DAIRSIE CHURCH.

THE ecclesiologist may probably be puzzled to account for the appearance of an engraving of Dairsie Church in a collection of ecclesiastical antiquities; but when he observes the curious little history connected with the edifice, it is believed that he will consider it pre-eminently entitled to a place among the marked historical types of ecclesiastical architecture. Solitary and remote as it is, it represents a vast project-even that of covering Scotland in the seventeenth century with such church edifices and services as England has retained; and though the structural part of the project went no farther than the building of the Church of Dairsie, and the doctrinal part was overwhelmed in wild commotions, it is impossible to look without interest on this quiet little memorial of so brilliant a failure, nestled in a clump of woodland stretching down to the gentle waters of the Eden. The accompanying plate gives a complete idea, not only of the general effect of the edifice, but of all its details, except the western doorway, which has no pretension to be Gothic, but, with its thin fluted pilasters and shallow arch, is very like the entrance to the house of a moderate country gentleman of the early part of the seventeenth century. It will be seen that, though the more conspicuous details of the building profess to be intensely Gothic, the artist has not been accustomed to turn his hand to that class of architecture. It was gradually and with difficulty that the renovation of classical architecture could find its impersonation in the designs of those who had been trained in Gothic work, though the style was then degenerating, and required a successor in some new devisals, or old system revived. And so, in like manner, such isolated attempts at the restoration of Gothic as this same parish church, show how difficult it is for the mind to divest itself of old accustomed associations, and pursue a new and distinct school of structure. The bands or mouldings are, it will be seen, far more classical than Gothic, and no single feature is of a pure medieval The tracery part of the windows is not properly divided by raised mullions, but the lights are, as it were, cut out on the flat stone, like a pattern on pasteboard. Association gives the belfrey an air of antiquity, from its resemblance to those attached to the older ecclesiastical buildings; for, in the case even of the most ancient Scottish churches, this feature was frequently not completed until the seventeenth century. On the whole, however, when seen peeping over the rich bank of trees, with the ancient three-arched bridge spanning the Eden, and the ruins of the old castle of the Spottiswoods farther on, Dairsie Church forms part of a sweet and interesting landscape.

cast.

As already mentioned, this church owes its existence to the great project of the seventeenth century, for bringing Scotland to religious conformity with England. It was built about the year 1621, as a date above the door testifies, by Archbishop Spottiswood, the historian, whose main object was characterised by his biographer to be "the restoring the ancient discipline, and bringing that church to some degrees of uniformity with her sister Church of England; which, had we on both sides been worthy of, might have proved a wall of brass to both nations." It was in this spirit that, according to the same writer, "he publicly, upon his own charges, built and adorned the Church of Dairsie after the decent English form; which, if the boisterous hand of a mad Reformation had not disordered, is, at this time, one of the beautifullest little pieces of church work that is left to that unhappy country."

In the year 1641, some transactions took place in the ecclesiastical courts of Fifeshire, which explain the last allusion. A committee had been appointed by the Provincial Assembly of Fife to search for superstitious monuments in the several presbyteries. They reported, in general, that there

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DAIRSIE CHURCH.

"onlie Mr Patrick Scougall reported, that there were sundry crosses in were none to be found; their Kirk of Dairsie, which by some was not thought superstitious," and therefore he pleaded that a special commission should be sent thither. They assembled on 2d November, and reported that they found that, at the entrance of certain desks or pews, and over the great west door, "there are crosier staffes, in some part alone, and in others as aditament and cognisance of the last pretended bishop's arms, not being any sign or cognisance, ordinary and common in the arms of that name or family, but merely a sign of his degree hierarchical, according to the manner and form used among the Roman hierarchists and others following them;" and therefore the minister and session are to "take order with"-that is, it may be presumed, remove them. Another feature, apparently a rood screen of carved wood, appears to have created more difficulty. "Further, they find superstitious a glorious partition wall with a degree [step] ascending thereto, dividing the body of the Kirk fra the quire, (as it is ordinarlie called in Papistry, and among them that follow Papists,) and because this particular is not specially named in the commission, and a great part of it is the building and ornaments of some desks; and above the great door of thir quire, so called, the arms of Scotland and England quartered, with divers crosses about and beside them, are set up, whereupon the Kirk has not yet particularly determined; therefore that part of superstition, or what is superstition in it, the brethren convened referred, and returned back to the Provinciall next following." The Assembly directed the "glorious partition wall of timber" to be shortened to the height to which part of it served for the enclosure of pews. The matter of burial within the church was at the same time taken up, not on sanitary grounds, but as savouring of superstition. The practice of interment within churches began by the depositing of the remains of saints within the consecrated walls, and a desire, first shown by monarchs and great lords, but spreading among inferior persons, As the committee of purification declared themto be placed near the relics of these holy men. selves bent "upon the most calm and loving settling of all such matters, for time by-gane and in all to come," they proposed to proceed to ecclesiastical extremities, only in the case of the heritors not voluntarily agreeing to discontinue the condemned practice.