Eikon Baeiaikh.

newly found Eden models himself an abode fashioned upon the most beautiful shapes ; and if he builds a temple , the forms of flowers ancl fruits and trees will manifest themselves iu his designs . But satiety eats at the heart of the worshipper . He places a hideous monster upon a gorgeous altar . A loomy asceticism drags him downward from his exalted

g conception of the Great S pirit , until he imprisons his God in n , cavern . This may be assumed as the origin of the ' uTToycuoi , or cave temples . The courage , however , which conquers the earth over which ifc passes arrives at a very difl ' erent conclusion . Each conquest unfolds new triumphs to bo achieved . The forms of nature , though less brilliant ,

arc more diverse , and what they want of brilliancy is compensated by their convertibility to typical meanings , by which faith is nourished and zeal warmed . Our poets have set value upon tho daisy springing tq > in the waste places of ( he earth , as typifying faith , hope , and purity , whilst those ofthe east have none other meaning for the bright profusion

that surrounds , than as semblances to grati fy epicurean tastes . He who had to wend his way up the mountain , clearing the pathway us he went and instructed by the lesson which the uncovered bosom of the earth revealed to him , must have formed a higher conception of his own destiny and relation to the Godhead—at the same time that the notion of the

omnipotence and benevolence ol the Godhead was not diminished , but enhanced—than he who lay down amongst plenty , and to whose enjoyment the future appeared in the pa-esent . We may pass in review the temples of Greece and Eome , as examples not only of dominant races , but embodying psychological phenomena , wliich have in every other outward form passed away . Ifc would not answer any immediate

purpose to enter here into details which would far exceed the limits to wliich we arc confined , but we may say that in these crumbling monuments are found at once the glory of that great art which rears from the quarry the temples to the Most Hi gh , and tho imperfections of every system of religion wliich attempts to combine the earthly and ethereal under outivard visible forms .

Ifc was not until architecture had become nearly extinct among the ' . Romans , and when the seat of empire had been transferred to Constantinople , that a new system of religious architecture arose , as yet rude in form but containing within ils rugged outline the elements of an ori ginal beauty—to wliich in after times new combinations were contributed , making

the whole structure one in its appearance , in its arrangements , and for the uses to which it wns to be given up singularl y suitable . The change of reli gion under Constantino led to the destruction or destitution of many of the noblest temples of Borne . The Christian basilica had in many instances stripped the Pagan edifice of its columnar

arrangements , bringing into harmony with the simpler and more exalted worship a somewhat severer taste , by which architectural redundancies were dispensed with . The extent and magnificence of the architectural works of fche Romans was unquestionably due to their knowledge ofthe properties of the arch . The Grecian tastesevere and chaste

, , had either rejected or did not know the property of the arch ; "ut one obvious reason perhaps was that the Eomans constructed most of their buildings of brick , whilst Grecian archi tects would condescend to nothing beneath stone . The barbarians , however , which surrounded fche Eoman empire M'ere not long in completing the destruction of what remained ot

the glory of the vastest Pagan dominion the world had seen . Those countries which now received thoir Christianit y 10111 Rome , but did not themselves contain mines of archiwtural material in temples , amphitheatres , ancl palaces , were l ° t slow to adopt those changes which convenience at first , Wd afterwards zealsuggested to Christian hytesThe

, neop . 11 "t essays were necessarily rude , but rude forms by no e . uis exclude ori ginality of design . The 'Roman arch was 1 ^ served , but met , through a variety of modifications being Pl'ned , numberless now purposes .

The introduction of the pointed arch was a graft upon the early Gothic of northern Europe , as the circular arch of the Eomans had been on the columnar arrangements of the Greeks . The result was , however , widely different . The amalgamation in the latter case destroyed the beauty both of tho stock and scionwhile in the former the stock contributed

, to the modification of its parasitical nursling , gradually gave up its heavy , dull , and cheerless form , and was eventually lost in its beautiful offspring—as the unlovely caterpillar is in the gay and graceful butterfly . Where originated , or by whom invented , the pointed arch has been for ages the subject of controversy , more fruitful however of fanciful hypothesis

than reliable facts . Some have contended that it was at first suggested by the intersections of the semicircular arch ; but if this solution of the difficulty were the true one it would hardly have taken / seven centuries to make the discovery . The ornamentation of early Gothic structures must have frequently led to such \ interscctions , and to a refined taste tho

new combination would have presented itself at a much earlier period . It has heenxjigain referred to the interlacing of the branches of trees when-planted in parallel rows , also to a figure used on the seal of monastic establishments—to an imitation of wicker work—to Noah ' s Ark—to chance—and to other sources too numerous to mention . Its invention has been claimed by and alternately accorded to every nation in Europe .

All these opinions aro put forward with more or less force of argument and show of reason . It is a fact , however , that the pointed arch made its appearance almost at the same time in different countries , and this fact would seem to import that it was rather an adaptation than an invention . If ifc hacl been an European invention , some specimens could be shown of a date anterior to others , for the difficulties which then presented themselves in travelling would be calculated to show a considerable difference in the dates at which it arrived at

different p laces , . there is another fact which strengthens tne theory that it was an importation—namely , that its corning into general use was coeval with the return of the crusaders in the twelfth century . There are many analogous figures instanced in the form of drawing the cross , by those who visited the holy land , which would incline one to the belief that there was in the first instance found the prototype of

this now far famed Order of Masonry . But whether this view of the case be the correct one , there seems no reason to deny its great antiquity ; for it is undeniable that Saracenic nations used the lancet arch , as it has been by some not unappropriated termed . Although it has not been discovered that the properties of

this peculiar form of the arch were known to either the Egyptians or the Indians , structures have been found among those nations , in which chambers are adorned and apertures made in the form of the pointed arch , produced by battening or corbelling over . It would seem then not improbable that

this form found in the east would suggest , and lead to its repetition , greatly improved by those who had a knowledge of the properties of such a mode of construction and a more scientific manner of constructing them . The pointed arch does not seem to have come into Europe accompanied by its ordinary accessories in after times—its liht clustered illarsmullionsfoliationsor featherings ,

g p , , , and graceful tracery , which contribute so effectually to its li g ht ancl elegant appearance . Venice appears to have been certainly the first adoptive parent ofthe style , for the earliest specimens are found there in private houses as well as in the famous basilica of St . Mark . Nor was the pointed arch au unworthy offering to christian architecture by those who

had fought for Christianity amid the sanctity of the places where christian precepts were promulgated , and upon the sepulchre where the earthly form of their divine Author was supposed to have been laid . It has been shown that architecture had its ori g in iu relig ious feelings and observances . Its noblest monument ,