We do not, of course, mean to say, that a beautiful rural church will make all the population about it devotional, any more than that sunshine will banish all gloom; but it is one of the influences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which we are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and bury ourselves like the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns.

To speak out the truth boldly, would be to say that the ugliest church architecture in Christendom, is at this moment to be found in the country towns and villages of the United States. Doubtless, the hatred which originally existed in the minds of Puritan ancestors, against everything that belonged to the Romish Church, including in one general sweep all beauty and all taste, along with all the superstitions and errors of what had become a corrupt system of religion, is the key to the bareness and baldness, and absence of all that is lovely to the eye in the primitive churches of New-England - which are for the most part the type-churches of all America.

But, little by little, this ultra-puritanical spirit is wearing off. Men are not now so blinded by personal feeling against great spiritual wrongs, as to identify forever, all that blessed boon of harmony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make what we call Beauty, with the vices, either real or supposed, of any particular creed. In short, as a people, our eyes are opening to the perception of influences that ate good, healthful and elevating to the soul, in all ages, and all countries- and we separate the vices of men from the laws of order and beauty, by which the universe is governed.

The first step which we have taken to show our emancipation from puritanism in architecture, is that of building our churches with porticoes, in a kind of shabby imitation of Greek temples. This has been the prevailing taste, if it is worthy of that name, of the northern states, for the last fifteen or twenty years. The form of these churches is a parallelogram. A long row of windows, square or round-headed, and out in two by a gallery on the inside; a clumsy portico of Doric or Ionic columns in front, and a cupola upon the top, (usually stuck in the only place where a cupola should never be - that is, directly over the pediment or portico) - such are the chef d'auvres of ecclesiastical architecture, standing, in nine cases out of ten, as the rural churches of the country at large.

New, architecturally, we ought not to consider these, churches at all. And by churches, we mean no narrow sectarian phrase - but a place where Christians worship Gob. Indeed, many of the congregations seem to have felt this, and contented themselves with calling them "meeting-houses,"If they would go a step farthor, and turn them into town-meeting houses - or at least would, in future, only build such edifices for town meetings, or other civil purposes, then the building and its purpose would be in good keeping, one with the other.

Not to appear presumptive and partial in our criticism, let us glance for a moment at the opposite purposes of the Grecian or classical, and the Gothic or pointed styles of architecture - as to what they really mean; - for our readers must not suppose that all architects are men who merely put together certain pretty lines and ornaments, to produce an agreeable effect and please the popular ave

In these two styles, which hare so taken root that they are employed at the present moment, all over Europe and America, there is something more than a mere conventional treatment of doors and windows; - the application of columns in one case, and the introduction of pointed arches in the other. In other words, there is an intrinsic meaning or expression involved in each, which, not to understand, or vaguely to under* stand, is to be working blindly, or striving after something in the dark.

The leading idea of the Greek architecture, then, is in its horizontal lines - the unbroken level of its cornice, which is the "level lins of rationality" In this line, in the regular division of spaces, both of columns and windows, we find the elements of order, law, and human reason, fully and completely expressed. Hence, the fitness of classical architecture for the service of the state, for the town hall, the legislative assembly, the lecture room, for intellectual or scientific debate, and in short, for all civil purposes where the reason of man is supreme. So, on the other hand, the leading idea of Gothic architecture is found in its upward lines - its aspiring tendencies. No weight of long cornices, or flat ceilings, can keep it down; upward, higher and higher, it soars, lifting every thing, even heavy, ponderous stones, poising them in the air in vaulted ceilings, or piling them upwards towards Heaven, in spires, and steeples, and towers, that, in the great cathedrals, almost seem to pierce the sky.

It must be a dull soul that does not catch and feel something of this upward tendency in the vaulted aisles and high, open, pointed roofs of the interior of a fine gothic church, as well as its subdued and mellow light, and its suggestive and beautiful forms: forms too, that are rendered more touching by their associations with christian worship in so many ages, not, like the Greek edifices, by associations with heathen devotees.

Granting that the Gothic cathedral expresses, in its lofty, aspiring lines, the spirit of that true faith and devotion which leads us to look upward, is it possible, in the narrow compass of a village church which costs but a few hundred, or at most, a few thousand dollars, to preserve this idea?

We answer, yes. A drop of water is not the ocean, but it is still a type of the infinite; and a few words of wisdom may not penetrate the understanding so deeply as a great volume by a master of the human heart, but they may work miracles, if fitly spoken. For it is not the magnitude of things that is the measure of their excellence or power; and there is space enough for the architect to awaken devotional feelings, and lead the soul upward, so far as material form can aid in doing this, though in a less degree, in the little chapel that is to hold a few hundred, as in the mighty minster where thousands may assemble.

And the cost too, shall not be greater; that is, if a substantial building is to be erected, and not a flimsy frame of boards and plaster. Indeed, we could quote numberless instances where the sums expended in classical buildings, of false proportions but costly execution,* which can never raise other than emotions of pride in the human heart, would have built beautiful rural churches, which every inhabitant of the

* We have seen with pain, lately, one of those great temple churches erected in a country town on the Hudson, at a cost of $20,000. It looks outside and inside, no more like a church, than does the Custom House. And yet this sum next spring, from this gentleman, who has consecrated 40 years of his life to collect it, a splendid, choice collection, which will make mine the most extensive in America.