against a railway station and a cloister, considerately offering you a shady walk or shelter from the weather round a room. Listen to the multitudinous voices of Science and you will hear that the conflict extends to practical accommodation. We all know it was not the fault of the architect, it was the fault of adverse exigencies which came into collision with his design, but this only strengthens the moral of the building against revivals. Two humble achievements, if we had chosen were certainly within our reach,--perfect adaptation to our object and inoffensive dignity. Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches. For my part I look up with admiration, as fervent as any one untrained in art can, to those divine creations of old religion which soar over the smoke and din of our cities into purity and stillness and seem to challenge us, with all our wealth and culture and science and mechanical power, to produce their peer till the age of faith shall return. Not Greek Art itself springing forth in its perfection from the dark background of primaeval history, seems to me a greater miracle than these. How poor beside the lowliest of them in religious effect in romance, in everything but size and technical skill, is any pile of neo-paganism even I will dare to say, St. Peter's. Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church. I will even own that, except where restoration rids us of the unchristian exclusiveness of pews, I prefer the unrestored churches, with something of antiquity about them, to the restored. There is a spell in mediaeval Art which has had power to bewitch some people into trying, or wishing to try, or fancying that they wish to try or making believe to fancy that they wish to try, to bring back the Middle Ages. You may hear pinings for the return of an age of force from gentle aestheticists, who, if the awe of force did return, would certainly be crushed like eggshells. There is a well-known tale by Hans Andersen, that great though child-like teacher, called the "Overshoes of Fortune." A gentleman, at an evening party, has been running down modern society and wishing he were in the heroic Middle Ages. In going away he unwittingly puts on the fairy overshoes, which have the gift of transporting the wearer at once to any place and time where he wishes to be. Stepping out he finds his own wish fulfilled--he is in the Middle Ages. There is no gas, the street is pitch dark, he is up to his ankles in mud, he is nearly knocked into the kennel by a mediaeval bishop returning from a revel with his roystering train, when he wants to cross the river there is no bridge; and after vainly inquiring his way in a tavern full of very rough customers, he wishes himself in the moon, and to the moon appropriately he goes.