. But the same thing may be said of their munificence and activity in other forms. If men are compassing a proper end, we would urge them to attempt it in the right spirit and by the right methods, but we would not stop their zealous work because we detect too much alloy in their tools or in themselves. In fine, instead of taking alarm at the large sums of late years lavished in church building in the city of New York, by opulent congregations vieing with one another, we would rather stimulate other cities, and the wealthy parishes in our country generally, to similar enterprises. We can not fear that such enthusiasm will spread too far or burn too deep. We would like to see public spirit, even if it be nothing more, in this and in other forms getting possession of our church-going capitalists and men of business. And even when the rich are profuse in building temples worthy of the Most High for no better reason than to increase the value of their property in the neigh borhood, or from the frivolous love of ostentation, it is only one of many instances in which He makes the selfishness and folly, as well as the wrath' of man to 'praise' him. * We have not fallen on an instance of the kind. Trinity church in New York is not an exception. There has been some croaking about it, but really we know of no way in which that plethoric moneyed corporation could and would relieve itself more creditably than by building incomparably the finest church in our country. If to adorn that city, to regale the eyes of the multitudes of strangers there, and to associate the worship of God with the impressiveness of architectural design,-if all this be worth doing, they ought to be commended, not reproached. VOL. VI. 2 We call the attention of our readers however, to the difference between costliness and good taste in ecclesiastical architecture. Comparatively few congregations can af ford large sums in constructing or improving their houses of worship, and those that have the largest resources are not always the readiest to use them. Our churches must therefore, with few exceptions, be cheap structures. Such must of necessity be the architecture of our country, at least for many years to come. Hence the difference we have named is exceedingly important, and ought to be generally understood. Costliness and good taste are easily distinguished in dress and equipage. The greater the expense, if it be not well bestowed, the worse is the effect. So among private houses, a cottage costing a thousand dollars may please every refined observer more than a mansion that consumed a fortune; one man's barn may strike a discerning eye more than his neighbor's dwelling. Thus too such a church as can be built by the poorest people who can support a minister, may be more satisfactory to an architect or to any person conversant with good models, than some pagoda or other splendid toy which their rich neighbors may task themselves in erecting for the same purpose. The chief question should be, not how much money can be raised, but how can it be used on a house of God with the utmost advantage for these three things-not one of them alone, but all combined-economy, convenience, and beauty. We believe it will be found that this last is not so expensive an article as is generally supposed. Horace Walpole has a remark to this effect, that if a man would make way with a fortune, he need only have a taste,' but it is not true, unless by taste he means only a whimsical capricious fancy. The sense of the beautiful may tempt an individual or a people to extrava gance, but it may be indulged also, and commonly must be if at all, in a plain unexceptionable way. We might confirm our remarks by the testimony of judicious travelers in Europe, and especially in England, who are struck with the picturesque effect of many of the humbler old parish churches, scarcely less than with the magnificence of the most noted cathedrals. Some of our leading architects have of late turned their attention especially to this point, and employed their skill in devising unexpensive plans which our poorer parishes may adopt, and by which we hope our towns and villages will yet be adorned as they have not been before. Let our building committees remember that so far as permanent effect is concerned, the effect of acknowledged beauty, every thing depends on just designs rather than abundant means, and that they may make their new church handsomer than the old one or than most of the surrounding churches, for nothing but the pains, and often at half the cost. It is worthy of consideration that ordinary congregations might in the end build better churches, without tasking their resources too far or incurring too heavy liabilities, if they would take more time for it. The people of this country are too much in the habit of doing a thing at once, whether well or ill, instead of expending their strength, as it accumulates from time to time, on the successive parts of an undertaking, so as to produce in the result a more perfect whole. Congregations seem not to have learned that it is possible, with their present means, to build so much of a church as will accommodate the assembly for a time, and then after a few years, with recruited means, to complete the edifice more satisfactorily than they could have done it immediately. One set of subscribers at once take the work upon their shoulders, instead of reasonably devolving a part of the burden upon other times and persons. Hence they exhaust their resources for a result at best imperfect. For example, if a large church is to be built of stone, and only thirty thousand dollars can be raised, the steeple is made of wood, and when once erected is never replaced by any thing better; whereas if that sum were now expended on the body of the building, in a few years the same people will have the inducement and the ability to complete it in stone, and then the whole work, from the corner-stone to the steeple-top, will be satisfactory and enduring. It was only in this latter way that the most famous churches in Europe were erected, or could have been erected. Some of them are the work of successive generations, and even of successive ages. And among ourselves a house of worship, like the spiritual house within, will often be more perfect in the end if we give it time for growth.* We must take this opportunity to protest against the ambitious and pretending, yet abortive style adopted in some of the new churches. We are not referring to the costly buildings erected within a few years past after European models, most of which fare hard at the hands of traveled critics, who having seen the originals decry the imitations, more however as if vaunting their superior observation than for the sake of encouraging enthusiasm in the art. Ambitious congregations, composed of a certain class in our cities, are in danger of aping foreign models beyond their reach, in church building as in their style of living; yet let them have credit for structures that look well notwithstanding the affectation. But we have now in our eye churches that on the face of them betray the disposition of their builders to attempt The finest church in Connecticut is an example, having been built of stone to the belfry, and some years afterwards completed of the same material. |