he open church
offers opportunities not afforded at home. Sacred associations and
objects greatly aid thought and devotion; and in the quiet church,
where there is so much to {16} remind of God and sacred things, and so
little of the world and of sin, we can think and pray better than
elsewhere. It has been found a very helpful thing in the Christian
life to form the habit of stopping in the church, whenever in its
neighborhood, for a few moments of prayer, and to use it also as a
place of refuge in time of trial and temptation.

{17}

_Symbolism of the Church Building_

"As soon as the early Christians were at liberty to build churches
according to their own mind, they took pains to make them significant
of their religion. Probably at first the Christians took for the
purposes of their worship such buildings as they could get, adapting
them to their uses as best they might. But when they grew strong
enough and independent enough to build as the heart and imagination
dictated, then they showed themselves careful to make their houses of
God in shape and dimension suggestive of what they believed." These
old builders were Churchmen, and made their Churchmanship and their
belief felt in their work. A deep and true symbolism was carried out
in the plan and construction of their {18} churches. Thus Christian
churches at an early day came to be built in the form of a cross. This
was not only the most ornamental form of structure; it was much more:
it made the very fabric of the church the symbol of our faith in Christ
crucified. Some chancels of old churches were even built with a slight
deflection from the line of direction of the nave, thus representing
the inclination of our Saviour's head upon the Cross. It made also the
gathering together of each congregation of His Church--which is His
mystical Body--the symbol of that body itself: that part in the nave
representing His body, that in the transepts His outstretched arms,
that in the choir His head. And so, also, "the united prayers and
praises of the congregation make, as it were, in their very sound the
sign of the Cross."

This plan of constructive symbolism affects not only the fabric of the
church as a whole, but each separate part of the church has its
religious character and meaning.

Let us linger for a moment on the outside. The spire points upward and
teaches its lesson of aspiration. "Lift up your hearts," it seems to
say, and holds up