although it may have a certain repose of commanding lines, has also a vigorous activity in the spring of high vaults. The historic solution of this requirement is, of course, the altar, which, with the decorations upon it, or those of the reredos back of it, or ciborium over it, constitutes an object intensely stimulating to the imagination. Without this, however, it is still possible for the artist to develop decorative motives, either massed or scattered, which will promote a mental activity. The use of windows, murals, mosaics, statues, or symbolic designs in the focal part of the structure may accomplish what is needed in this direction.

Three other matters have always a powerful effect upon the structural tone of any building, the matters of proportion, scale, and materials. The relation of height, breadth, and length has immediately to do with the feeling one gets from a building. In a general way, as already intimated, breadth of structure is characteristic of the classic heritage and feeling, intimating an intellectual inclusiveness. If the latitude is too great, it suggests a too matter-of-fact view of life. The longer and higher structure is the more emotional and active and perhaps the more mystical. A genuine Gothic building is very long and very high in proportion to its width. It is possible to choose a classic style of detail and build with a spirit almost Gothic, by the increase of length and height. Just so, Gothic details may be applied to a building so wide as to become uncharacteristic in structural tone. In such cases, it is obviously better to use the style which more truly comports with the desired proportions and tone.

In any case, an oblong space is superior to a square one. There are few successful equilateral churches in the world and the most of these are strongly modified as to interior proportion by the addition of an apse or choir, as in San Vitale, Ravenna, or by the extension of semi-domes, as in the ancient Byzantine churches. The square interior makes a focal point of interest almost impossible. It hinders concentration of attention or of action. Even although we may not wish to use the Gothic style, our age probably needs a corrective to its scattering and individualistic effort and

more of the spirit of concentrated ideals and common devotion, which may be greatly assisted by buildings more nearly Gothic in their proportions.

Other important matters hinge upon the problem of scale. A large building where, also, all the apertures and all the decorative designs are large, will appear to be smaller than it is, as, for instance, St. Peter's in Rome. A small church may be made to appear larger if the doors and windows are minimized and if the furniture of the interior is designed as small as possible in scale. Oftentimes the uncomfortable agitation of a moderate-sized building is due to faulty scale. A change in the scale of all details would yield in many a church a tone of dignity and repose which it now lacks.

Very much can be accomplished for the structural tone of a building by the right choice of materials. My own feeling is that bare stone or bare brick is far superior for the interior of a church to anything else. The desirable austerity of the building cannot be so directly accomplished in any other way. These surfaces, however, will produce a sense of coldness unless the builders are willing to introduce strongly contrasting elements of warmth or brilliance such as have been suggested. Some of the recently built churches with stone interiors, amongst non-liturgical bodies, are decidedly cold because of insufficient color in other ways. They need altars, or murals, or banners, or bright vestments to give them fire and warmth.

A building committee need not be afraid of the cheaper grades of material. It is more important to employ a competent artist who will produce a successful design of the right proportion and scale than it is to spend the money for costly materials. A very beautiful church may be made of the cheapest brick, unplastered outside or inside, if the structure is well designed. I have often seen church buildings overly fine and elaborate, the surface finish running ahead of structural invention and tonal character. Apartment house brick in a building well designed is better than marble badly fashioned. Pine boards, simply stained, if well cut, are better than rosewood, varnished and polished, in shapes inappropriate to a church.

No one but an artist can solve these questions of structural tone. This does not always mean a professional artist. There are humble parsons who have more artistic feeling than some conspicuous architects. As a general rule, however, only the very best professional architects know enough about all these matters of light and shadow, color, texture, scale, proportion, and design to put together many elements into a simple and successful composition for a church.

A church building casts its influence upon a community for years, sometimes for generations. A noble building seems to have an almost living air and spirit, and may become a benign power in the lives of the people round about it. It is a great blessing to any town to possess such a structure. It is to do one of the most certain of public goods to have a hand in the erection of a beautiful church.

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Chapter XXI: The Chancel

HERE is an outstanding fact respecting church building in America which is remarkably significant.

It is the fact that numbers of buildings have been erected for the use of so-called non-liturgical churches with the communion table as the center of the interior composition. Although strictly speaking the word chancel refers to the railing which separates the space allotted especially to the clergy, there is no better word to use in describing the separated space that is formed in the apse of the church when the communion table is placed at the head of the building, somewhat elevated, the pulpit upon one side forward, and the lectern on the other side forward.

Such an arrangement, even by historical usage of the term, may properly be called a chancel, though in a larger church this space may incorporate also the choir. This is, of course, the arrangement used in the early Christian basilicas. It has been perpetuated in the West in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and to some extent in other bodies. Now it is being revived with remarkable rapidity among the free churches. The illustrations of this volume display some of the most successful of those recently constructed.

I am sure that I do not know of all of them, but I do have information of more than fifty of these churches outside of the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Reformed Communions. This is a sufficient number to constitute an architectural tendency of note. A few of these are not recent. The First Parish Church and the Central Church, Boston, are older buildings with this arrangement. The latter was built by Upjohn in 1867. The Central Church of Providence, Rhode Island, and the Central Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, also follow the ancient usage. Not all of the Reformed churches have kept the plan, but a large number

of them, especially in Pennsylvania, have not only a chancel but an altar in them. Most of the others are altogether twentieth century buildings.

It is extremely significant that this movement has been developing not merely in one body but in several and in widely scattered communities. And it is altogether too extensive a movement to be laid to the door of any small coterie of artists or of ministers. It is rather a growing expression of dissatisfaction with present forms, of an expanding culture, and of the spirit of experimentation. Presbyterian, Congregational, Unitarian, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, and Universalist churches are represented in the list. The reasons for this development are several and in several areas-artistic, ecclesiastical, religious, and practical.

Probably the chief feeling which has prompted the movement is artistic. Every work of art is a composition in harmony. Every artistic composition has some clearly selected method of unity, some plan of bringing together diverse and manifold elements into the single accord of the whole. In painting, there is a point of "high light" upon which the lines of light and shadow converge, and to which the eye turns naturally and easily. Pictures which do not possess excellence of composition are unsatisfying to the physical sense and thus aesthetically weak.

Just so, an architectural interior is satisfactory according as the physical composition is so unified as to assist the composure of the feelings of people in it. It needs a "high light," a point of commanding interest, in precisely the same way as does a painting. The communion table or altar at the head of the apse is artistically a far better center for the composition than a pulpit.

The pulpit is usually an upstanding vertical object set in such a manner as to split up the space and divide the attention rather than center it. You may go into almost any annual exhibition of painters' societies and you will find very few vertical compositions. Portraits are often such, but the peculiar elements of interest in a portrait make it a more successful vertical composition than a pulpit can ever be.