Page:Suggestions on the Arrangement and Characteristics of Parish Churches.djvu/34

34 great Christian masters. They had no stereotyped expressions of fixed ideas. The freedom of Christian art is perfectly analogous to the true freedom of opinion and action that exists in the Catholic Church, and nowhere else. As it would be impossible to point out the peculiar characteristics suitable to each locality, I must confine my remarks to the more general characteristics of country Churches, and of town and city Churches.

If a Church be properly arranged, the very simplest architectural features will produce a perfectly ecclesiastical effect. Low walls, of roughly-dressed ashlar work, or rubble masonry, simple lancet windows, boldly-projecting buttresses, high-pitched roof, with gables terminating in crosses, will be as unmistakeably a Church as one of the most finished detail. It is a great mistake to suppose that height is indispensable in Gothic architecture; on the contrary, nearly all old country parish Churches, in the Gothic style, are low. In Churches composed of a simple nave and chancel, the height of the walls may be about equal to the vertical height of the roof. Certainly, this would be an inadequate height, if the pitch of modern roofs was to be the standard; but Gothic roofs are nearly all high, seldom falling much below the equilateral pitch, except in the later examples, when the art began to decline. This great height of the roofs contributes to their own permanency, as well as to that of the building; and, being internally open to view, gives the effect of height to the inside. In aisled Churches the height of the side walls of aisles need seldom exceed from 15 to 20 feet; that height, with the pitch of the aisle roof, will give sufficient altitude to the lateral walls of the nave, even without the intervention of a clerestory: the roof being open, as in the former case, produces a similar effect of height. The walls of a country Church need never be of dressed stone; roughly-hammered