march to the aid of the Brethren; he promised eternal life to all who should suffer the glorious calamity of death in the Holy Land, or even in the way to it. The Crusader passed at once into Paradise. For himself, he must remain aloof; but like a second Moses, while they were slaughtering the Amalekites, he would be perpetually engaged in fervent and prevailing prayer for their success. The Pontiff could scarcely conclude his speech; he was interrupted by ill-suppressed murmurs of grief and indignation. At its close, one loud and simultaneous cry broke forth It is the will of God! it is the will of God!' H. H. MILMAN. ABOVE AND BELOW. I. O DWELLERS in the valley-land, Who in deep twilight grope and cower, The Lord's great work sits idle too? Of morn, because 'tis dark with you? Though yet your valleys skulk in night, In God's ripe fields the day is cried, The night-shed tears of Earth she dries! The Lord wants reapers: oh, mount up, Stay not for taking scrip or cup, II. Lone watcher on the mountain-height! But we, who in the shadow sit, Know also when the day is nigh, Seeing thy shining forehead lit With his inspiring prophecy. Thou hast thine office; we have ours; The bruised reed is amply tough To pierce the shield of error through. But not the less do thou aspire Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. J. R. LOWELL. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. THERE can be no doubt that the birthplace of true Gothic architecture was north of the Alps; it should seem on the Rhine, or in those provinces of France which then were German, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace,-bordering on the Rhine. It was a splendid gift of Teutonism before Germany rose in insurrection and set itself apart from Latin Christendom. North of the Alps it attained its full perfection; there alone the Cathedral became, in its significant symbolism, the impersonation of medieval Christianity. The Northern climate may have had some connection with its rise and development. In Italy and the South the sun is a tyrant; breadth of shadow must mitigate his force; the wide eaves, the bold projecting cornice, must afford protection from his burning and direct rays; there would be a reluctance altogether to abandon those horizontal lines which cast a continuous and unbroken shadow; or to ascend, as it were, with the vertical up into the unslaked depths of the noonday blaze. The violent rains would be cast off more freely by a more flat and level roof at a plane of slight inclination. In the north the precipitate ridge would cast off the heavy snow, which might have lodged and injured the edifice. So, too, within the church, the Italian had to cool and diminish, the Northern would admit and welcome the flooding light. So much, indeed, did the Gothic Architecture enlarge and multiply the apertures for light, that in order to restore the solemnity it was obliged to subdue and sheath as it were the glare, at times overpowering, by painted glass. And thus the magic of the richest colouring was added to the infinitely diversified forms of the architecture. The Gothic cathedral was the consummation, the completion of medieval, of hierarchical Christianity. Of that mediavalism, of that hierarchism (though Italy was the domain, and Rome the capital of the Pope), the seat was beyond H the Alps. The mediæval hierarchical services did not rise to their full majesty and impressiveness, till celebrated under a Gothic cathedral. The church might seem to expand, and lay itself out in long and narrow avenues, with the most gracefully converging perspective, in order that the worshipper might contemplate with deeper awe the more remote central ceremonial. The enormous height more than compensated for the contracted breadth. Nothing could be more finely arranged for the processional services; and the processional services became more frequent, more imposing. The music, instead of being beaten down by low broad arches, or lost within the heavier aisles, soared freely to the lofty roof, pervaded the whole building, was infinitely multiplied as it died and rose again to the fretted roof. Even the incense, curling more freely up to the immeasurable height, might give the notion of clouds of adoration finding their way to heaven. The Gothic cathedral remains an imperishable and majestic monument of hierarchical wealth, power, devotion; it can hardly be absolutely called self-sacrifice, for if built for the honour of God and of the Redeemer, it was honour, it was almost worship, shared in by the high ecclesiastic. That, however, has almost passed away; God, as it were, now vindicates to Himself His own. The cathedral has been described as a vast book in stone, a book which taught by symbolic language, partly plain and obvious to the simpler man, partly shrouded in not less attractive mystery. It was at once strikingly significant and inexhaustible; bewildering, feeding at once and stimulating profound meditation. Even its height, its vastness, might appear to suggest the Inconceivable, the Incomprehensible in the Godhead, to symbolize the infinity, the incalculable grandeur and majesty of the divine works; the mind felt humble under its shadow as before an awful presence. Its form and distribution was a confession of faith; it typified the creed. Everywhere was the mystic number; the Trinity was proclaimed by the nave and the aisles (multiplied sometimes, as at Bourges and elsewhere, to the other sacred number, seven), the three richly ornamented recesses of the portal, the three towers. The Rose over the west was the Unity; the whole building was a Cross. The altar with its decorations announced the Real Perpetual Presence. The solemn Crypt below represented the under world, the soul of man in darkness and the shadow of death, the body awaiting the resurrection. This was the more obvious universal language. By those who sought more abstruse and recondite mysteries, they might be found in all the multifarious details, provoking the zealous curiosity, or dimly suggestive of holy meaning. Sculpture was called into aid. All the great objective truths of religion had their fitting place. Even the Father, either in familiar symbol or in actual form, began to appear, and to assert his property in the sacred building. Already, in the Romanesque edifices, the Son, either as the babe in the lap of his Virgin Mother, on the cross, or ascending into heaven, had taken his place over the central entrance, as it were to receive and welcome the worshipper. Before long he appeared not there alone, though there in more imposing form; he was seen throughout all his wondrous history, with all his acts and miracles, down to the Resurrection, the Ascension, the return to Judgment. Everywhere was that hallowed form : in infancy, in power, on the cross, on the right hand of the Father, coming down amid the hosts of angels. The most stupendous, the most multifarious scenes were represented in reliefs more or less bold, prominent, and vigorous, or rude and harsh. The carving now aspired to more than human beauty, or it delighted in the most hideous ugliness, majestic, gentle Angels, grinning, hateful, sometimes half-comic Devils. But it was not only the New and the Old Testament, it was the Golden Legend also which might be read in the unexhausted language of the cathedral. Our Lady had her own chapels for her own special votaries, and toward the east, behind the |