SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
There is no interruption in the world, however futile and apparently perverse, which we may not address ourselves to meetwith a spirit of patience and condescension borrowed from our Master; and to have made a step in advance in conforming to the mind of Christ will be quite as great a gain (probably a far greater) than if we had been engaged in our pursuit. For, after all, we may betoointent upon our business, or rather intent in a wrong way. The radical fault of our nature, be it remembered, is self-will; and we little suspect how largely self-will and self-pleasing may be at the bottom of plans and pursuits, which still have God’s glory and the furtherance of his service for their professed end.
Reader, the path which we have indicated is the path not of sanctity only, but of peace also. We shall never serve God with a quiet mind, unless we more or less tread in this path. It is a miserable thing to be the sport and prey of interruptions; it wastes the energies of the human spirit, and excites fretfulness, and so leads us into temptation, as it is written, “Fret not thyself, else thou shalt be moved to do evil.” But suppose the mind to be well grounded in the truth that God’s foresight and fore-arrangement embrace all which seems to us an interruption—that in this interruption lies awaiting us a good work in which it is part of his eternal counsel that we should walk, or a good frame of mind which he wishes us to cultivate; then we are forearmed against surprises and contradictions; we have formed an alchemy which converts each unforeseen anduntoward occurrence into gold; and the balm of peace distills upon our heart, even though we be disappointed of the end which we had proposed to ourselves. For which is better, safer, sweeter—to walk in the works which God hath before ordained, or to walk in the way of our own hearts and in the sight of our eyes?
Ah, reader! let us seek to grasp the true notion of Providence, for in it there is peace and deep repose of soul. Life has often been compared to a drama. Now, in a good drama there is one plot, variously evolved by incidents of different kinds, which until the last act present entanglement and confusion. Vice has its temporary triumphs, virtue its temporary depressions. What of that? You know it will come right in the end. You know there is an organizing mind which unfolds the story, and that the poet will certainly bring the whole to a climax by the ultimate indication of righteousness and the doing of poetical justice upon malefactors. To this end every shifting of the scene, every movement of the actors, every by-plot and underplot is made to contribute. Wheel within wheel is working together toward this result. Well, life is God’s great drama. It was thought out and composed in the Eternal Mind before the mountains were brought forth, or even the earth and the world were made. In time God made a theater for it, called the earth; and now the great drama is being acted thereon. It is on a gigantic scale—this drama. The scenes are shifting every hour. One set of characters drops off the stage, and new ones come on to play much the same part as the first, only in new dresses. There seem to be entanglements, perplexities, interruptions, confusions, contradictions without end; but you may be sure there is one ruling thought, one master design, to which all these are subordinate. Every incident, every character, however apparently adverse, contributes to work out that ruling thought. Think you that the Divine Dramatist will leave anything out of the scope of his plot? Nay, the circumference of that plot embraces within its vast sweep every incident which time ever brought to birth.
Thou knowest that the mind which organized this drama is Wisdom. Thou knowest more; thou knowest that it is Love. Then of its ending grandly, wisely, nobly, lovingly, infinitely well for them who love God, there can be no doubt. But remember you are an actor in it; not a puppet worked by wires, but an actor. It is yours to study the plot as it unfolds itself, to throw yourself into it intelligently, warmly, zealously. Be sure to learn your part well, and to recite it manfully. Be not clamorous for another or more dignified character than that which is allotted you—be it your sole aim to conspire with the Author, and to subserve his grand and wise conception.
Thus shall you cease from your own wisdom. Thus shall you find peace in submitting yourself to the wisdom which is of God, and thus, finally, shall he pronounce you a good and faithful servant, and summon you to enter into the joy of your Lord.
Now here comes out another point of holy policy in the combat with temptations. It is wise, especially when they are at their height, never to look them full in the face. To consider their suggestions, to debate with them, to fight it out with them inch by inch in a listed field, is, generally speaking, a sure way to fail. Turn the mind to Christ at the first assault, and keep it fixed there with pertinacity, until this tyranny be overpast. Consider him, if thou wilt, after the picture here presented to us. Think of him as one who walked amidst temptations without ever being submerged by them, as of one who by his grace can enable his followers to do the same. Think of him as calm, serene, firm, majestic, amidst the most furious agitations and turbulences of nature, and as one who can endue thy heart with a similar steadfastness. Think of him as interceding for his Church on the Mount of Glory, as watching them while they toil in rowing against the adverse influences which beset them round about upon the sea of life, as descending on the wings of love to their relief. Think of him as standing close by thee in thy immediate neighborhood, with a hand outstretched for thy support as soon as ever thou lookest toward him. Remember thatit is not you who are to conquer, but he who is to conquer in you; and accordingly, “even as the eyes of servants wait upon the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of the maiden upon the hand of her mistress, even so let your eyes wait upon him, until he have mercy upon you.” No man ever fell in this attitude of expectant faith; he falls because he allows himself to look at the temptation, to be fascinated by its attractiveness, or terrified by its strength. One of the greatest sermons in our language is on the expulsive power of a new affection, and the principle laid down in that sermon admits of application to the circumstances of which we are speaking. There can be, of course, no temptation without a certain correspondence of the inner man with the immediate occasion of the trial. Now, do you desire to weaken this correspondence, to cut it off and make it cease? Fill the mind and heart with another affection, and let it be the affection for Christ crucified. Thus will the energies of the soul, which will not suffice for two strong actions at the same time, be drawn off into another quarter; and beside, the great enemy, seeing that his assaults only provoke you to a continuous exercise of faith, will soon lay down his arms, and you shall know experimentally the truth of those words, “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” There can be no doubt that this counsel of looking only upon Christ in the hour of temptation will be most needed (if our conscience and mind be spared us to the end), in the critical hour when flesh and heart are failing, and when Satan for the last time is permitted to assault our faith. We can well imagine that in that hour doubts will be busily instilled of Christ’s love and power, suggestions of our own unfaithfulness to him in times past and questions as to whether he will now receive us. The soul will then possibly be scared by terrors, as the disciples in the boat were scared with the thoughts of a phantom, and will tremble in apprehension of being thrust out from the frail bark of the body into the darkness, uncertainty, insecurity of the new and untried element. If such should be the experience of any one who reads these pages, let him take with him this one counsel of safety, to look only to Christ, and to perish, if he perishes, at his feet; let us refuse to look in any other quarter, let us steadily turn away our eyes from the doubts, the painful recollection, the alarming anticipations which the enemy is instilling. We are not proposing to be saved on the ground of any righteousness in ourselves, or in any other way than by free grace, as undone sinners; then let these words be the motto of the tempest-tossed soul: “My soul hangeth upon thee; thy right hand hath upholden me;” ay, and let it be the mottonow, in hours when lesser trials assault us. Let us make proof even now of the invincibility of the shield of faith, that we may bring it forth in that hour with greater confidence in its power to shield us. And the hand of an infinite love shall uphold us in the last, as it has done in previous ordeals, and the prayer shall be answered, which we have offered so often over the grave of departed friends:
“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Savior, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death to fall from thee.” “My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
Never lower your principles to the world’s standard. Never let sin, however popular it may be, have any sanction or countenance from you, even by a smile. The manly confession of Christ, when his cause is unpopular, is made by himself thecondition of his confessing us before men. If people find out that we are earnestly religious, as they soon will, if the light is shining, let us make them heartily welcome to the intelligence, and allow them to talk and criticise as much as they please. And then, again, in order that the lights may shine without obstruction, in order that it may easily transpire what we are, we must be simple, and study simplicity. This is by no means so easy as it at first sight appears; for in this highly artificial and pretentious age all society is overlaid with numerous affectations. Detest affectation, as the contrary of truth, and as hypocrisy on a small scale; and allow yourself freely to be seen by those around you in your true colors. There is an affectation of indifference to all things, and of a lack of general sensibility, which is becoming very prevalent in this age, and which is the sworn foe to all simplicity of character. The persons who labor under this moral disorder pretend to have lost their freshness of interest in every thing; for them, as they would have it believed, there is no surprise and no enthusiasm. Without assuming that they are really the unimpressionable creatures which they would make themselves out to be, we may warn them that the wilful dissembling of a generous emotion is the way to suppress it. As Christians, we must eschew untruth in every form; we must labor to seem just what we are, neither better nor worse. To be true to God and to the thought of his presence all day long, and to let self occupy as little as possible of our thoughts; to care much for his approval, and comparatively little for the impression we are making on others; to feed the inward light with oil, and then freely to allow it to shine; this is the great secret of edification. May he indoctrinate us into it, and dispose and enable us to illustrate it in our practice.
See now, tempted soul, whether this consideration, applied to your own case, may not somewhat lighten thy burden. You are beset by distractions in prayer and meditation. Well, distractions are no sin; nay, if struggled against patiently and cheerfully, they shall be a jewel in thy crown. Did you go through with the religious exercise as well as you could, not willingly harboring the distraction or consenting to it? In this case the prayer was quite as acceptable as if it had been accompanied with those high-flown feelings of fervor and sensible delight which God sometimes gives and sometimes, for our better discipline and humiliation, withholds. Nay, may we not say, that it was much more acceptable? Do not the Scriptures give us reason to think that prayer, persevering amidst difficulties and humiliations, prayer clinging close to Christ, despite his rebuffs,ismore acceptable than the prayer which has its way smooth before it, and whose wings are filled by the favoring gale? What else are we to learn from the acceptance of Bartimæus’s petition, who cried so much the more when the multitude rebuked him that he should hold his peace? What else from the commendation and recompense of the Syro-Phœnician’s faith? Wouldst thou know the avenue to the Savior’s heart, when thou art driven from his footstool by manifold discouragements, by deadness, numbness, insensibility—and he himself seems to cover himself with a cloud, so that thy prayer may not pass through? Confess thyself a dog, and plead for such crumbs as are the dog’s allowed and recognized portion. Call to mind the many times when thou hast turned a deaf ear to Christ’s expostulations with thee through thy conscience. Reflect that thou hast deserved nothing but repulses, and to have thy drafts upon him dishonored; and yet cling to his sacred feet, while thou sinkest low before him, resolving not to let him go except he bless thee; and this act of humility and perseverance shall make thy lame and halting prayer far more acceptable to the Divine Majesty than if it sailed to heaven with all the fluency of conscious inspiration, like Balaam’s prophecy of old, which was prefaced, unhappy soul, by the assertion of his gifts.
The remedy, and under God’s grace the only remedy, whether in solitude or in company, is to “watch”—to “guard,” as far as in us lies, “the first springs of thought and will.” Let us pray and strive for the habit of challenging our sentiments, and making them give up their passport; eyeing them wistfully when they apply for admittance, and seeking to unmask those which have a questionable appearance.…
It will be found that all the more grievous falls of the tempted soul come from this—that the keeping of the heart has been neglected, that the evil has not been nipped in the bud. We have allowed matters to advance to a question of conduct—“shall I say this, or not say it?” “Do this, or not do it?” Whereas the stand should be made higher up and the ground disputed in the inner man. As if the mere restraint upon outward conduct, without the homage of the heart to God’s law, could avail us aught, or be anything else than an offensive hypocrisy in the eyes of the Heart-searcher! As if Balaam’s refraining from the malediction of the lips, while his heart was going after his covetousness, could be acceptable to the Almighty! Balaam, being an inspired and divinely-commissioned man,darednot disobey; for he knew too well what would be the result of such an abuse of his supernatural gifts. But we, if, like Balaam, we have allowed to evil a free range over our hearts,are sure to disobey when it comes to a question of conduct, not being restrained by the fear of miraculous punishment, which alone held him back. There is therefore no safety for us except in taking our stand at the avenues of the will, and rejecting at once every questionable impulse. And this, it is obvious, can not be done without watchfulness and self-recollection—without a continual bearing in mind where, and what we are, and that we have a treasure in our keeping, of which our foes seek to rob us. Endeavor to make your heart a little sanctuary, in which you may continually realize the presence of God, and from which unhallowed thoughts, and even vain thoughts must carefully be excluded.
We do not know just when this term Gothic was first applied to the kind of architecture it is used to designate. It was probably intended to indicate something rude or barbaric in its features, but not that the Goths themselves invented or practiced it. That uncultured, warlike race knew little or nothing of architecture; but when, in the twelfth century, there arose in the north countries of Europe a new style of the art, those in the east and south, meaning to charge it with want of refinement, called it Gothic. There is not now the slightest reproach in the term, but rather the contrary. It won high, and for a time almost universal appreciation among all lovers of art. If, as compared with what went before, it is in a sense rude and wild, these very qualities command respect and admiration. It became the favorite architecture of the fourteenth century, reaching its highest state of development about the first of the fifteenth.
We can but imperfectly note the changes that took place in this style during its prevalence in England and other countries, for it had nearly the same phases in many lands, though not quite simultaneously. Changes were constantly made, both in language and architecture, that were not radical or destructive. As the change from the rude Anglo-Saxon forms of speech to the polished periods of Addison did not destroy the language, neither did the progress and improvement of this style of architecture change its identity.
Its characteristic features were maintained throughout. Some or all of these, “boldness, naturalness, grotesqueness and redundancy,” are evident in every stage, quite enough to vindicate its claim to be Gothic. Many years before the Roman emperors had introduced into Europe something like a universal architecture. The buildings of every Roman colony bore a strong resemblance to those of every other colony and of the metropolis. They were, in general, heavy in appearance, simple in structure, and had all their arches semi-circular.
Just what led to a change so marked and general it is perhaps impossible to tell. It was an age of much religious zeal; not always according to knowledge. In England, France, Germany, Lombardy, and South Italy many costly churches were demanded. A keen rivalry existed among the builders of these churches; each must be larger and finer than previous examples; and the details grew more elaborate. Architects of ability applied themselves diligently. Difficulties of construction that had seemed insuperable were overcome. The pointed arch was adopted, not only as more beautiful, but because it could be successfully used in important situations where the other was found impracticable. Whatever was lacking in religious society of the age, grand and liberal ideas were entertained as to the size and cost of churches; and architects had ample encouragement to do their best. And they did, both in designing new, and remodeling old buildings.
Mr. Smith says: “At the beginning of the twelfth century many local peculiarities—some due to accident, some to the quality of the building materials, and some to other causes, began to make their appearance in the buildings in various parts of Europe; and through the whole Gothic period they were met with; still the points of similarity were greater and more numerous than the differences. So, when we have gone through the course which the style ran in one country where it prevailed, we have a general outline of the whole, and may omit to speak particularly of them all without serious loss. On some grounds France would be the most suitable to select for the purpose, as the new order appeared earlier and had a more brilliant course in that country than in any other. But the balance of advantage lies in selection of Great Britain. The various phases the art has passed through in that country are well marked; and even the American student, who can not visit the country, may acquire some helpful information through engravings and photographs, that are happily quite common.”
By far the most important specimens of Gothic architecture are the cathedrals and large churches. They are more complete as works of art than any other structures, and in all respects fit examples of pointed architecture.
The ground plan of the Peterborough Cathedral is especially simple; give a competent builder the order he is to follow, and he will need no picture, the plan tells him the whole.
Cathedrals are all similarly located as to the points of compass, and the principal entrance is in the west end. The one mentioned is about five times as long as it is wide. The wall is relieved by a large transept, the east wall of which begins about one third the distance from the east end. This gives the building the form of a cross. The part from the west end to the crossing of the transept is called the nave. The ends of the transept extend about one-third of the width of the building. The nave is flanked by avenues on each side, narrower and lower than itself, called aisles. They are separated from it by a row of columns or piers, connected by arches. Thus the nave has an arcade on each side, and each aisle has an arcade on one side, and the outer wall pierced by windows on the other. The strong arches of the arcade carry the walls that rise above the roofs of the aisles. These walls are usually divided internally into two stories. The lower story consists of a series of smaller arches, forming a second arcade, called the triforium, that opens into the dark space above the ceiling of the aisles, and is hence called the blind story.
The upper story has a range of windows, giving light to the nave, and is called the clere-story. Thus a spectator standing in the nave and looking toward either side, will see before him the main arcade and side windows, above the arcade the triforium, and above this the clere-story, beautifully illuminated and crowned with the nave, vault or roof. The great size and height give sublimity to the sight. The east arm of a cathedral is that to which most importance is attached, and has greater richness and more elaborate finish.
When the termination is semi-circular or polygonal it is called an apse or apsidal east end. Attached to some of the side walls it is usual to have a series of chapels, partially shut off from the main building, yet of easy access.
Tombs and enclosures connected with them, called chantry chapels, are met in various positions, especially in the eastern arm. Below the raised floor of the choir there is a subterranean vaulted structure called the crypt.
Passing to the exterior, the principal doorway is in the west front, deeply recessed, and elaborate in design. There are also doors in both ends of the transept, and one or more side entrances. In a complete cathedral the grand architectural effect is principally due to the towers with which it is adorned, the most massive standing at the crossing of the transept.
To cathedrals and abbey-churches a group of monastic buildings was attached; sometimes very expensive and in the best style of the art. The most important of these is the Chapter House, which is frequently lofty and highly ornamented. The extent and arrangement of the monastic buildings adjoining the cloister vary with the needs of the different order of monks. The monk’s dormitory was on the east side of the great cloister, the refectory and kitchen on the south, and on the west the great cellar, and a hospitum for the entertainment of guests.
The house for the abbot, the infirmary, the school building for novices, with its chapel, and more remotely the granaries, mills, bake-houses, offices, garden, cemetery—taken all together, a monastery shows an extensive group of buildings well arranged for the purposes intended.
Some military and domestic buildings are also of great interest. In those centuries dwellings of much consequence were all more or less fortified. Some were built with a lofty square tower, called a “keep,” and capable of standing an assault or a siege. The number and character of the buildings in the enclosure around the keep of course depended on the ability of the proprietor. The outer buildings of the Tower of London, though much modernized, give a good idea of what a first-class castle grew, by successive additions, to be. In those erected near the close of the thirteenth century, the square tower was abandoned, and better provision made for the comfort and convenience of the occupants.
Warwick Castle might be cited as a good example of an English castelated mansion, of the time of Richard II. But still more interesting is Haddon Hall, the residence of the Duke of Rutland, in Derbyshire. It consists of two internal quadrangles separated by the great hall, with its dais, its minstrel’s gallery, its vast open fire-place, and its traceried windows. Probably nowhere in England can the growth of domestic architecture be better studied, whether we look to the alterations which took place in arrangement, or to changes in the treatment of windows, battlements, doorways, and other features, than at Haddon Hall.
English Gothic architecture has generally been divided into three periods: The Early, the Decorated, and the Perpendicular. The following condensed list of the peculiarities of each period will be found useful for reference. Early English: General proportions more slender, and height of walls and columns greater; arches pointed, generally lancet, often richly moulded; triforium and arcades often with trifoiled heads. Piers were more slender, composed of a central shaft surrounded by several smaller ones almost or quite detached; capitals concave in outline, moulded or carved with conventionalfoliage, delicately executed. The windows were at first long, narrow, and deeply splayed internally, the glass being within a few inches of the outer face of the wall; later in style more acute, divided by mullions, enriched with cuspated circles in the head, and often with three or more lights—the center lights being the highest. Doorways were deeply recessed, enriched with slender shafts and elaborate mouldings. Buttresses were about equal in projection to their width, with but one set off, or without any. The mouldings were bold and deeply undercut.
In the Decorative style the proportions were less lofty, the arches mostly enclosing an equilateral triangle; mouldings bold, finely proportioned, and often ornamented with ball, flower, foliage of ivy, oak, and vine leaves, the execution being natural and beautiful.
The Perpendicular or Tudor style had walls profusely decorated with paintings, parapets embattled, and paneled; open timber roofs of moderate pitch, but of elaborate construction, having hammer beams, the moulded timbers often richly ornamented with pierced tracery, and carved figures of angels.
Ornamental materials of all kinds, such as mosaic, enamel, metal-work, and inlays were freely employed; but the crowning invention of Gothic artists, which contributed largely to the architectural effect of their finest buildings, wasstained glass. So much of the old glass has perished, and so much of the new is not even passable, that this praise may seem extravagant to those who have never seen any of the best specimens that still exist. In the choir at Canterbury there is a remnant of the best glass in England, and some good fragments remain at Westminster, but to judge of glass at its best, the student must visit La Sainte Chapelle, of Paris, or the cathedrals at Chartres, Bourges or Rheims, when effects in colors are gorgeous in their richness, brilliancy and harmony. Fresco painting may claim a sort of brightness, and mosaics, when executed in polished materials, have some brilliancy, but in stained glass the light which comes streaming through the window itself gives evidence, while the quality of the glass determines the colors, and we thus obtain a glowing luster which can only be compared to the beauty of the richest gems.
Color was freely introduced both by the employment of colored materials and by painting the interior with colored pigments. Painted decorations were constantly made use of with the happiest effect.
Sculpture is the noblest ornament, and the Gothic architects, of a later day, seem to have been alive to its use, as in all their best works statues abounded. If sometimes uncouth, they always contributed to the effect intended. Whether rising to grace and grandeur or sinking to grotesque ugliness, they had a picturesque power, and added life to the whole. Monsters gaped and grinned from waterspouts; little figures of strange animals twisted in and out of the foliage at angles and corbels; stately effigies occupied dignified niches, and in the head of a doorway there was often carved a whole host of figures representing heaven, earth, and hell, with a rude force and eloquence that, to the present day, has not lost its power.
Toward the close of the fifteenth century men’s minds and tastes were ripening for a change. The beautiful Gothic, in its most improved characteristics, did not satisfy. The change first took place in Italy, and was closely connected with the revival of letters. There all the characteristics of the middle ages were rapidly thrown off. The old Roman blood in the Italians asserted itself, and almost at a bound literature and the arts put on the old forms they had displayed fifteen hundred years before. In the schools there was a rage for classic Greek and Latin; and among architects old Roman or Græco-Roman forms were applied to buildings with much freedom and spirit.
The revival of classic taste in art was appropriately called the Renaissance.
In other countries the change came slowly, and people were not prepared to welcome it unreservedly. In France and England there was a transition period, during which most buildings were designed in a mixed style. This in England lasted almost through the century. It was indeed a picturesque and telling style, in its earlier stages called Tudor, and later Elizabethan. In its mixture of classic and Gothic forms there are often incongruities, and even monstrosities; but it allowed unrestrained play for the fancy. Some of the best mansions of the time, such as Hatfield, Hardwick, and Audley End are unsurpassed in their pleasing picturesqueness. The wide oak staircase, with its carved balusters, ornamented newel-post, and heavy hand-rails, the old wainscoted parlor, with its magnificent chimney piece reaching to the ceiling, are all essentially English features, and full of vigor and life, as the work of every transition period is likely to prove. The period in France produced exquisite works, more refined and elegantly treated than those in England, but not so vigorous. No modern buildings are so finely ornamented and yet not spoiled.
In Italy Renaissance churches, magnificent secular buildings, and palaces of wealthy families abound, as in Naples, Rome, Florence, Genoa, Venice, and indeed in every great city.
The plan of Renaissance buildings was uniform and symmetrical; not widely different from those in Italy before the revival of classic art; but it will be remembered that they were by no means so picturesque or irregular, at any time, as were the plans of French and English churches.
The mediæval use of small materials for external walls, involving many joints, has disappeared, and they are universally faced with stone or plaster, and consequently smooth. The principal feature to note is the great use made of that elaborate sort of masonry, in which the joints of the stones are carefully channeled or otherwise marked, and which is known by the singularly inappropriate name of rustic work. The basements of most Italian and French palaces are thus built, and in many cases, as the Pitti Palace, Florence, the rustic work covers the whole façade.
Towers are less frequently employed. In churches they sometimes occur; none more picturesque than those designed by Sir Christopher Wren for many of his parish churches. But in this style the dome takes the place of the tower, both in churches and secular buildings.
The dome is the glory of Renaissance architecture, as it had been of the old Roman. It is the one feature by which Renaissance architects had a clear and defined advantage over those of the preceding century, who had, strange to say, almost abandoned the dome. The mouldings and all other ornaments of this order are much the same as those of the Roman. The sculptures and mural decorations were all originally drawn from classic sources. But these attained very great excellence—the decorative painting of Raphael and his scholars at Rome, Genoa, and elsewhere, probably far exceeding anything which the old Roman decorative artists ever executed.
In the capital of the country is St. Peter’s, the most magnificent building of fully developed Renaissance. Beamanti, a Florentine, was the architect, to whom the task of designing a cathedral to surpass any thing existing in Europe, was committed by Pope Julius II. The project had been entertained, and architects worked at it fifty years before; but nothing satisfactory was done. A new design was now made, and the first stone laid by the pope in 1506. Beamanti died in seven years, and six architects, in succession, of whom Raphael was one, proceeded with the work, without advancing it rapidly, for nearly half a century, during which the design was again and again modified.
In 1646 Michael Angelo was appointed architect, and the last eighteen years of his life were spent in carrying on the great work. He completed the magnificent dome in all its essential parts, and left the church in plan a Greek cross,i. e., one inwhich all the four arms are equal, and the dome at the crossing. The boast is attributed to him that he would “Take the dome of the Pantheon and hang it in the air.” And this he virtually accomplished in the dome of St. Peter’s; a work of the greatest beauty of design and boldness of construction. Unfortunately for the symmetry of the structure, the nave was subsequently lengthened, the existing portico built, and Bernini added the vast fore-court, lined by colonnades, which now forms the approach, and sadly obstructs the view. The exterior, seen from the front, is disappointing. The façade is so lofty, and advances so far in front as to quite hide the lower part of the dome.
To have an idea of the building, as Michael Angelo designed it, it is necessary to go round to the back; and there, with the height and contour of the dome fully seen, all its lines of living force carrying the eye with them up to the elegant stone lantern that crowns the summit, some conception of the hugeness and symmetry of this mountain of art seems to dawn on the mind. But, from the best point of view, it is with the utmost difficulty one can apply any scale of measurement to what, by its vastness and perfection, is bewildering. The interior is most impressive. The arrangements are simple. Passing the vast vestibule, there is the nave of four bays, with two side aisles, and an immense central space, over which hangs the great dome. There are transepts and a choir, each with one bay, and an apse; and there are two side chapels.
Since this largest church in the world is divided into so few parts, all of these must be of colossal dimensions. The piers are wonderful masses of masonry, while the spaces spanned by the lofty arches and vaults are prodigious. There is no sense of mystery felt about the interior. The eye at once grasps it as a whole, but hours must be spent before an adequate idea of its gigantic size is at all possible. The beauty of coloring adds wonderfully to the effect. The interior of the dome especially, and the drum on which it rests, are decorated in color throughout, in excellent taste. The designs are simple, the light to show them is ample; and though so rich, there is no impression of excessive decoration. The connection between the dome and the rest of the building seems admirable; and the spectator standing under its soaring vault has an impression of vastness made by no other work of art.
In England the new order was introduced with a longer transition period. For a generation or more the style was mixed. In many instances the main lines are Gothic, while the details are partly Gothic and partly modified Renaissance. This is true of such buildings as Knowle, Penshurst, Hardwick, Hatfield, and many others.
England has churches that take rank among the best in Europe, especially St. Paul’s, London, which has a world-wide celebrity as second only to St. Peter’s. It falls short of its great rival in size and internal effect; being almost wholly devoid of the artistic decoration, in which St. Peter’s is so rich. But the exterior is far finer, and the building is consistent with itself throughout. The plan of St. Paul’s is a Latin cross, with well marked transepts, a large portico, and two towers at the west entrance. An apse of small size forms the end of the eastern arm, and of each of the transepts; a great dome covers the crossing. The cathedral has a crypt raising the main floor considerably, and its side walls are carried high above the aisle roofs, so as to hide the clere-story windows from sight. A great dome, planted on eight piers, covers the crossing. The skill with which the dome is made the central feature of a pyramidal composition, whatever be the point of view; the great beauty of the circular colonnade immediately below the dome; the elegant outline of the western towers, and the unusual but successful distribution of the great porticos, are among the most noteworthy elements which give a charm to this very successful exterior. But no verbal description can adequately present its excellence; nor will the reader be fully satisfied with the meager account here given.
[B]In the present article on Gothic architecture the outline of the excellent text-book by T. Roger Smith has been followed, but the extracts have been abridged to the utmost limit that is consistent with clearness in the presentation.
[B]In the present article on Gothic architecture the outline of the excellent text-book by T. Roger Smith has been followed, but the extracts have been abridged to the utmost limit that is consistent with clearness in the presentation.
[B]In the present article on Gothic architecture the outline of the excellent text-book by T. Roger Smith has been followed, but the extracts have been abridged to the utmost limit that is consistent with clearness in the presentation.
“Enthusiastic devotion to liberty is one of the greatest charms of Mr. Motley’s writings.”—Methodist Quarterly Review.“Few writers possess a more picturesque and dramatic style, or, by combined freshness and brilliancy, are more successful in sustaining the interest of the reader.”—H. M. Baird, Ph.D.It is perhaps noteworthy that our four leading American historians—Bancroft, Hildreth, Motley and Prescott—widely dissimilar in some of their characteristics, were all born in Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard. A writer can do his best on a theme suited to his taste and genius; and Motley wisely chose the Netherlands as presenting the spectacle of a noble people engaged in a heroic work.
“Enthusiastic devotion to liberty is one of the greatest charms of Mr. Motley’s writings.”—Methodist Quarterly Review.
“Few writers possess a more picturesque and dramatic style, or, by combined freshness and brilliancy, are more successful in sustaining the interest of the reader.”—H. M. Baird, Ph.D.
It is perhaps noteworthy that our four leading American historians—Bancroft, Hildreth, Motley and Prescott—widely dissimilar in some of their characteristics, were all born in Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard. A writer can do his best on a theme suited to his taste and genius; and Motley wisely chose the Netherlands as presenting the spectacle of a noble people engaged in a heroic work.
After giving a vivid description of the three great rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheld—which for ages had deposited their slime among the sand banks around their mouths, the historian continues: Such were the rivers which, with their numerous tributaries, coursed through the spongy land. Their frequent overflow, when forced back upon their currents by the stormy sea, rendered the country almost uninhabitable. Here, within a half-submerged territory, a race of wretched ichthyophagi dwelt uponterpen, or mounds, which they had raised, like beavers, above the almost fluid soil. Here, at a later day, the same race chained the tyrant Ocean and his mighty streams into subserviency, forcing them to fertilize, to render commodious, to cover with a beneficent network of veins and arteries, and to bind by watery highways with the furthest ends of the world, a country disinherited by nature of its rights. A region, outcast of ocean and earth, wrested at last from both domains their richest treasures. A race, engaged for generations in stubborn conflict with the angry elements, was unconsciously educating itself for its great struggle with the still more savage despotism of man.
The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests. An extensive belt of woodland skirted the sea-coast, reaching beyond the mouths of the Rhine. Along the outer edge of this barrier, the dunes cast up by the sea were prevented by the close tangle of thickets from drifting further inward, and thus formed a breastwork which time and art were to strengthen. The groves of Haarlem and the Hague are relics of this ancient forest. The Badahuenna wood, horrid with Druidic sacrifices, extended along the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. The vast Hercynian forest, nine days’ journey in breadth, closed in the country on the German side, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the remote regions of the Dacians, in such vague immensity (says the conqueror of the whole country) that no German, after traveling sixty days, had ever reached, or even heard of, its commencement. On the south, the famous groves of Ardennes, haunted by faun and satyr, embowered the country, and separated it from Celtic Gaul.
Thus inundated by mighty rivers, quaking beneath the level of the ocean, belted about by hirsute forests, this low land, nether land, hollow land, or Holland, seemed hardly deserving the arms of the all-accomplished Roman. Yet, foreign tyranny, from the earliest ages, has coveted this meager territory as lustfully as it has sought to wrest from their native possessors those lands with the fatal gift of beauty for their dower; while the genius of liberty has inspired as noble a resistance to oppression here as it ever aroused in Grecian or Italian breasts.
The Church of Our Lady, which Philip had so recently converted into a cathedral, dated from the year 1124, although it may be more fairly considered a work of the fourteenth century. Its college of canons had been founded in anotherlocality by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Brabantine hero, who so romantically incarnated the religious poetry of his age, who first mounted the walls of redeemed Jerusalem, and was its first Christian monarch, but who refused to accept a golden diadem on the spot where the Savior had been crowned with thorns; the Fleming who lived and was the epic which the great Italian, centuries afterward, translated into immortal verse, is thus fitly associated with the beautiful architectural poem which was to grace his ancestral realms. The body of the church—the interior and graceful perspectives of which were not liable to the reproach brought against many Netherland churches, of assimilating themselves already to the municipal palaces which they were to suggest, was completed in the fourteenth century. The beautiful façade, with its tower, was not completed till the year 1518. The exquisite and daring spire, the gigantic stem upon which the consummate flower of this architectural creation was to be at last unfolded, was a plant of a whole century’s growth. Rising to a height of nearly five hundred feet, over a church of as many feet in length, it worthily represented the upward tendency of Gothic architecture. Externally and internally the cathedral was a true expression of the Christian principle of devotion. Amid its vast accumulations of imagery, its endless ornaments, its multiplicity of episodes, its infinite variety of details, the central, material principle was ever visible. Every thing pointed upward, from the spire in the clouds to the arch which enshrined the smallest sculptured saint in the chapels below. It was a sanctuary, not like pagan temples, to enclose a visible deity, but an edifice where mortals might worship an unseen being in the realms above.
The church, placed in the center of the city, with the noisy streets of the busiest metropolis in Europe eddying around its walls, was a sacred island in the tumultuous main. Through the perpetual twilight, tall columnar trunks in thick profusion grew from a floor chequered with prismatic lights and sepulchral shadows. Each shaft of the petrified forest rose to a preternatural height, their many branches intermingling in the space above, to form an impenetrable canopy. Foliage, flowers and fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins and chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegetation and the fantastic zoölogy of a fresher or fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through the forest—now the full diapason of the storm, and now the gentle cadence of the evening breeze.
“Bancroft’s writings are as well worthy of study, both for form and substance, as any that have been produced on American soil.”—John McClintock, LL.D.“His every paragraph is animated with a philanthropic, liberal and progressive spirit.”—D. D. Whedon, D.D.“The work of Mr. Bancroft may be considered as a copious philosophical treatise, tracing the growth of the idea of liberty in a country designed by Providence for its development. It is written in a style marked by singular elaborateness, compactness, and scholarly grace, and is esteemed one of the noblest monuments of American literature.”—American Cyclopædia.
“Bancroft’s writings are as well worthy of study, both for form and substance, as any that have been produced on American soil.”—John McClintock, LL.D.
“His every paragraph is animated with a philanthropic, liberal and progressive spirit.”—D. D. Whedon, D.D.
“The work of Mr. Bancroft may be considered as a copious philosophical treatise, tracing the growth of the idea of liberty in a country designed by Providence for its development. It is written in a style marked by singular elaborateness, compactness, and scholarly grace, and is esteemed one of the noblest monuments of American literature.”—American Cyclopædia.
Penn, despairing of relief in Europe, bent the whole energy of his mind to accomplish the establishment of a free government in the New World. For that “heavenly end” he was prepared by the severe discipline of life, and the love, without dissimulation, which formed the basis of his character. The sentiment of cheerful humanity was irrepressibly strong in his bosom. As with John Eliot and Roger Williams, benevolence gushed prodigally from his ever-flowing heart, and when, in his late old age, his intellect was impaired, and his reason prostrated by apoplexy, his sweetness of disposition rose serenely over the clouds of disease. Possessing an extraordinary greatness of mind, vast conceptions, remarkable for their universality and precision, and surpassing in speculative endowments, conversant with men, with books, and governments, with various languages, and the forms of political combinations as they existed in England and France, in Holland, and the principalities and free cities of Germany, he yet sought the source of wisdom in his own soul. Humane by nature and suffering, familiar with the royal family, intimate with Sunderland and Sydney, acquainted with Russel, Halifax, Shaftesbury and Buckingham, as a member of the Royal Society, the peer of Newton, and the great scholars of his age—he valued the promptings of a free mind more than the awards of the learned, and reverenced the simple minded sincerity of the Nottingham shepherd more than the authority of colleges and the wisdom of philosophers. And now, being in the meridian of life, but a year older than was Locke, when, twelve years before, he had framed a constitution for Carolina, the Quaker legislator was come to the New World to lay the foundation of states. Would he imitate the vaunted system of the great philosopher?
Locke, like William Penn, was tolerant; both loved freedom; both cherished truth in sincerity. But Locke kindled the torch of liberty at the fires of tradition; Penn at the living light in the soul. Locke sought truth through the senses and the outward world; Penn looked inward to the divine revelations in every mind. Locke compared the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbs had compared it to a slate, on which time and chance might scrawl their experience; to Penn the soul was an organ which of itself instinctively breathes divine harmonies, like those musical instruments which are so curiously and perfectly framed, that, when once set in motion they of themselves give forth all the melodies designed by the artist who made them.
To Locke, “Conscience is nothing else than our own opinion of our own actions;” to Penn it is the image of God, and his oracle in the soul. Locke, who was never a father, esteemed “the duty of parents to preserve their children to not be understood without reward and punishment;” Penn loved his children, with not a thought for the consequences. Locke, who was never married, declares marriage an affair of the senses; Penn reverenced woman as the object of fervent, inward affection, made, not for lust, but for love. In studying the understanding Locke begins with the sources of knowledge; Penn with an inventory of our intellectual treasures. Locke deduces government from Noah and Adam, rests it upon contract, and announces its end to be the security of property; Penn, far from going back to Adam, or even to Noah, declares that there must be a people before a government, and, deducing the right to institute the government from man’s moral nature, seeks its fundamental rules in the immutable dictates of universal reason, its end in freedom and happiness. The system of Locke lends itself to contending factions of the most opposite interests and purposes; the doctrine of Fox and Penn being but the common creed of humanity, forbids division, and insures the highest moral unity. To Locke, happiness is pleasure; things are good and evil only in reference to pleasure and pain; and to inquire after the highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best relish be in apples, plums or nuts; Penn esteemed happiness to be in the subjection of the baser instincts to the instinct of Deity in the breast, good and evil to be eternally and always as unlike as truth and falsehood, and the inquiry after the highest good to involve the purpose of existence. Locke says plainly that, but for rewards and punishments beyond the grave it iscertainly rightto eat and drink, and enjoy what we delight in; Penn, like Plato and Fénelon, maintained the doctrine so terrible to despots, that God is to be loved for his own sake, and virtue to be practiced for its intrinsic loveliness. Locke derives the idea of infinity from the senses, describes it as purely negative, and attributesit to nothing but space, duration and number; Penn derived the idea from the soul, and ascribed it to truth and virtue, and to God. Locke declares immortality a matter with which reason has nothing to do, and that revealed truth must be sustained by outward signs and visible acts of power; Penn saw truth by its own light, and summoned the soul to bear witness to its own glory. Locke believed “not so many men in wrong opinions as is commonly supposed, because the greatest part have no opinions at all, and do not know what they contend for;” Penn likewise vindicated the many, but it was because truth is the common inheritance of the race. Locke, in his love of tolerance, inveighed against the methods of persecution as “Popish practices;” Penn censured no sect, but condemned bigotry of all sorts as inhuman. Locke, as an American lawgiver dreaded a too numerous democracy; Penn believed that God is in every conscience, his light in every soul; and therefore, stretching out his arms, he built—such are his own words—“a free colony for all mankind.” This is the praise of William Penn, that, in an age which had seen a popular revolution shipwreck popular liberty among selfish factions, which had seen Hugh Peters and Henry Vane perish by the hangman’s cord and the ax; in an age when Sydney nourished the pride of patriotism rather than the sentiment of philanthropy, when Russel stood for the liberties of his order, and not for new enfranchisements, when Harrington and Shaftesbury and Locke thought government should rest on property—Penn did not despair of humanity, and, though all his history and experience denied the sovereignty of the people, dared to cherish the noble idea of man’s capacity for self-government. Conscious that there was no room for its exercise in England, the pure enthusiast, like Calvin and Descartes, a voluntary exile, was to come to the banks of the Delaware to institute the “Holy Experiment.”