This is a claim which it is so much the fashion of the day to dispute, and even to deride, that it demands somewhat careful investigation. Many who have no hesitation in using the terms Mahometan, Hindoo, or Buddhist architecture, and who do not in the least deny the influence of the various religions of the ancients upon their modes of building, see nothing but fanaticism in attributing any such influence to Christianity; or if they do not deny this influence, they view Pointed architecture as the special property of the Roman Church (though Rome herself boasts of having scarcely admitted it within her walls), and find no style to symbolise their Protestantism but that derived from the heathenism of the ancient world, and whose more recent type is to be found in the great metropolitan church of modern Rome. Other more reasoning persons object that, as Christianity, in its purest ages, adopted a modified form of the ancient Roman style, and bent it to its uses, the Roman style became by that process a _bona fide_ Christian architecture; and further argue that Pointed architecture, having derived some of its forms from the Saracenic, has thereby lost its title to being considered a purely Christian style. To meet these objections, it is necessary to explain what we mean by Christian architecture. There can be no doubt that nearly all forms of architecture have taken their rise in the temple, whose form and character have been regulated by the religion for which it was erected. From the temple it has diffused itself throughout all classes of buildings, carrying with it, in a certain degree, the feeling it had already acquired. No one will deny this of the Egyptian, the Greek, or the Saracenic; and so inconsistent are people on such questions, that the very persons who would laugh at the term “Christian architecture” will almost in the same breath object to the use of our style for secular buildings, on the ground that it will make them look like churches!