Page:Suggestions on the Arrangement and Characteristics of Parish Churches.djvu/11

11 Fig. 4.

and deficiency of individuality and religious character in our modern Churches.

The opposite of all this, both in principle and practice, prevailed in the middle ages, and with results as splendid as those of our departure from them are miserable. The true requirements of a Church were then so well known that a Church builder could no more overlook them than a modern architect could neglect to provide for the wants and comforts of a family in designing a private house. There were certain principles which appear to have obtained universal acceptance amongst all professors of ecclesiastical art—such as solidity, or, as it has been termed, “reality” of construction; the prohibition of features, which were essential to construction in one place, in places where