Page:Suggestions on the Arrangement and Characteristics of Parish Churches.djvu/12

Rh

they could merely serve for effect; the subserviency of all ornament to essentials; and the speciality of treatment required by each material. We must add to these a familiarity—which, probably, extended to the simplest artificers—with symbolic and conventional representations of sacred subjects. Obeying these requirements, and adhering to the generally-received principles and conventionalities, the artists of those times were, in all other respects, as free as the most liberal professors of their art in our day, as the immense number and variety of their works, all based on the same original ideas, sufficiently prove. Of the thousands of Churches erected under the influence of this system there is not one which does not bear indelibly stamped upon it its Christian character and origin, or that could be mistaken by any person possessing but a very moderate knowledge of ecclesiastical history and antiquities, and of the Catholic Ritual, for anything but a Christian Church. Be these buildings large or small, plain or elaborately decorated, of rude structure and coarse materials, or of nicest scientific construction and finest