Page:Suggestions on the Arrangement and Characteristics of Parish Churches.djvu/22

Rh and who know what beautiful prayers and ceremonies our Ritual prescribes for their casting and benediction, will naturally desire that they should be properly provided for in the arrangements of a Church. A tower is specially the place for them. It should rise considerably above the highest part of the Church, so that their sound may be quite uninterrupted. This tower should not be used as a staircase to a gallery, nor as an organ-loft. Not as a staircase to a gallery, for the simple reason that there should be no gallery in a Church—a gallery cutting across the nave and aisles of Westminster Abbey would effectually destroy it; not as an organ-loft, because, cooped up in a tower, that noble instrument is less effective than elsewhere.

Then, as to the position of the bell-tower; whenever it is possible, it should be placed at the west end of the nave, because there the lower part—the bells, of course, being always in the upper stage—serves as a most appropriate and commodious porch to the Church, and by prolonging the nave, adds to the interior effect of the building. There is one exception to this general rule—that is, in the case of cruciform Churches, where the most usual, and by far the most beautiful position is the crossing of the transepts, and nave, and chancel. Indeed, this exception may be said to be the rule in cruciform Churches; but there are numerous exceptions to these rules, as, for example, St. Patrick's Cathedral in this city, which is both tripartite and cruciform, and yet the tower is not at the crossing of the transept, nor at the west end of the nave, but stands at the north-west angle of the north aisle. In fact, when there are sufficient reasons for giving up either of these positions—such as want of space at the west