who lived when the Romanesque churches
dotted every part in Europe looked upon society and saw nothing but
grief,--heavy burdens, injustices, oppressions, cruel wrongs; and they
hid their faces and wept, and said: "Let us retreat from this miserable
world which discord ravages; let us hide ourselves in contemplation; let
us prepare to meet God in judgment; let us bring to Him our offering;
let us propitiate Him; let us build Him a house, where we may chant our
mournful songs." So the church arises,--in Germany, in France, in
England,--solemn, mystical, massive, a type of sorrow, in the form of a
cross, with "a sepulchral crypt like the man in the tomb, before the
lofty spire pointed to the man who had risen to Heaven." The church is
still struggling, and is not jubilant, except in Gregorian chants, and
is not therefore lofty or ornamental. It is a vault. It is more like a
catacomb than a basilica, for the world is buried deep in sorrows and
fears. Look to any of the Saxon churches of the period when the
Romanesque prevailed, and they are low, gloomy, and damp, though massive
and solemn. The church as an edifice ever represents the Church as an
institution or a power, ever typifies prevailing sentiments and ideas.
Perhaps the finest of the old Romanesque churches was that of Cluny, in
Burgundy, destroyed during the French Revolution. It had five aisles,
and was five hundred and twenty feet in length. It had a stately tower
at the intersection of the transepts, and six other towers. It was early
Norman, and loftier than the Saxon churches, although heavy and massive
like them.

But the Romanesque church, with all its varieties, is still gloomy,
dark, sepulchral, reminding us of the sorrows of the Middle Ages, and
the dreary character of prevailing religious sentiments,--fervent,
sincere, profound, but sad,--the sentiments of an age of ignorance
and faith.

The Crusades came. A new era burst upon the world. The old ideas became
modified; society became more cheerful, because more chivalric,
adventurous, poetic. The world opened towards the East, and was larger
than was before supposed. Liberality of mind began to dawn on the
darkened ages; no longer were priests supreme. The gay Provencals began
to sing; the universities began to teach and to question. The Scholastic
philosophy sent forth such daring thinkers as Erigena and Abelard.
Orthodoxy was still supreme before such mighty intellects as Anselm,
Bernard, and Thomas