We have seen that the best period of Gothic art was that wherein the whole structure was raised on a theory of weights and strains thrown from vault to pier, and pier to buttress; it is, therefore, absurd, when a building occupies a space between the party-walls of modern street lots, to attempt an interior construction having the appearance of corresponding with buttresses and similar contrivances for which there is no room on the outside. If, therefore, we choose Gothic for our style, let us follow no false theory, but work on the principles demonstrated in its innumerable examples, in which it may be possible to find room for further development, introducing no feature of construction which has not a full and consistent meaning. One can scarcely go the lengths to which many venture, in saying that Gothic architecture is suited only to ecclesiastical buildings, for there are many splendid military and civil structures, from the keeps and castles of England and France, to the town-halls of Belgium. But there is this much to be said in their favour, that while the laws of fortification and domestic life have altered entirely since the Middle Ages, on the one hand, those governing the observances of religion have remained unchanged and no manner of building is so essentially religious in its character or better calculated to command the reverence and awe of the devotee, on the other. In support of this view many will agree in admitting that there is nothing of this religious sentiment expressed in the Corinthian colonnades of St. Peter’s, or, in fact, in any of the great number of Renaissance churches which are scattered throughout the cities of Europe, while it never fails to exercise its influence upon anyone entering the great Gothic cathedrals. The great prevailing thought of Mediæval times was a religious one, and we see it reflected in the minutest details of the lives of the people of that age; it was, consequently, but natural that it should attain its highest expression when they filled their churches with the best that could be produced in architecture, sculpture, and painting. While the Classic orders seem out of place in a temple of Christian worship they are appropriate in civil buildings, and we have no better examples for beauty of proportion. They are the result of the thought and taste of generations of architects and have stood the test of time, for they are as pleasing to-day as in the days of ancient Greece and Rome. It is their proportion rather than their component parts which we should follow, for a column, unless needed as a support, is a questionable decoration, and pilasters or engaged columns are only desirable where additional thickness of wall is required, used as the Gothic architect would have used buttresses, and never as mere ornaments, which are at once a fraudulent delusion and a retrogression in the progress of architecture.