rejection of all Sacraments, and his practical disbelief in the Communion of Saints. Again, is the pulpit of the Brownist symbolical; and shall not our font and altar be so at least as much? The Catholic ritual is indeed symbolical from first to last. Without the clue to its figurative meaning, we should never have understood its pregnant truthfulness and force. {lv} No one, in short, ever ventured to regard the ancient ritual as anything but highly figurative: this was claimed as its highest excellence by its observers and commentators, this was ridiculed and despised by the enemies of the Church; but was confessed by all. The more anyone meditates on the ancient ritual of the Church, the more this will be found not only the most prominent characteristic, but the only satisfactory explanation of many otherwise unintelligible requirements. This is not the place to go at any length into the consideration of the whole symbolism of the ritual system: it will be enough if it is granted that some prescribed ritual, however meagre, must be a necessary part of all religion; and that every such system is in some degree figurative or symbolical. Now to apply this to church architecture. No one will deny that, in a general point of view, the form of our churches is adapted to certain wants, and was chosen for this very adaptation. Indeed this is allowed by modern writers and builders: who defend a church which has no more than an altar-recess, on this very ground, that there is no longer any want of a deep chancel. 'I object to aisles,' says a modern architect, 'because the great end of a church is to be an auditorium.' 'The cross form,' says another, 'I always adopt, because then everyone can see the preacher if I place the pulpit in the middle.' But why not take a circle or octagon at once, or the form which is always adopted for the lecture-rooms at Mechanics' Institutes? For these plans are obviously _most_ convenient for hearing and seeing. But then, everyone knows that these are not _church_ forms. The modern builder then, trammelled, at least in this respect, by rule and precedent, chooses the cruciform plan, not (perhaps) for its true symbolism; but, by a wrong arrangement of this plan, still further symbolises (for example) his own undue estimation of the ordinance {lvi} of preaching. So true it is that those who would most object to symbolism, as a rule of design, are themselves (did they but know it) symbolising, in every church they build, their own arbitrary and presumptuous ideas on the subject. It is not our intention to prove here, (what has been pointed out, however, many times), the duty incumbent upon us of following in our modern churches the ancient principles of design: we are not writing with the immediate practical end of improving modern church architecture; but are endeavouring to illustrate the symbolical principles of ancient design. We shall, however, before finishing this