new organization, which cannot make appeals to passions so strong, or interests so large and direct as those that were appealed to by the old league. In Ireland they are face to face with a coercion code that renders fierce agitation impossible, and there cannot, therefore, be a repetition of those dramatic episodes, fierce conflicts, imprisonment, and all those other exciting events which do so much to sustain a popular agitation. They have strong and dangerous enemies, within and without. On the one side, appeals will be made to a consistency and monotony of moderation that would be just as fatal, and in many circumstances, just as irrational, as a monotony of violence; on the other side, vague demands will be made by restless, or self-seeking, or thoughtless counsellors, for the adoption of wild and impracticable courses. To steer between these two extremes will not be easy; it will not be easy to avoid, at the same time, the dry-rot of inaction, and the mortal fever of irrational action; to escape at the same time from the Scylla of Whiggery, and the Charybdis of uncalculating violence. But the Irish party should look with confidence to three great weapons of defence. First, they should ask the honest and sympathetic appreciation of the Irish race at home and abroad; second, they should never dread being rational; and, third, they should stand loyally and immovably by the leadership of Mr. Parnell. Up to the present, we have every reason to believe that our countrymen will be at least just to us, and that secures to us the first bulwark of our position. Secondly, the bitter warnings we have received against pliancy to noise and unreason ought to secure every Irish representative in the future against the dread of speaking out sense to the people. And, finally, the leadership of Mr. Parnell still stands on foundations as firm as the position of any leader of men at the present hour. On this last point let the last words of this article be spoken. The importance of Mr. Parnell to the Irish cause can be fully appreciated, perhaps, by those only who are a little behind the scenes. I have no hesitation, nor has any one of my colleagues in whose judgment the Irish people have confidence any hesitation, in saying that he is the only man whose personal qualities are a secure guarantee for the continued union of the Irish members. Able as are many of the men around him, he is the only one whose superiority is acknowledged without question and without grudge. To the people outside he gives the rallying-cry, by a trusted, a single, and a comprehensive name; and history has been studied in vain by every one who does not know that in political struggles political forces are enormously strengthened by the embodiment of principles in an individual leader. The suggestion that Mr. Parnell's position can be assailed

and weakened without injury to the Irish cause is as rational as the supposition that French soldiers fought as well under Bazaine as under the first Napoleon, or that an arch can stand when the keystone is removed.

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

ITS DIFFICULTIES, ITS FAULTS, ITS NEEDS, AND THE REMEDY.

N its accomplishments and in its possibilities architecture parHad it been limited to the needs of mere utility, it would not have attained a high position among the arts. Had its aim been to meet only the common wants of man, it would never have become a noble art. Neither imperial palaces nor other civic buildings of great cities could have supplied the motive needed for sublime effort. In all ages, if not among all nations, religion has been the fitting and only true incentive; and, because of religion architecture has reared its grandest and most successful works. Religion caused uncivilized races, despite the rudeness of their arts, to form for the worship of their gods something worthy of admiration; it incited the early Egyptians to build temples which awaken our awe; it made the earliest Hindoos carve out of the natural rock, with slow, painful labor, elaborately ornamented buildings; it induced the Greeks to rear beautiful structures and the Romans to raise stately edifices; and it constructed for Christian Europe the lofty, decorative cathedrals, which are the noblest material works of impassioned genius. The highest aspiration of man is the worship of a Supreme Being; and, in obedience to that aspiration, man has created architectural works stupendous and sublime. Temples, synagogues, churches, and cathedrals are the tributes of finite beings. to an Infinite Being; and, in their nature such tributes ought to have honest work and to avoid baleful sham.

Architecture has been defined "the art of ornamental and ornamented construction." The definition is logical, and not merely convenient; for a building may have an ornamental construction without being ornamented, or it may be ornamented without having an ornamental construction. In a Greek temple, the proportions

of length to breadth and of height to length and breadth, the arrangement of the porticoes, and the disposition of the peristyle belong to ornamental construction. In a Gothic cathedral, the

ornamental construction is the proportion of length to breadth, the projection of the transepts, the different heights of the nave and of the aisles, and the disposition and the proportion of the towers. Even without ornament, an ornamental construction is beautiful. A building may be as devoid of ornament as a granary; but if the disposition of parts be good, as in the case of the older English abbeys, it is always pleasing, and, when large, it is imposing as an architectural work. When elegant ornament that is appropriate is added to an ornamental construction, the building takes rank with the great works of architecture. In a house for worship ornament without ornamental construction is a degrading deceit. The art which produces it is bad and has a bad effect upon the worshipers. When discovered, hypocrisy excites our disgust and causes a revulsion of feeling. Deceit in construction or in ornament is a lie in stone, in metal, in wood, in putty, or in plaster; but it is a hurtful lie, which is sure to be discovered and sure to excite contempt.

The principles of good architecture are not arbitrary; but they are the outgrowth of the study of means to an end. If they demand exact proportions, special materials for special purposes, and suitable treatment for the materials, these demands cannot be neglected without insecurity, without risk, and without deceit. At first sight, non-professional Americans may not know the difference between good and bad proportions, between stone and plaster which is made to look like stone, between marble and wood which is painted to look like marble; but after a while they will feel the difference, and in the end will suffer from the sham, if not from the peril of weak, fire-inviting roof or walls and the flame-food of putty ornament. The effect of bad, unworthy work is quicker and greater upon foreigners, even of the emigrant classes, who, being accustomed to the honest work of older countries, know the difference in stability and are hurt by the gairish deceptions of construction and of material. If sham be justifiable in churches erected to a God, why may not shams in our houses, in our furniture, and in our dress be defended? The preacher may decry sham and its vanity; but it must be with little effect if his pulpit, his altar, and his building be dishonest work and made to seem better than they are.

The quick increase of population in our large cities has necessarily multiplied churches of all creeds. Cathedrals are happily of slow growth, and consequently are likely to be relatively well constructed; but smaller churches spring up like fungi, though, unfor

tunately, not as well suited for their ends. Pretentious plans make bad work. A church ought not to try to rival a cathedral; yet rivalry, vain imitation, and lack of both means and purpose make many of the churches glittering, insecure, unholy shams. The money that is wasted in spoiling European Gothic models would be sufficient to erect substantial symmetrical buildings worthy of their purpose; and yet the pointed style, the noblest order of architecture and the best outcome of Catholic influence, is improperly blamed for these bad, dishonoring counterfeits. The Gothic style. has been sadly influenced by the modern Renaissance, which is at debased ornate style. True art never inclines to over-decoration. The hankering fondness for the ornate, or over-decorated, modern Gothic, which is by no means the best Gothic, has been the cause of much useless extravagance and of much dishonest work. In a new country new churches are needed; but it is not wise that every congregation should attempt a vast and lofty building. The propriety of ecclesiastical architecture requires that the churches should be as great as the means of those erecting them will permit; but the spirit of Christian architecture is imperious in its proper demand that there shall be no deception, no trickery. A building that is a trick and a lie might be used for a shop, for a theatre, or for a music hall; but it ought not to be used for the worship of a truth-loving God. Architectural lies in wood, in plaster, or in putty are not in the end cheap anywhere; but in churches they are as expensive as they are opposed to the spirit of religion.

Hurry is an evil of the country; and the hurry of church building makes dishonoring and expensive work. Before the cost is known, even to the architect, some churches are finished. If the plans and the designs be properly selected, the cost can be determined before the work is begun; and the style of building which honesty ought to choose need not exceed the means of the congregation. It is as wrong for a congregation to attempt too much in a church as it is for a man to build a dwelling-house beyond his means. Unless for a stated case, it is impossible to tell what is "too much." A church's future, it is thought, is longer and better than that of a private building, and thus justifies a proportionately greater risk; but in the common practice of "discounting the future," the prospective income of a new church in the United States seems likely to be rather extravagantly than properly computed. For any congregation that undoubtedly is too much which would entail an oppressive debt; but how difficult it is to determine correctly the prospective income, the corroding, hopeless debts of some expensive churches proclaim. A church ought to be better, more beautiful, and grander than a dwelling-house;

and it may be such, and the cost need not exceed the means, if the style be appropriate, and the construction and ornamentation be honestly simple. So great is the hurry to build, however, that churches are undertaken when the money is not sure; and long delays, deaths or removals of principals, and a dangerous system of obtaining money by mortgages make bad work and increase the cost beyond wisdom, propriety, or usefulness. Obtaining money by mortgage is often a method opposed to true economy. The borrower soon learns that the greater the cost of the proposed building the greater the amount which may be borrowed thereon; and this fact commonly becomes a strong temptation to incur greater expense. Before the church is begun the cost might be known and limited, with the results of honest appropriate construction and a building free from trick, free from sham, and, perhaps, free from debt.

The architect is not by profession a capitalist, and he cannot furnish both plans and means. He plans and builds as required and when required; but he never is a principal. Misplaced economy often reduces his pay to a gross amount which is insufficient to secure his proper supervision of the work. If a percentage be allowed, it is often so unwisely small that it is only natural that he should not be pained by an increase in the cost of the church. The parsimony which denies proper pay to the architect is fatal. If poverty prick him he has to consent, though he may respect his art, to many a change and many a deceit which he knows to be unworthy and in the end costly. In order to satisfy the principal's or the building committee's demand to make the greatest show for the money to be expended, he is often compelled to do what he knows is not good or right. The counterfeits and the tricks which he is thus forced to adopt may sorrowfully disgust him; and, in some cases, do drive him from the profession, when happily he has other means of a livelihood.

The so-called economy which does not seek to know or to limit the cost of the proposed church, yet which pinches the architect, grows bolder and more reckless as the walls become higher; and tricky, dangerous, but always showy, subterfuges are adopted in the vain hope of saving money. The imitation which "looks just as well" as the real is not truly cheap, even if it were not unworthy in a church; but, in the pseudo-classical styles, we find plaster columns and pilasters, plaster architraves, plaster friezes, plaster cornices, plaster balusters, and plaster sills; and in the Gothic, plaster columns, plaster arches, wooden columns with plaster capitals supporting plaster arches, plaster vaults, plaster ribs, plaster cusps, and plaster crockets are everywhere used. Inasmuch as they need the same designing by the architect as though they were