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THE Puritans were a peculiar people,' not only in the sense in which the apostles affirmed as much of Christians generally, because they were among God's own redeemed servants, but according to the sense often imputed to the phrase, as being obviously singular or different from the multitude. It could not have been reasonably expected of men in their situation, that they would be equally judicious in all the particulars about which they were precise and rigid, nor that all their scruples would alike commend themselves to the imitation of their posterity. In some things we can easily see that their very position made them antagonistic, and prone to extremes. It is a fruit of the essential Puritan spirit inherited from the fathers of New England, that their descendants, instead of clinging with blind te nacity to all the traditions received from an ancestry of which they rightly boast, make use of the freedom they obtain from the same source, adapt themselves to their own times, and modify their opinions and usages in some measure according to their opportunities of advancement.

Thus our fathers are known to have differed from the established church of England not only in certain imporVOL. VI.

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tant matters of doctrine, polity and discipline, but in regard to ecclesiastical architecture also; on which subject we believe their real views have been misrepresented and misunderstood, while at the same time we can not adopt them as the model or example of our own. They entertained scruples about names as well as things. Their houses of worship they would not call churches, nor was this name popularized among their descendants in New England even within our memory, if indeed it can be said to be so at this day. But as a part of the British people, yet dissenters from the two national establishments, they were obliged to relinquish a name legally appropriated to the edifices used by those ecclesiastical bodies, just as now in England all houses of worship other than Episcopal, and in Scotland those which are Episcopal, are not called churches, but by way of distinction chapels. Apart from this necessity however, they objected to such an application of the word church, and not without grave reasons. It is not the scriptural name of a place of worship, but rather of a worshiping assembly, a congregation of faithful men,' or of all such congregations collectively considered. And so generally is it used to

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denote the spiritual house,' that when applied to a material edifice it must be expounded by the connection it stands in, and sometimes creates ambiguity. But in rejecting this term the non-conformists were not happy in providing a substitute. They fell upon a compound awkward at best, and doomed to be contracted and corrupted in frequent use into "meetin' 'us." On grave occasions which allow of longer phrases, the difficulty has been obviated by the use of those scriptural expressions which have always been employed more or less among all Christians, the house of God,' the Lord's house,' and the sanctuary.' This last term, or perhaps the word temple, more familiar to us in Jewish than in heathen usage, should have been employed rather than any modern compound, as being at once appropriate, specific, brief and elegant; and either of these terms might have retained a paramount place in those communities where it had been once established. We admit, however, that it was not wise to attempt to displace a name at once sacred and popular among the greater part of all who speak our mother tongue, for no better reasons than its occasional ambiguity and the want of scriptural precedent. To call a house of worship a church, if not scriptural nor entirely unequivocal, is yet emphatically Eng. lish. There are still Congregation alists who from habit or deference to the fathers prefer the awkward compound, and there are religionists of other orders who like to perpetuate it by way of reproach against all Protestant churches except their Own.* For ourselves, when we

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would be brief, we are content to call every place of Christian worship, a church, with or without the consent' of the fathers of New Eng. land, or of their traducers.

But we have more to do now with things than names. Houses of wor ship in New England, as in other parts of this country, are known to have been from the first plain buildings, more remarkable for the good service rendered in them to God and man, than for sumptuous decorations or architectural beauty. As a part of the historical view that ought to be taken of the topic proposed in this article, we would briefly advert to the opinion and practice of the people of New England in early times, or before the present century. As we said before, they have been misrepresented, and misunderstood on this subject. By some they are supposed to have set themselves in prejudice and opposition against the idea of any other church-architecture than such as was absolutely necessary to accommodate an audience within four walls; but this was not true of the Puritans, though it may have been of the Quakers. They did not employ the most costly nor the most substantial materials, nor follow the most approved models of proportion, nor in any way aim chiefly at the most imposing ef fect; but this was a matter of course in a new country, among people who were laying the foundations of new commonwealths, and whose most urgent care was the defense, subsistence and nurture of their chil dren. No people, in such a condition, build stone cathedrals to be wondered at by their posterity. The houses of worship in New England from the earliest period might be favorably compared with structures of the same kind, and of even later

Center meeting-house.'

What have you

been about,' said the other, after the service, calling our church a meeting-house

for it must be one if the other is the cen ter meeting-house.' The dilemma was candidly acknowledged.

date, in the southern colonies, and in the Canadas too, where the prevailing religion, so far as religion prevailed at all, was of a type opposed to Puritanism. When their resources are considered, our fathers are found to have been liberal in expenditures of this sort. They built not only for themselves, but as far as the materials they were able to employ would suffice, for their descendants. Many of the old parish churches, such as stood within the memory of the present generation, and even yet survive, were larger than most of their successors, and constructed of huge beams and rafters, that modern workmen would call a waste of timber. The wood was sometimes brought from a great distance, and selected with care and cost. Hence those structures often lasted longer than many modern brick churches, which have to be taken down before they would fall of themselves on account of some crack in the wall, or because they are 'out of fashion. And it should be observed as honorable to those times, that the house of God was more costly than any private dwelling. The same thing can not be as gen. erally affirmed now. The chief men studied the Old Testament too much to leave any of them content to say, 'I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.'* Yet it is undoubtedly true that the laws of taste in this department were then too little considered or understood. The same care and expense would have been bestowed more wisely, if more regard had been had to approved models either in classic or Gothic architecture. We are willing to admit also, that on this subject their judgment lay under a certain unnatural bias. Having taken an attitude in opposition to the prevailing party in the church of England in regard to more important points,

they were predisposed to differ from them also in opinion and usages on matters of inferior moment, and among other things in the structure and arrangement of houses of worship. There was some need too of innovation and reform in this matter.

The old English churches were not as convenient as they ought to have been for the purposes of worship and instruction. The cathedrals especially were fitted, as in fact they had been designed, for popish rather than Protestant usefor seeing the ceremonies of the Romish church, rather than intelligently worshiping God and hearing his word even according to the usages of the English church since the reformation. Their magnitude and arrangement show them to have been products of the old superstition, since they would never have been demanded for the purposes of a purer faith. The world may well congratulate itself on the possession of such architectural wonders; for ourselves if we were permitted often to see them we could heartily honor the memory of their ancient builders for the pleasure afforded us by those fruits of their mistaken zeal, and we would have more enlightened generations religiously preserve the edifices which we could not justify them for now erecting. At the same time we can not resist the conviction that in these instances costly magnificence was in excess; that the arts of decoration transcended the limits prescribed by the simplicity of the Christian institutions, and that the sublime effect thus sought was disproportioned to other more spiritual and benevolent aims. There was, therefore, as we have said, some need of reform in this matter of church building where a pure and vital Christianity was to be reinstated in the minds of the common people. We acknowledge, however, that many of the Puritans were misled by their position beyond this legitimate design, into lower and

narrower notions. Their antipathy to an ecclesiastical establishment whose usages they properly regarded as still impregnated with too much of the old leaven, and whose tyranny they had felt with righteous indignation, made them jealous even of things accidentally associated with that establishment. Cooper in one of his novels says, that from their anxiety to differ from the communion they had left, they made their church-windows as nearly as possible like those of private houses. Whether this be so or not, some such motive seems to have entered into their architectural arrangements, making them more partial than they would otherwise have been to a style excessively plain, or more properly bald and homely. Proba bly some influence of this kind led them to prefer two and even three rows of small windows to one row of long windows.* Yet on the other hand, they did not run into the theory of the Quakers or the Methodists on this subject. Some of the old churches that stood within the memory of the present generation, and some of which are still standing here and there, besides being built as substantially as the materials would allow, were not destitute of ornament. The pulpits particularly were sometimes adorned with carved work in the form of vines or flowers, or enriched capitals of pilasters, and generally with more panels and mouldings than any part of the best dvvelling-house at that time could show, and being built up solid from the floor and to an unnecessary height, beneath a sounding-board which had more or less work on it too, raade more considerable structures than the modern platform surmounted by a table or fenced in by a balustrade and curtain. And it

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ought to be observed by the good people now engaged in erecting houses of worship, that if through prejudice or lack of judgment, the old fashioned meeting-houses,' as they are called, differed unnecessarily from the English parish churches, yet in one important respect they conformed to those models,- in having the tower rise from the ground, instead of resting on the roof, or partly on the roof and partly on a colonnade, as in many new churches at this day. We have seen old churches spoiled in the best feature they ever had, because the people attempted to improve them, as they imagined, by bringing forward the main building on each side even (or flush,' as carpenters have it) with the front of the tower, thus making the steeple seem to rest on the roof even where it has a better support and ought to show it. But we shall advert to this point again. We have said enough to show that our fathers, down to the present century, when we consider their circumstances, were not so far behind their descendants of the present day in the matter of church building, as is often supposed. Still we acknowledge that here, as in some other things, their judgment was not as comprehensive and liberal as it should have been. In revolting from one extreme they tend ed to another. They did not give the idea of beauty its legitimate place in the arts, nor yet always in the conduct of life. In ecclesiastical architecture it was too far subordi nated to the bare cold notion of utility or convenience. Their error, more excusable in them however, was that of a majority of the people in our own day; and the correction of it will mark the more advanced stages and show one of the ripest fruits of the world's civilization. We hold it to be true, and we would have the truth sacredly regarded, that as in nature, so in human life, and in the arts, utility and beauty

instead of being lawfully divorced are of right joined together, and that the highest perfection of each lies in the harmony of both.

While of late years we see encouraging tokens among all the leading denominations of Christians, of a desire to diversify and improve ecclesiastical architecture, we are obliged to add that in most places there is more of diversity than of improvement, and that so far as the proper effect of the exterior is considered, the new church falls short of the old. We have often wished that some of the long established congregations in New England, had been from the first in a condition to use the most enduring materials for building, that we might sometimes worship God in our holy,' if not 'our beautiful house, where our fathers praised' him. Besides the effect of historical associations, the old house,' with certain slight changes for the sake of convenience, would often have the advantage over the new, in looking more like a place of worship, and less like a court house or academy or factory. Here and there one may still be found, too strong to be easily pulled apart, and too hallowed for the fathers' sakes' to be readily forsaken. The last we looked into with curious interest was in Lexington, Massachusetts, and that (if we are rightly informed) has since been burnt, after witnessing the first bloodshed of the Revolution, and surviving theologi. cal changes scarcely less memorable. Though we saw it in the latter part of the week, on opening the door we found the house redolent of fennel-seed, which as many of our readers may remember, had a fragrance almost as ecclesiastical in the country towns in New Eng. land as frankincense in the Romish churches, though employed to stimulate the senses rather than to becloud the fancy. The pulpit was midway on one side of the building, a tall paneled structure, the up

per part of the center projecting, if we remember rightly, in three sides of a hexagon, with the deacons' seat' below, a single steep heavy staircase at the side, and a little window behind. The chief door was opposite the pulpit, making the side of the house the front, (as an Irish critic might describe it,) and another door at either end, one passing through the tower, where we sup pose the boys stopped every Sunday to understand the mystery of bellringing. The 'seating' was in square pews, left unpainted as they should be, with large and small aisles through which the people who had been accustomed to such passes could find the shortest way from either door. There may have been a sounding board too over the pulpit, for this was once thought almost indispensable, and besides having the authority of old precedent, was of more service than is now imagined.* It might be employed with advantage now wherever the size or shape of a house, or the feebleness of a preacher's voice, makes hearing difficult. At one time another sort of sounding board, not so called, was in use in some places if

"The church of Attercliffe, near Sheffield, (England,) had long been remarkable for the difficulty and indistinctness heard: these defects were completely with which the voice from the pulpit was remedied by the erection of a concave sounding board, having the form resulting from half a revolution of one branch of a

parabola on its axis. It is made of pine wood; its axis is inclined forward to the plane of the floor at an angle of about ten or fifteen degrees; it is elevated so that the speaker's mouth may be in the focus; ed on each side from beneath, so that the and a small curvilinear portion is removview of the preacher from the side galleries may not be intercepted. The effect of this sounding board has been to in

five times what it was before, so that the crease the volume of the sound to nearly voice is now distinctly audible in the remotest parts of the church, and more especially in those places, however distant they may be, which are situated in the prolongation of the axis of the paraboloid."Stuart's Dict. of Archit.