228 THE STONES OF VENICE

§ 36. Then, to turn our prison into a palace is an easy thing. We have seen above, that exactly in the degree in which Greek and Roman architecture is lifeless, unprofitable, and unchristian, in that same degree our own ancient Gothic is animated, serviceable, and faithful. We have seen that it is flexible to all duty, enduring to all time, instructive to all hearts, honourable and holy in all offices. It is capable alike of all lowliness and all dignity, fit alike for cottage porch or castle gateway; in domestic service familiar, in religious, sublime; simple, and playful, so that childhood may read it, yet clothed with a power that can awe the mightiest, and exalt the loftiest of human spirits: an architecture that kindles every faculty in its workman, and addresses every emotion in its beholder; which, with every stone that is laid on its solemn walls, raises some human heart a step nearer heaven, and which from its birth has been incorporated with the existence, and in all its form is symbolical of the faith, of Christianity. In this architecture let us hence-forward build alike the church, the palace, and the cottage; but chiefly let us use it for our civil and domestic buildings. These once ennobled, our ecclesiastical work will be exalted together with them: but churches are not the proper scenes for experiments in untried architecture, nor for exhibitions of unaccustomed beauty. It is certain that we must often fail before we can again build a natural and noble Gothic: let not our temples be the scenes of our failures. It is certain that we must offend many deep-rooted prejudices, before ancient Christian architecture* can be again received by all of us: let not religion be the first source of such offence. We shall meet with difficulties in applying Gothic architecture to churches, which would in no-wise affect the designs of civil buildings, for the most beautiful forms of Gothic

* Observe, I call Gothic “Christian” architecture, not “ecclesiastical.” There is a wide difference. I believe it is the only architecture which Christian men should build, but not at all an architecture necessarily connected with the services of their church.¹

¹ [For the uses of Gothic churches, see Vol. X. p. 445; for the universality of Gothic, compare, in Vol. XII., Lectures on Architecture and Painting, § 55.]

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