ng to the various portions of our churches
and cathedrals, and to endeavour briefly to describe, in language as
simple as the subject will allow, the various styles of ecclesiastical
architecture with their distinctive characteristics in such a way as
will enable the reader to assign each portion and detail of a church to
its respective period with an approximate degree of accuracy.

He does not claim to be original, but endeavours to be useful and
interesting. The best authorities have been consulted and freely drawn
upon, but with the object in view of writing a book at once thus useful
and interesting, no attempt has been made to deal with the subject in a
strictly architectural, or a purely scientific manner.

Weymouth, 1906.

DEDICATION.

To all those who love old buildings--cathedrals, abbeys, and village
churches, which breathe the spirit of an age with which we have entirely
broken--and who would fain hand down to posterity, unmutilated, the
great building achievements of our forefathers, which we, with all our
science, wealth, and means of curtailing labour, can no more imitate
than we can reproduce the language of a Chaucer or a Shakespeare; this
book is respectfully dedicated.

S. H.

"_Firm was their faith, the ancient bands,
The wise of heart in wood and stone,
Who reared with stern and trusting hands
Those dark grey towers of days unknown;
They filled the aisles with many a thought,
They bade each nook some truth recall
The pillared arch its legend brought,
A doctrine came with roof and wall._"
--HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW.

OUR HOMELAND CHURCHES AND HOW TO STUDY THEM.

INTRODUCTION.

However much we may admire, considered purely as art, the Pagan temples
of the Greeks and Romans, we must confess that they are lacking in those
high ideals and those sustained and inspired motives which seem to
penetrate and permeate the buildings and churches of the Christian era.
Perfect as is Greek art within its somewhat narrow limits, it is,
nevertheless, cold, precise and lifeless. The Gothic buildings on the
contrary are pregnant with the very spirit of life.

Prompted by a deep and fervent faith in their religion, the Gothic
builders and sculptors unconsciously wove into the humblest of their
architectural enrichments some portion of their daily life and
personality. The slave-built temples of the Greeks offered no scope for
the exerc