death-ay, and of life that has gone down far into the bowels of the earth; for it proceeds from the chimneys of steam engines, employed at every pit, for the double purpose of pumping out water and raising coal.

DURHAM. The cathedral, one of the finest in England, and the castle, now the bishop's palace, I could not stop to examine.

York is a queer old place, worth coming a good many miles to see for its own sake. But the minster!--it is worth a pilgrimage to see it. It is the only building I have ever seen in a city that stands up and out so completely from the surrounding mass of buildings, that it is, from every quarter, distinctly presented to the eye. The minster, amid the city of York, stands like the elephant in a menagerie. Its proportions, too, are so perfect, its character is so unique, that it makes upon the mind one single impression. You take in the whole object, and feel all its overpowering grandeur, at the first glance of the eye. And yet it seems to me, that if I were to live in sight of it a thousand years, it would lose none of the indescribable charm with which it first entranced me. Indeed I shall attempt no description. I dare not bring my measurements here. Nay, it appears to me that the impression here does not depend on

any exact idea of size or of parts. It is a whole; it makes its impression as a whole; and you can no more receive that impression from the successive sentences of a description, than you could receive it from contemplating, in succession, the different parts of the structure itself.

There is a sanctity and venerableness about many of the English churches, and even those of the humblest order, which nothing but time indeed can give to the churches of our country, but which time will never give to them, unless we learn to build them with more durable materials than wood or brick. There is something in these churches which leads you instinctively to take off your hat when you enter them--a duty, by-the-by, of which your attendant is sure to admonish you, if you fail of it--and I would that the practice were more common than it is among us. The sentiment of reverence for holy places, is certainly gaining ground upon the old Puritan and Presbyterian prejudice on this head, and it must grow with the increasing refinement of the people. But still, there are too many churches, especially in our country towns, which are in a state of shameful disrepair, and of abominable filthiness; and which are constantly trampled under the feet of the multitude, at every election. Indeed, the condition and use,

and, I may add, the architecture of a church, cannot fail to have a direct effect upon the sentiment of religious veneration; and I trust the time is to come, when (with reference to this last point) the construction of churches among us will be given into the hands of competent architects, and not left to the crude and ambitious devices of parish committees. It costs no more to build in good proportions, than in bad; and the trifling expense of obtaining a plan from an able architect (not a mere carpenter) is unworthy to have any weight in a matter of such permanent importance to a whole community. The churches of a country are a part of its religious literature. They speak to the people; they convey ideas; they make impressions. The Catholics understand this, and are erecting, I believe, more fine churches in America, in proportion to their numbers, than any other denomination among us.

I confess that if I could build a church in all respects to suit my own taste, I would build it in the solemn and beautiful style of the churches of England, the Gothic style; and I would build it in enduring stone, that it might gather successive generations within its holy walls, that passing centuries might shed their hallowing charm around it, that the children might worship where their fathers

had worshipped from age to age, and feel as if the spirits of their fathers still mingled in their holy rites. Nay, more do I say, and further would I go--I am not speaking, of course, as proposing anything, but only as individually preferring itbut I say for myself that I would place altars in that church, where prayers might be said daily, where daily resort might be had by all whose inclination prompted; so that whosoever passed by might have liberty, at any hour of the day, to turn aside from his business, his occupation, his care, or his leisurely walk-in his sorrow, or his joy, or his anxiety, or his fear, or his desire, and want, and trouble, and temptation, so often besetting the steps of every mortal life--to turn aside, I say, and bow down amid the awful stillness of the sanctuary. Let it not be said, as detracting from the importance of the religious architecture of a country, or as an apology for neglect or irreverence towards churches, that all places are holy-that the universe is the temple of God. It is true, indeed, that the whole frame of nature is a temple for worship, but is it a mean or an unadorned temple? Nay, what a structure is it! and what a glorious adorning is put upon it, to touch the springs of imagination and feeling, and to excite the principle of devotion? What painted or gilded dome is like that arch of

blue," that swells above us?" What blaze of clustered lamps, or even burning tapers, is like the lamp of day hung in the heavens, or the silent and mysterious lights that burn for ever in the far off depths of the evening sky? And what are the splendid curtains with which the churches of Rome are clothed for festal occasions, to the the gorgeous clouds that float around the pavilion of morning, or the tabernacle of the setting sun? And what mighty pavement of tesselated marble can compare with the green valleys, the enamelled plains, the whole variegated, broad, and boundless pavement of this world's surface, on which the mighty congregation of the children of men are standing? What, too, are altars reared by human hands, compared with the everlasting mountains-those altars in the temple of nature; and what incense ever arose from human altars, like the bright and beautiful mountain mists that float around those eternal heights, and then rise above them and are dissolved into the pure and transparent etherlike the last fading shadows of human imperfection, losing themselves in the splendours of heaven? And what voice ever spoke from human altar, like the voice of the thunder from its cloudy tabernacle on those sublime heights of the creation, when

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