ence.

propriety of a union between the Church and State. What they mean by these avowals we must learn from their own language and not from our own pre-conceived opinions on the subject. "We hold it," says Dr. Chalmers, "to be the duty of governments to give of their substance and means for the maintenance of religion in the land. We hold that every department of the government should be leavened with Christianity, and every functionary in it, from the highest to the lowest, should be under its influWe are the advocates for a national recognition and national support of religion." It may be proper first to inquire how the doctrine thus expressed differs from that which prevails among ourselves. All admit that the government should be leavened with Christianity, and all that its functionaries should be under its influence. All admit that there should be a national recognition of religion, as in fact there is in our own constitution, in a multitude of our laws and institutions, in the often repeated acts of our chief magistrates, and in the decisions of our judges, declaring Christianity to be a part of the law of the land. But have we any provision by the state for the support of religion? To a certain extent we still have, and formerly we had to a much greater extent. It is the almost universal opinion in this country, that there should be common schools supported by the state or by the law of the land, and that religion should be taught in such schools. The good old plan of having a teacher sustained at public expense, and the people allowed to determine what, and to what extent, religion should be inculcated, has indeed been denounced and opposed by the infidel and irreligious part of the community, but as far as we know it has never been condemned by Christians. Our Scottish brethren, as we understand the matter, go one step further. They apply to preachers the principle which we apply to teachers. They say that the state should make provision, not only for schoolmasters who teach religion, but for ministers, and allow the people, the church, to determine what ministers they shall have, what form of government and worship they shall adopt. what doctrines they shall hear. For various reasons, we do not think this the best plan; we greatly prefer that on which the church has so long and so prosperously acted in our country, and on which it acted for three hundred years after Christ. But will any man say that the difference between our Scottish brethren and ourselves,

as to this point, is so great, as to give a shadow of reason for withholding from them our full and cordial co-operation? Considering how many vital truths we hold in common, considering that they are suffering for the very principles of religious liberty, of which we are so constantly boasting, it does appear to us unaccountable that the mere fact that they apply to preachers the principle which we recognise in its application to teachers, should be regarded as a breaking point, by the strictest conscience. We cannot believe that those public bodies, and those newspaper writers, who have washed their hands so carefully from all stain in this matter, would have felt the necessity of such scrupulous exactness, had they really perceived how small is the difference between our Scottish brethren and ourselves. In this country, the very phrase "church and state" is enough to frighten us from our propriety. We conjure up in our imaginations not only the abuses of a lordly hierarchy, but all the horrors of papal cruelty and oppression. But how long is it since all union between church and state ceased in New England? Is it not evident that every thing depends on the terms of that union? And if for nearly two centuries it operated without serious evil in New England, it may not be so dreadful, when professed as an abstract principle, by brethren who are suffering the loss of all things, because they refuse to submit to such union on terms inconsistent with the spiritual liberties of the people.

We rejoice to believe that there is very little of this spirit of suspicion and spiritual prudery in our churches on this subject. The resolutions of many of our synods, the general tone of our religious papers, the spirit of the various meetings, some of them composed of members of several different religious denominations, which have expressed their views in relation to this matter, encourage us to hope that the expected delegation from the Free Church of Scotland, will be received by the free churches of America, as brothers of the same family, children of the same Father, servants of the same Lord; men, with regard to whom it will be said, in the last day, Inasmuch as ye did it unto these my brethren, ye did it unto me.

At the close of this article, it may be proper to say, in explanation of our silence with respect to the Second Assembly of the Free Church in October last, that we have not yet been able to procure a full continuous report of its proceedings, and not being willing to rely upon partial inci

dental statements, we have thought it best to confine ourselves at present to the occurrences in May, reserving those of later date to be the subject, if we find it necessary, of a deliberate review hereafter.

ART. VI.-1. Remarks on English Churches, and on the expediency of rendering Sepulchral Memorials subservient to pious and Christian uses. By J. H. Markland, F. R. S. and S. A. Third edition, enlarged. Oxford. 1843. pp. 274.

2. A Glossary of Terms used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic Architecture. The third edition, enlarged. Exemplified by 700 wood cuts. Oxford. 2 vols. 8vo. 3. Anglican Church Architecture, with some remarks on Ecclesiastical Furniture. By James Barr, Architect. Second edition. Oxford. 1843. pp. 216, 12mo.

THESE works are among the fruits of the increased interest which has been felt, within a few years, in the Architecture of the Middle Ages. The singular fate which the Gothic Architecture has undergone would warrant the inference that it gives expression to no general and permanent truth, were we not in a condition to account satisfactorily for the mutations to which it has been subject. Appearing in the early part of the twelfth century, it gave such a distinct and full utterance to some general sentiment of the age, that it spread at once over the whole of Christian Europe. So rapid was its transmission through Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and England, that it remains to this day, a matter of doubt where it originated, the most laborious and minute researches having failed to establish clearly a priority of date for the structures of any one of these countries.

Prior to the introduction of this style, there was no prevalent style of church architecture. The Roman architecture, in the course of its protracted dissolution, had assumed, in the East, the form of what has been termed the Byzantine style; in Italy and Germany it had degenerated into the Lombard, and in England into the Norman style. The churches erected in these several countries prior to the

twelfth century, involved no common principle. Indeed that which chiefly marks them all is the entire want of any principle. There was no other general likeness among them than what arose from a certain resemblance in the details, and from the entire absence of any general idea by which these details might be blended into unity. The church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, the duomo of Pisa, and the Durham Cathedral may be taken as the representatives of the Byzantine, the Lombard, and the Norman styles; and if these buildings be compared together it will be found that, although they resemble each other in the use of the semicircular arch as the principle of support and some other Roman elements, and hence may be classed together under the general term Romanesque, they are nevertheless exceedingly unlike in their general effect. Though they all employed substantially the same elements of construction, the round arch supported by columns fashioned in their proportions and ornaments after the classical architecture, pilasters cornices and entablatures borrowed from the remains of Roman art, openings in the wall whether for doors or windows that were small, comparatively few in number and subordinate to the wall, vaulted ceilings, and domes; yet as these constructive elements were subject to no law, bound together by no one principle which assigned to each its place and function, and formed them into one organic whole, it was inevitable that they should be mingled together in different combinations and proportions according to the capricious fancy of each builder. Hence each country had, with some general resemblance to others, its own peculiar style of building; and no one style was capable of transcending provincial limits, and giving law to the world, because no one rested upon any general principle of beauty

or truth.

No sooner however did the Gothic Architecture appear than it diffused itself through all lands where Christian churches were built. This rapid and universal diffusion, however it may be historically accounted for, must find its ultimate explanation in the palpable truth of this style of architecture. Instead of being like the styles which preceeded it, an aggregation of materials and forms of construction, associated and arranged upon no higher principle than that of building a commodious, shapely and convenient edifice, the Gothic style was a connected and organic whole, possessed of a vital principle which rejected every thing that

was heterogeneous, and assimilated all that it embraced. Hence its power and its popularity.

After prevailing for a period of about three centuries this style was displaced by the revived classical architecture of the Italian school. Then came the days in which such men as Sir Henry Wotton stigmatized the glorious fanes which had been erected in this style as Gothic or barbarous, and Evelyn condemned it as a "certain fantastical and licentious mode of building," and the son and biographer of Sir Christopher Wren sneered at the inimitable ceiling of Henry VIIth's Chapel, as "lace and other cut work, and crinkle crankle." The architecture nick-named the Gothic and ever since designated by that term, was then despised and cast out as whimsical, lawless and absurd, and men began to build after a fashion that was deemed the method of the ancients. This classical Architecture had its consummation as in the cathedrals of St. Paul's at London, and St. Peter's at Rome. It is distinguished, even beyond the Romanesque architecture, by the want of any general principle of unity. The Greek pediment or something which was intended to imitate that chief and crowning feature of the Greek temple, together with columnar ordinances fitted to receive and sustain vertical thrusts, is found in connection with round arches, domes, vaulted ceilings, cupolas and spires. That this style was capable, in the hands of such men as Sir Christopher Wren, and Michael Angelo, of producing an imposing interior effect by the expansive dome hung high over head, and by the picturesque combination of the other interior elements of an immense structure, we have sufficient evidence in St. Paul's and St. Peter's; but that it was utterly incapable of producing the higher effects. of architectural excellence will be equally evident to any one who will take the several parts of either of those structures and attempt to establish the relation of unity between them. This attempt will inevitably lead to the conclusion that the different parts of the building have no mutual bond of coherence. They are held together by the law of gravitation, they are cemented by mortar, but there are no mutual relations which make them coalesce. The effects which they produce, are due, in chief part, to the purely sensuous phenomena of immense magnitude, and picturesqueness of combination and arrangement. The moment that we attempt to discover that unity without which no work of art can fill and satisfy the mind, we find only discrepancies and contradictions.