n of
human labour.

He did not wish to exhaust in the pride of a single city the energies of
a generation, or the resources of a kingdom; he built for Amiens with
the strength and the exchequer of Amiens; with chalk from the cliffs of
the Somme,[41] and under the orders of two successive bishops, one of
whom directed the foundations of the edifice, and the other gave thanks
in it for its completion. His object, as a designer, in common with all
the sacred builders of his time in the North, was to admit as much light
into the building as was consistent with the comfort of it; to make its
structure intelligibly admirable, but not curious or confusing; and to
enrich and enforce the understood structure with ornament sufficient for
its beauty, yet yielding to no wanton enthusiasm in expenditure, nor
insolent in giddy or selfish ostentation of skill; and finally, to make
the external sculpture of its walls and gates at once an alphabet and
epitome of the religion, by the knowledge and inspiration of which an
acceptable worship might be rendered, within those gates, to the Lord
whose Fear was in His Holy Temple, and whose seat was in Heaven.

[Footnote 41: It was a universal principle with the French builders of
the great ages to use the stones of their quarries as they lay in the
bed; if the beds were thick, the stones were used of their full
thickness--if thin, of their necessary thinness, adjusting them with
beautiful care to directions of thrust and weight. The natural blocks
were never sawn, only squared into fitting, the whole native strength
and crystallization of the stone being thus kept unflawed--"_ne
dedoublant jamais_ une pierre. Cette methode est excellente, elle
conserve a la pierre toute sa force naturelle,--tous ses moyens de
resistance." See M. Viollet le Duc, Article "Construction"
(Materiaux), vol. iv. p. 129. He adds the very notable fact that, _to
this day, in seventy departments of France, the use of the stone-saw
is unknown_.]

3. It is not easy for the citizen of the modern aggregate of bad
building, and ill-living held in check by constables, which we call a
town,--of which the widest streets are devoted by consent to the
encouragement of vice, and the narrow ones to the concealment of
misery,--not easy, I say, for the citizen of any such mean city to
understand the feeling of a burgher of the Christian ages to his
cathedral. For him, the quite simply and frankly-believed text, "Where
two or three