cted by his wisdom;
where the poor are not driven to a few back seats in the gallery; where
the meeting is cheerful and refreshing, where all are stimulated to
duties. It must not be dark, damp, and gloomy, where it is necessary to
light the gas on a foggy day, and where one must be within ten feet of
the preacher to see the play of his features. Take away facilities for
hearing and even for seeing the preacher, and the vitality of a
Protestant service is destroyed, and the end for which the people
assemble is utterly defeated. Moreover, you destroy the sacred purposes
of a church if you make it so expensive that the poor cannot get
sittings. Nothing is so dull, depressing, funereal, as a church occupied
only by prosperous pew-holders, who come together to show their faces
and prove their respectability, rather than to join in the paeans of
redemption, or to learn humiliating lessons of worldly power before the
altar of Omnipotence. To the poor the gospel is preached; and it is ever
the common people who hear most gladly gospel truth. Ah, who are the
common people? I fancy we are all common people when we are sick, or in
bereavement, or in adversity, or when we come to die. But if advancing
society, based on material wealth and epicurean pleasure, demands
churches for the rich and churches for the poor,--if the lines of
society must be drawn somewhere,--let those architects be employed who
understand, at least, the first principles of their art. I do not mean
those who learn to draw pictures in the back room of a studio, but
conscientious men, if you cannot find sensible men. And let the pulpit
itself be situated where the people can hear the speaker easily, without
straining their eyes and ears. Then only will the speaker's voice ring
and kindle and inspire those who come together to hear God Almighty's
message; then only will he be truly eloquent and successful, since then
only does his own electricity permeate the whole mass; then only can he
be effective, and escape the humiliation of being only a part of a vain
show, where his words are disregarded and his strength is wasted in the
echoes of vaults and recesses copied from the gloomy though beautiful
monuments of ages which can never, never again return, any more than can
"the granite image worship of the Egyptians, the oracles of Dodona, or
the bulls of the Mediaeval popes."

AUTHORITIES.

Fergusson's History of Architecture; Durand's Parallels; Eastlake's
Gothi