my endeavour has been to show that good architecture is
essentially religious--the production of a faithful and virtuous, not of
an infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I have
had also to show that good architecture is not _ecclesiastical_. People
are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, not
their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on
'religion,' they think it must also have depended on the priesthood; and
I have had to take what place was to be occupied between these two
errors, and fight both, often with seeming contradiction. Good
architecture is the work of good and believing men; therefore, you say,
at least some people say, 'Good architecture must essentially have been
the work of the clergy, not of the laity.' No--a thousand times no; good
architecture has always been the work of the commonalty, _not_ of the
clergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals--the pride of
Europe--did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; they
corrupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron's castle,
and the burgher's street. It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and
powers of free citizens and soldier kings. By the monk it was used as an
instrument for the aid of his superstition; when that superstition
became a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed
and pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in the
crusade--through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothic
rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolish
dreams; and, in those dreams, was lost.

I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunderstanding me when I
come to the gist of what I want to say to-night--when I repeat, that
every great national architecture has been the result and exponent of a
great national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there--you
must have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a
clerical company--it is not the exponent of a theological dogma--it is
not the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priesthood; it is the manly
language of a people inspired by resolute and common purpose, and
rendering resolute and common fidelity to the legible laws of an
undoubted God.

Now, there have as yet been three distinct schools of European
architecture. I say, European, because Asiatic and African architectures
belong so entirely to other races and climates, that the