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Tous les autres exemplaires orlginaux sont filmte en commen9ant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression pu d'illustration et en terminant par la dernlAre pa^e qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un dee symboles suivants apparaltra sur la derni«re image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols -^^ signifle "A SUiVRE". le symbols y signifle "FIN". Les cartes, plenches, tabjaaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmte A des taux de reduction diffArents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA. 11 est fllmA A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, an prenant le nombre d'images n^cessalre. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. \ 1 2 - 3 i 4 5 6 <■ A '"»-'-.'*%»' ' I \s V \ / ~/ -^: LECTtiRE ox CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE; OELIVKREO BBFOKR THE HALIFAX CATHOLIC INSTITUTE, 'i BY THK REV. JOSEPH P. ROLES, , 0>J WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY ' 9th, 1859. Nlal Domlnis aedlflcarerlt domum In ranum laborpivenint qui adiloank warn.— Psalm xii. 6. UAUFAX, N. 8. COIIPTOX A5D BOWDEJr, PRIHTRRfl, 1859. /. . J*. I yit V-:-} f *- \ / -^ I I / - .•V , X' c r 'rf- h- CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE. Mr. President, — Tho Catholic Institjitk of this Gty was formed in the hope of exciting and satisfying among the young men of our communion, a taate for information on spiritual, and secular subjects. Popular literature is so anti-Catholic,— prejudice is so flattered by perver- sions of facts and doctrines, 'tliat very few of the-channels by which knowledge is brought to young minds, are left untainted. Authors to live, will misrepresent, if not misunderstand. To provide sour- ces, at which the thirst for knowledge may be slaked, without danger, is our religious, and I hope successful undertaking. There is a subject on which prejudice until lately was stroqg. It is that of the state of the Middle Ages, They in the eyes of nearly 'a writers in the English language, were those dark days durii which vice and ignorance reigned. It was a sufficient proof o7 the absurdity of any doctrine, of the futility of any invention to have existed at any period between «he days of the Reformation, abd |the inundation of Europe by the barbarians, Ttfedirevai in our language, almost meant absurd ; and if later investigations, had not been conducted with more learning, and less prejudice, than characterized many of the writers of the lai^t century, the world would have been imposed upon by, the Chineee charge of barbarism made against days and men, whose characters our age had not understood. But the ruction has taken place. Thfe " dark ages" are now called the ages of faith, not only by mem- bers of the Church, but by men whoh^ eyes prejudice could not bandage. To add to the impuloe of truth, to unburden the "la«y monks" of some of the obloquy incessantly cast ^pon tliem, is a task fit to occupy the leisure of a Priest, and worthy of t he atfeiStionofa'TCrtlidWTnstitule.^ For the charg^ against the ,=rf4- Middle Ages is not founded on vanity alone, its chief aim, is to asperse thecr«ed universal then, and to Attribute to it evils imagi nary, since no real ones of sufficient weight can bo found. I do not wish to disparage our century, so that you may fprm a higher opinion of the past. I believe, in many things, we have fallen upon happier days. But has our progress been other than material ? Has man become better or worse ? Or can we as^rt, that the advance that we have ma'do hi material progress, is not counterbalanced by our retrogression in the esthetic. We have cultivated the arts and sciences in relerence to the wants of the body with great success, but we have not "been so careful of the wants of the soul. In the vast contrast I suggest between the advantages of the present and Middle Ages, I limit myself to one question — I would pluck only one twig from the bundle of prejudice, by giving some notion of the rise, progrees, and decline of Gothic or "Christian Architecture," leaving you to decide if a period which had attained such excellence in one art, could have been so ignorant and vicious as detractors assert. The believer in the gross ignorance of the Mbnks of the Middle Ages, should read the researches of Antiquarians and Architects into the pecularities of the Gothic Monaateries and Abbeys. The • Scriptorium isaccording to popular prejudicea place of veVy little utility. But that it was the scene of much active and intelligent labor, we discover in the numerous copies of Christian and Pagan literature, in the illuminated Missals and Psalters, in the preser- vation and innumerable repetitions of the words of sacred Cfcrip- ture, and in the ponderous tomes of scholastio learning. The architectural arrangements of conventual buildings were in accor- dance with the necessities of a community bound together by vow» and aims peculiar to Christian monlra. The chapel was first in prominenoe and beauty, around which clustered the walls of the^other buHdings. The cloister, the pbvce of recreation during some hours^meditation during others. The monks at works at the walls of Abbeys are strange types of indolence. The Vene- rable Bede deliveripg as his last words to his amanuensis, his com- mentary on the Psalms, not an unfavorable symbol of the igno- l a o g g of itoe Bwnastie order^c . -.-.- 1 It^ Disraeli thinks that the " tjeautiful is dead." He excepts Mneic, in which ho recognizes still some life. According to his decision, we can no longer create, nor appreciate any thing sublime. Piigin has attempted to corroborate the assertion of our Chan- cellor of the Exchequer jw far as Architecture is concerned, by^a comparison between the structures of the nineteenth, and those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is oinVinced that the feelings are wanting in our architects to attain the ex- cellence exhibited in the works of the "old designers," ", Yes, it was the faith, zeal, and above all, the unity of our ancttitors that enabled thm to conceive, and raise those wonderfftl fabrics that still remain to excite our wonder and admifation."* In the first ages of the Church, subject to the persecutions of the Pagan Emperors, all public wprshipwas impossible. (In the crypts and aitaeombs, were the divine mysteries celebrated with any freedom. The rough altars were the tombs of the martyrs. Their relics are not absent from our altars even in our day. And the lights now burned during the itoly Sacrifice, or carried byoureecleeiasticsin procession, were then riot only used as type«, but theneceesities of the places into which persecution h\d driven the followers of Christ. But when peace was restored, and when Paganism receded before the light of the cross, the Forums, and other public buildings, (BnsataM), given by the authorities to the* Christian priesthood, 8erve<^gftehurche8, and even perpetuated the name of Basilica, in those erected aft^r^vards, and influenced iheir form an I arrangements, n the Church of S. Clement at Rome, we have a palpable wuocnir of that period, of transition from persecution under the Empire to toleration,- when Christianity was no longer obligSd to conceal the sublimity of her rites; and her creed and her morality, were about to complete over Paganism the victory feommenced by miracles and sufferings. Under Constantina the Byzantine style of Architecture came in«6 vogue, arizing out of the modifications introduced by Chrig- . tian« into the form of tH^ Basilica. Transepts were constructed ao that with the nave the> might form the ground plan m the shape of a c^. S. Sophia in Constan tino^ is a type of the / •* #■ ' Pugln. * -A ' X •J\-:: aJj ..i ^i ^A'lhl ^• 6 B^aantino order. It ww. a fusion of droek, Win und Orientul styles, into wliich Christianity had thrOwn some elements. Butot length cam^the inundation of the Barbarians-men with- out any.of the arts appertaining to civilisation. After the first fit df destruction had passed aw«y, and tjie natural desire to build actu- ated them, they satisfied it in absurd imitations'of the Roman and Greek buildings thejr had sphred or ruined. Yet prior tjy'the thirteenth century, the influence of pilgrimages to the Easfmust have made an impression on. the minds of the Clergy and Monks as we can trace i^ the buildings they have erect^ faint copKsof the beauties of the Oriental an^ Byzantine styles. We dis- trnguish three periods in the Byzantine order, Ist, from its introduc- tion m the fifth century until the eleventh ; 2nd, frofii the eleventh ' until the twemh, and lastly, from the beginning until the end of the twelfth century. _ The twelfth century is an important era in the history of Europe. The long connection and struggle between the Empire and the Priesthood is brought to a close. Peter the Hermit, and his assistants have stirred up among the knlghte of Christendom an enthusiasm, the influence of which is not confined to the campa-gns - m the Holy Und. For to the long pilgrimages and Vjourns of , Ucrkiiand Knights in the East is attributable the impulse remark- : able in the Architecture of the thirteenth century. Then the Ogival or. Gothic Arch appear^ ;' and other pecula'rities give to the buildings of this period a character which distinguishes them entirely from those which preceded; And " it woi»W seem that the immense' movement of souls represented by S. Dominick, S Francis and S. Lewis could have no other expression than in those gigantic Cathedrals which would appear to carry up to Heaven on the tope of their spires and towers, the universal hommage of the love and faith of Christians. The vast Basilicas of the prece- ding centuries appeared to them, to6 heavy,4oo naked, too empty for the new emotions of their piety and love, and the fervor of their faitlt. In the Architecture of the thirteenth century, instiid of spreading out vast roofs to shelter the faithful, every thing darta upwards. .*he horiiontal line disappears gradually, the tendencv upwards has blotted it out."* — * Montalemlwrt -- -.^.--^ ' ■' ^ / »<-4-. "v". < \ / / The poculiaritioe of the Gothic Architecture are due to the in fluencesof C^riatianity-faith^rafting'on the prevailing stylee .t« .mpre«. - ThaCruaaders too. who had eurviv.od their ?oJLt^ ' X S^ '''*** ''"' par^onaWe pride of trnvellers added th6 in- forAatioTthey had obtained. The round arch Beciwpe point d in in»tation.of the archertound. in &r»cenio erectionB, and the fan tracery and sculpturing of the 13th century, were the roproduc- tions-u^der Christian handi^f the Arabesque^ The assertion that It was to the Crusaders we owe the introduction of the pointed arch is sustained by the facts that it existed in the Moor ish possessions at the period of the Crusades-is still found in Mosques in Syria and India, whose erection dates from a period anterior to the 12th century-is noticed simulteneously with the return of the Crusades^-and buildings begun in the ordinary style of the time, have been finished with the pecularities of the Gothic, in a martner' too abrupt to adm^ of the probability of a ,^ gradual transition from onefltyle-to another. The thirteenth century was favostible to the triumph of a Chris tian order of Arahiteoture. It was an a^e of self-doniil and faith -Its spirit manifested itself In the enduring monuments which it has bestowed^ the world. The CathoJid Church relying on the promise of her divine founder, would build no temporary shelter ' for her children ; " it was this pious feeling that induced the ecole- si a batter draught." Itcomee down with too many recollections of Bishops, p„e8t8 and Monke.-with dre.»m8 of c.nsers Booking * ''f,^,*^""'"«' ^'^'^ -^ ^o'^ of ^""hip too old to easily coincide with the modern forms of prayer in which faith is congeal^, rhe Beauty of the Gothic Architecture, is in the ezpreJion of -eaveniy hope, and ft^th it symbolizei^in its perfect application to fhe ntes of those who built, and the devotion that it e.eited and fostered in the hearts of those who sought spiritual aid in the htfuse of prayer. In the thirteen century Christian Architecture has freed itself from the trammels of the rounded arch. Strength is not the only a.m of those who build-without detracting from it. eleganceand harmony a radded. Religion speaks in the very walls, the ^ Stones of Rome arise," and preach the old - Sur-um corda " In all the countries from which the crusaders had gone forth, the «ame emulation is visible in different forms, and those who had given i.p their lives for the defence of Christ's Sepulchre, refused not their means to decorate their temple in which he continually resides. Jho pecuanties of the architecture of this period were chiefly in the pointed arch, (preferable to the Roman in eleganceapd strength.) in the enlargement of the nave, and in the occasional construction of Bide aisles which were prolonged in a semicircle round the choir Side chapels, dedicated to different Saints were superadded to the prolongation of the aisles, and at their junction, an extension wa. made and arranged as - Our Lady's" chapel. The ground plan 18 of coursecruciform. The ceiling is decorated with fan tracery- -or the oakrafter^ carved with much tasteand skill, serve as orna- ment and support to the roof. The columns to afford an appear- ance of lightness are clustered, and the capitals encircled with vme or oak leaves in grace or in propriety surpass the meaning- ess figure and leaves of the Ionic or Corinthian. Trefoil and lancet window, are introduced, and Westminster Abbey presents the first specimen of the latter contribution to Gothic taste. But eipendod The front usually has three entrances, which oorr*. pund to the nave and aisl^. Statues, symbols, figures carved with J"*"'* f S^, wrtH l d Buggert-^ davational sphit^t^r thoBfa ,faoat---" X ■< to enter. The largest entrance is divided by a column usually sustaining a statue. This disposition symbolizes the two roads which man may choose— that «f virtue or sin. And to further im- press the necessity of a proper choice, the last judgment is carved round the portal. The /acarfe is Jatiked by two towers of equal or unequal dimensions, and in the 13th century— their lightness and height become remarkable. EveajAcces^ory to an architectu- ral style was iliidergoing some modifi^^n. Cornices, buttresses, roses, windows, are finished in a manner becoming the rest of of the building, and all contain so^e lesson. In their symme- try, some mystery or doctrine is silently inculcated. But this century is celebrated for the perfection attained by sculptors. The stiffness discernible in the statues of the 12th century has faded away into a graceful expression. The attitudes are easy, and a sentiment of religion breathes through the works of the artisl^j. In every way we must consider this period as the epoch when Christian Architecture attained its excellence. It exhibited more harmony, greater elevation, and severity than at later periods. Christian symbolism attained its height ; simplicity of design had not yet been disguised by excess of ornamentation, and the use of stained glass on the windows assisted in preserving " Religious twilight," and deepening that {,;^jre8pect for the temple which the Catholic Church has always taught. Devotion loves not the < 'garish light." To diminish the incon- venient glare, to invest the church with a gloom favorable to sublime and pious reflections, and to instruct, were the aims which guided the artists who worked in glass. The Romans may have invented the art. The Italians may have preserved it, but to the monks of the Gothio period, its perfection cannot but be attributed. And with all the meohanioal skill we have acquired, and with our very enlarged ex^ienoe of chemical operations, we can produce nothing to compete with their saooess. If the difiB- eultiea in glass staining and painting be well known and con- sidered by us, we could form some copoeption of the skill, patience and means expended even on minor details of the enclMJawti flal __ buildings. Neat the end of the fifteen omtary, the perfection of s-rl . 10 / thfl mechanical process of glass staining detracted somewhat from* the general effect. The same declension is seen as in the architec- ture itself. ,The colors are admirably given ; the design chaste and graceful, yet the result at some distance, where the beauty of detail is not appreciable is less striking and quaint than in windows on which not so much skill in the workmanship had been expended, but whore the miemble had been more held in con- sideration. The interior arrangements of the Gothic Church correspond to our creed. The Altar where the Iloly Sacrifice is offered is the most conspicuous. and most ornamented spot within. The reredos carved, jewelled, and decorated with statues, carries the attention there. The chancel rail seperates the Clergy from ^he Laity, and the Baptisterium at the entrance teaches that baptisih is the door by which we enter the fold of Christ. But why all those types, carvings, and figures? ktter to have them sold and given to the poor, re-echoes this modem age to the voice of the purse keeper of old ; forgetting that printing ha^ opened to us a source of information to which those who lived in the middle ages could not resort. Bibles then were not procur able by even the wealthy. A whole life-time was occupied in transcribing one copy, the purchase of which was a matter of greater importance than that of an estate. To teach faith and impress it by the senses was the task of the Clergy who built the monuments of the thirteenth century, and if we have been re- lieved by modero invention from some of the sad necessity which they overcame, we have no reason to find fault with the means the^dopted, because chance has favored us with better And is not the wish to receive instruction through symbols and types natural ? Did not the Saviour of Man Himself adopt that mode of teaching and touching hearts? Shall any one who reads with respect the story of the cure of the blind man in the Gospd sneer at the trefoil type, the rose of our '« Lady's Chapel," th^ (ixthus) of the catacombs, and those numerous tvpes which antiquity and ptety consecrate. From some of the names of the monuments erected during the J'"'*^°*fa ««"*"?. we may wt ima te jfa a rchi to ctuial ^oeBeaer— ^ / 11 and the enormous outlay and skill expended. Salisbury Cathe- dral, York Minster, and Westminster Abl)ey, are the most con- spicuous buildings of the period in England. In France the Church dedicated to " Notre Dame" at Paris, the Cathedrals of Amiens and Strasbourg, and those of Burgos and Toledo, in Spain, were begun and^'most of them complete at the same time. The masons joined in secret confraternities, passed from city to city, and transmitted orally the knowledge of their trade to those who replaced or succeeded them ; and the monks — the architeete — were sent irom one part of Europe to another to assist and direct the construction of any edifice undertakpn by their order. The means for carrying on the works were provided from the resources with which piety had endowed the Churches and monas- teries, and by the donations of the faithful. Even Princes and grandees did not think themselves degraded by personally assist- ing in the labor. In the Masonic confraternities, banded fur the construction of Mediseval buildings, we perceive the germs of those Societies, which, swerving from the purpose and faith of their first institutions, have since come under the ban of the Church. Their declension though was gradual, and it was not until long afterwards on the Rhine any opposition and improper secrecy were observed. Many ancient chronicles speak highly of the fervor, generosity, and energy of the members of those Con- Iraternitics. Of their skill the proofs are more visible. The names of the architects have never reached us. Sunk in the obscurity of religious life, they worked and designed only for the knowledge of II im who rewards in secret. The monastic vow blots out individualism, and is the only approach to the common fusion of love, hope, thoughts, faith and genius, after which the Socialists have sighed in vain. But one English name comes down through all the secrecy under which clerical architects wished to conceal themselves — the name of William of Wykeham. As a bishop, as Lord High Chancellor,- and as a protector of science, he is little known in comparison with the reputation he has acquired as archi^t of mluiy of the monu- men tg erect ed in En gland during the thirteenth century, and na the generous founder of the juQ^itutions he planned iLnd perfected. i ., ..J 12 Oxford, in the college he founded, still i« grateful for his efforts, and nounshesrmong her students respect for his memory, and • I " ^" '^"g"«tf "onage some few^ears past, came from beneath the roof of Windsor Castle to utter his hope and conviction that l!-ngland bad an insuperable objection to a celibate clergy, surelv some recollection of the Bishop of Winchester must haveliitted be fore his mind. That one of theorder he depreciated by the expres- sion had been the architect of Windsor Cattle, should have been a delicate reason to suppress a sentiment not so true as popular and rather unjust to those to whom they who lived in medieval palaces and abbeys, owe not a little. The fourteenth century expanded the resources of the ih f r teen th. There may be some graceful additions, but no radical cbange in the style. The muUions are more ornamented and curved from the middle. The unusual amount of decoration perceptible round the windows seems to date from the introduction of hood mouldings, and in the wish to fill up the space between them and . he window. The rose, too., in the transepts, and occasionally in the facade, « much more comnion at least in England than in the thirteenth century. But the success which attended the efforts to perfect glass staining renders^the Ecclesiastical building of the fourtenth century remarkable. Whatever antiquity may be admitted to the art, the deepening of the shades, the Correctness of the design, the ease of the drapery, reached their perfection at this period. , A singular species of symbolism dates from this time. The fact that the Church typifies Heaven, led the artist to look upon the externa walls as the abodau>f the fallen spirits, and to plant upon the buttresses or;5omioes grotesque figures and faces, repreeentinir dev. 8. under whose traits malice had an opportunity of perpetuat- ing the image of an enemy. Satire of an anti-clerical kind fre- qaently then wrote in stone. But apart from this species, there « less symbolism than in the thirteenth century, and the sculp- torschiMl IS more occupied, on subjects of a traditional, or Biblical nature. The life of the Gothic An,hitectare near the end of the \. .f.C.ai'itiJt. L.,i \ 13 During the fifteenth century the decline has come. Eltremes meet. The beauties of the thirteenth culminated in the four- teenth century. The fifteenth with its caprices, and introductions of noTclties will bring the style into disrepute. A profound reajler of history asserts that three centuries form the duration of the existence of anything which is not in itself divine. Dynasties, heresies, m9de8, all crumble away. Man's ener- gy may produce effects after his death — may stimulate his follow- ers, force them to carry on, or perfect the work which the brevity of life refused him permission to io. But the decay of time over- taken all, and three centuries are as much as it can permit Ruman '^ institutions. The Gothic Architecture did not longer resist tho \ influence of the destroyer. But the decline was gradual, religious enthusiasm did not die out at once — the artists had not lost their taste and skill, but the sentiment of piety which first sanctified and adorned the efforts had fled. Besides, the fervor of the thir- teenth and fourteenth centuries had so well provided for the con- gregationsand communities which used the churches, that designers were too frequently occupied in. repairing and ornamenting what their ancestors had built, and thus became too habituated to dis- pute superiority in the execution of details. I have divided the history of the Gothic Architecture into three centuries. Of course you are aware that the same progress vnis not made every where during the same time. Nor are the pecu- liarities I have marked out as belonging to certain peri(|ds, not found elsewhere, in buildings of later or earlier dates, i But I have said enpugh to divest you of any prejudice against those cen- turies on charges of the stolid ignorance which fall from the lips of those whose reading is too shallow to appreciate things and days, considered dark, because they are profound. But with the Reformation comes (i neW order of Iconoclasts. Men who loved not the glory of God's house, who are scandalized at anything beautiful, whose pious acts are in mutilating statu^ and breaking stained glass. — in their eyes celibacy is sinful, de- corum in. rites pride, and veneration to saints and holy things idolatry. Men too, who love not persecution for righteousness sako, and who carry from one wA of Europe off to the other, the \,'- (i.it4iiSiJu«fij!jSsfe5(W»i.V.i ^:. ">"'"«»*.■. . •+ / 1/ w , -.-i . ^^^^oilot religious strife. Sudden termination to the works of Goth.c designers and workmen. Monasteries and convenU, are coveted by and become the properties of laymen. In England the satellites of kings receive their reward in conventual bnildings and lands. In Germany, and other places the people divide the spoils. In France, the wars of the Huguenots and the League find other occupations for the monks save building. In nearly all the countries in which the Ogival style prevailed, a commotion not Boon to be forgotten in history, renders architectural deeds impossible. ^^ But -if. the efforts of the first Reformers did not fortunatelj arre. the progress of civilization, it turned it« course in another direction. The style of architecture consecrated in the Roman and Grecian temples to false divinities was the one select^ for the buildings of the new era. The writings of Vitruvius and the works of the Italian artiste instituted a new order of the Re^iai,. »anc« as a substitute for the Christian order, that had died out Nevertheless, the Gothic still influenced somewhat. But «. ,t gra- dually sunk into disrepute, a vile spirit of imitation of Grecian and Roman monumente took ito place. As the nations ab.indoned foster^ in the cultivation of those arte which it Let us glance at the extent of Europe over which the Gothic was in vogue To wherever the Crusaders returned (except Italy) there the Gothic prevailed. In England Ito monumente are numerous and extensive. Jhe comparative peace which the English enjoyed -the riches which they possessed, and the generosity of their Kmgs, enabled them to obey the religious impulse with more frMom than w,« afforded the inhabitante of other countries. The fury of the Vandals under Henry VHI. and Edward VI. and of the Puritans during the Commonwealth, confined their attacks to windows, altars stotues, Ac., and spared the buildings. Scot- S '. n'^''*"^ bear evidence to her energy an^ former ftith.andall Cromwell's destructive forces in Ireland could not blRc^te the mark, of the structures which adorned the •• Wand of Sainte. In the northern parte of France, the Gothic monu- mente are very numerous. The material i, of -a betty kind, and ^ ^ "15 *, ia more suaceptible of carving and preserves its color longer than the stone used in Great Britain ; and the injuries inflicted by tHe ■wars of the Huguenots, and the rage of the first Revolution hav« been repaired by a nation vrhose taste is seldom at fault. In Ger- many the Gothic vras successfully studied and acted upon. The Cathedral of Cologne is perhaps the finest specimen of the art, although the Spaniard claims for Burgos superiority. In Italy alone, Gothic architecture made no progress. We may find the reasons in th6 climate and clear atmosphere— the latter acts as a better back ground, to largo massive buildings, than to the lofty pinnacles and irregular formation of the medioevel pile*. Besides the Italian pride, naturally selected those orders indige- nous to its soil, and would not prefer ultramontane noveltieslo the old rules sanctified by time. Milan Cathedral is in the Gothic order, but its designers and builders were probably French. Shall I speak of the Renaissance of C}iristian Architecture— that movement in our age so different from that in which the Gothic obtained its emminence? Scarcely a Church has been built lately without imitating the pecularities of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries. Pugin and his disciples in Ecclesiastical struc- tures, and Barry and his, in civil. buildings, would ,fain bring again to our minds the recollections of the "wondrous fabrics" — of the past, and piscina, reredos, and chancel, have bepome house- hold words in the language of persons who disbelieve the article* of»faith with which these things were in connection. But one or two men cannot struggle against theif time. To build well and to buil)^ cheaply, are not compatible aims. However we may re- spect, it is to be regretted we are notable to imitate, with any ap- proach to the beauty of the model. Yet one man on our continent has not lost faith in Catholic energy, skill and generosity. The Archbishop of New York is emulous of the feme of William of Wykeham, and in the midst of the commercial and worldly popu- lation of the great city, over whoso church he rules, purposes to raise a Cathedral fit to vie in size, beauty and decoration, with any of those of which France is so justly proud. He has a great problem to solve. Th u» brkEy have I presMited to the member* of our institutej^ ^-- -■<^i\^t,l. 16 ZI^TT *° ''""^^ "^"""'^ Architecture." I hare repeated the remark that - the beautiful is dead." yet round th! ru.ns of the Gothic still lingers that antique bk^u"; which 1 fingers of decay have in a peculiar manner Lighten J and n he op.es of h, old Cathedrals and Abbeys which^ur mc^lern Irdi that the Church shall renew it. youth like un eagle. To Pugin and h. dzscples i. due the opening of a new path i Christ s-foW in theapprecmtion of the monumenta of mediLal times " lectionrr r r ^r* ^™ ^ *'•' ^""^'^ ^«^^«' ^^^-^ t^c recd. su 'e of "rt' r "',' '" "^* "^^*^ *^« ^- «f th-t pica: sure of which his exile deprived him, communings with the pl'Og waUs of monastery or abbey? Who will deny thS 2t/T:TZ'r' largely, influenced the d^tlnilTf our "ame ! If^f *' '""' '" ^'^^*«^-''' *« --ho the^ m h.s Indmn campa.gns and struggles, Warren Hastings was riZ T ''■ '^^'^P" ''''' '"^ «"«- -"^^ -^le ^- " TZn bi TT" '^ *'' ^'"^^ "^"^ ^"^ ^'« —tors had not b^n able to retain. .« The old Abbey which may be mine no more, wntes Byron. Does not every Catholic sympathize with the grief of the poet? Oh! those old AbLys, minster, Lrteril' and convents, are ours no more. Their altars are o erthrown - their niches are statueless-their clergy and tenants do nola; preciate " the glories we have lost " ^ u«f sS," "'•" ^Ti' J"'' *'"•' "°* «'g"« '' "^'^ l^^W out to thatdav Ir t'n""""^'^'"SS^« '° the expectation of that day. when we shall re-enter into the possession oVour own and when the Medieval buildings shall be no longer studi^I; - ^.qu^^rians and Architects, or empty shelters for"! religi ^t^ I