hamshire churches from the work published by Mr. Parker, on the subject referred to in the report.

A vote of thanks to the chairman was moved by T. Tindal, Esq., Treasurer of the Society, and seconded by W. Stowe, Esq., of Buckingham. The company then gathered about the table to examine the several objects of interest, after which the meeting broke up.

NEW YORK ECCLESIOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

A STATED quarterly meeting was held on Monday, July 2, 1849; the Rev. Dr. M Vicar, president of the society, being in the chair. The secretary being absent from the city, Mr. Pirsson was appointed secretary, pro tem.

The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

An original paper was then read by the Rev. Mr. Preston, on the Arrangement of Chancels. The chancel was (he said) the distinguishing and essential feature of a church, and that which distinguished it from all others. It should therefore be both distinct and spacious. This distinction should be marked both externally and internally; and as to spaciousness, the chancel should be at least one third of the length of the nave and of proportionate breadth. It should be separated from the nave by a chancel arch, or at least by a screen, and the elevation of its floor above that of the nave. The screen should be divided into an unequal number of arched compartments, of which the central one should correspond with the centre alley, and be closed by two folding leaves, affording an uninterrupted view of the altar when open, and when shut resembling the other compartments. The lower panels of the screen should be decorated with painting, the upper part finished with elegant tracery. The chancel should have a subdivision into choir and sacrarium. This last, also called the sanctuary, may be distinguished externally, as was early the case, by the apses of the basilicas; and in many cases where we find the space insufficient for both, the sacrarium is preserved, and the choir projected into the nave. Rails are unnecessary where there is a chancel screen, but they are not unauthorized. The chancel should be marked by an increase of ornament, especially in the roof, and it should contain nothing which has not its specific use. In the sacrarium should be a plain altar, of substantial materials, placed lengthwise under the east window. Along the south wall a piscina, and to the westward of it three sedilia, either in the thickness of the wall, or of tabernacle wood-work. On the north wall should be a credence table, which may be constructed as a niche, or as a bracket. This is all the necessary furniture for the sacrarium, which is to be used solely for the Communion Office. In the other part of the chancel, the choir, the Morning and Evening Prayers are to be said. Along its north and south walls the stalls were to be ranged, returned properly against the screen, and having a light desk before them adorned with poppy-heads. From any one of these stalls the Morning and Evening Prayer may be said, the minister

facing the altar. The lectern, from which the lessons were read, should be made either of brass or wood, in the form of the eagle or the pelican, or a simple desk. The organ should be as near the chancel as possible. A side chapel might sometimes be appropriated to its use. East of the chancel screen the floor should all be paved with tiles, and those in the sacrarium should be the richest of all. The sacred vessels should always be kept in the aumbry, and never removed from the church but in administering the Communion to the sick. The altar should always have an altarstone, marked with five crosses, and should be provided with changes of hangings, varying according to the changes of the festivals and fasts. The minister should always enter the chancel by the priest's north door. The litany stool should be in the body of the church. The Holy Communion should always be celebrated in the sacrarium, and the communicants should kneel at the sacrarium steps.

The election of additional vice-presidents, postponed from the last meeting, was now taken up, and the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, of New York, and the Rev. Dr. Vinton, of Brooklyn, were added to the number.

On the election of new members, the names of several gentlemen, who were proposed, were referred to the committee for their approval. The Rev. Henry M Vicar was appointed to read the original paper at the next meeting of the society; subject-"The propriety of adopting a single style of architecture."

The treasurer pronounced the funds of the society to be in a very satisfactory state.

Some general remarks were then made by the president, concerning the progress made by the society during the first year of its existence, which was now closed; and enlarging on the vital importance of its periodical publication, the "Ecclesiologist."

On motion of Mr. Muenscher, resolved, that the society renews the expression of the deep interest with which it regards the "Ecclesiologist," presents its thanks to the committee for the manner in which they have conducted it, and pledges its exertions to extend its influence and circulation.

On motion, the society adjourned.

After the adjournment, some beautiful pieces of Church Plate were exhibited, of the manufacture of the English Ecclesiological Society. All but the alms-basin were of silver, and all were heavily gilt. The alms.basin was very large, and its ornaments rich; its legend, “Tua sunt omnia, Domine, et de tuis dedimus tibi." The flagon was of very elegant shape, and bore around it, Soli Deo gloria, pax hominibus." The open-work spoon was finished with a cross handle. The paten, which was quite small, and very delicately adorned, bore, Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nostri." The chalice was, to our liking, the most beautiful vessel of all. The cup was more of an egg shape than is usual with us: the standard larger, and swelling out much wider below, with a highly chased knop between the two. On one side of the spreading standard was a small incised figure of our SAVIOUR on the Cross, in a cusped vesica piscis,

and relieved on a ground of blue enamel. The legend of the chalice ran thus: "Calicem salutaris accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo." The workmanship of all these vessels is exceedingly fine. They are the property of S. Luke's parish.*

NEW CHURCHES.

Holy Trinity, S. Francisco, California.-We have received, from an American friend, a lithograph (taken from the south-west) of this design, which is the production of Mr. Frank Wills, one of our members, now settled at New York. The style is Middle-Pointed, and the plan comprises a chancel, a clerestoried nave and aisles, with a tower engaged in the west end of the south aisle, and crowned by a lofty spire. We cannot speak in very high terms of the design, which seems to us rather common-place, and destitute of individuality or adaptation to its locality. But, undoubtedly, many Modern-Pointed churches among ourselves are infinitely worse. The chancel has a lead roof of fair pitch, plain parapet, an exaggerated coping with a gable-cross, and angular pinnacles (of too late a character) not well connected with the meagre buttresses below. The nave has a high-pitched lead roof, with similar copings to the chancel, a heavy parapet, and a row of labelled trefoilheaded single lights for the clerestory. The west end presents a large geometrical window of five lights, with a circle in the head, containing two intersecting triangles. This rests on a string, and there is a door below. The aisles have flattish lean-to roofs, windows of two lights, separated by uniform buttresses, and a heavy parapet. The tower, of which the lowest stage forms a porch, is the least satisfactory part of the design. It is almost of a First-Pointed type, and yet has embattled parapets of a very late kind: and it is a whole stage too short, which is a worse fault than ever, when, as here, it seeks an effect of height by being isolated from the nave-gable. The spire is octagonal, with no spire-lights, but three bands of panelled ornament, and ends in a stone cross, and not in a weathercock. But whatever faults we may have found, this design for a Pointed church in California is sufficiently good to command our sympathy in its success.

S. Matthew, Wolverhampton.—We have seen an exterior and interior view of this church, which is just consecrated. The architect is a name new to us, -Mr. E. Banks. The plan is a chancel, a clerestoried nave, and two aisles, and south-western porch, with a western bell-gable; the style is meant to be (we presume) early MiddlePointed. The design is exceedingly bad, though it observes the letter of most of the now generally received canons of plan and detail. The chancel, though developed, is small and mean; the east window of

[This set, made originally for the church of Miramichi, New Brunswick, were sold to the parish of S. Luke, New York. Another set has been since furnished to Miramichi.-ED.]

three bald trefoil-headed lights under one hood; the side windows of two lights, with a quatrefoil in their heads. Lean buttresses, unprotected eaves, a high-pitched roof with cresting, and a coped gable with saddlestone and cross, complete the exterior of the chancel. The nave has a clerestory of five trefoiled circles, a vesica-formed window in its east gable above the ridge of the chancel-roof, and a most miserable gable at the west end for a single bell. The aisle has windows of two unfoliated lights, under a plain circle, and the porch looks as if it were undisguised Third-Pointed. Inside we lose all signs of an earlier style, and must content ourselves with the basest Third-Pointed tall octagonal piers, and the latest of capitals; six arches on each side; a similar, but very large and open, chancel-arch; open roofs, of the thinnest scantlings apparently, and with intersecting braces, both to nave and chancel; a pulpit in the right place, entered by a hole in the wall; a reading-pew facing it on the south side; a font in the aisle, near the south-west door; very late-looking open seats, and an arcade of three arches over the altar, by way of a reredos.

Holy Trinity, and S. Matthew, Westminster.-Those of our readers, who have seen in the papers the simultaneous laying of the first stones of these two churches, must have felt rejoiced at this striking sign of returning Christianity. The first and costliest is the gift of the single munificence of the Archdeacon of Westminster. The second is to be built by subscription. They are to be both in Middle-Pointed; Mr. Pearson being the architect of Holy Trinity, which is to be cruciform, with a very lofty spire; and Mr. Scott, of S. Matthew's. London may yet become la ville des beaux clochers.

S. Matthew, Great Peter Street, Westminster.-The second of the two churches mentioned in the preceding paragraph, has already made considerable progress; the north and south walls having reached nearly their destined height. The difficulties of the site were such, that we recollect some years since, when the sacred building was first projected, one of the then parish-priests expressing regret at the apparent impracticability of orientation. This difficulty, however, has been skilfully surmounted, and the plan of the church has been so adapted to the necessities of its position, as to produce at once a correctly-formed and a capacious house of prayer. The number of persons to be accommodated was 1,200: the shape of the plot of land approaching that of the letter L, or of two sides of a hollow square L. That portion of ground running east and west is now becoming occupied by nave and north aisle, chancel of three bays, and north chancel aisle of two; the easternmost bay of the chancel being flanked by a sacristy kept sufficiently low to allow of the insertion of a window in the north chancel walls. The portion of ground projecting southward is occupied by an aisle, necessarily co-extensive only with the nave; this aisle opening by a second arcade into an additional south aisle, and that again opening southward into the tower, which is attached towards the east end of the aisle, and serves also as a porch. This judicious arrangement of parts has enabled the architect to avail himself of nearly the entire area at his disposal; affording thereby the required amount of accommodation for worshippers, and reproducing in the double aisle

a feature, which, though rare in English medieval churches, is frequent in continental ones, and is at once pleasing and practically advantageous. The style is Middle-Pointed; the material Kentish rag. The north aisle (having a blank wall) receives light from the clerestory; the chancel is terminated by a handsome five-light window, and is flanked at the eastern extremity on either side by a window, the southern having its sill depressed to form sedilia. In the southernmost aisle, unhappily, will be a gallery, cutting across the windows, but having separate supports, kept back therefore from the piers, and not extending over the principal entrance of the church, viz., that from the tower porch. The gallery is entered from a stair-turret, is designed for the use of children only, and is excused on the ground of necessity; the funds being so limited, as not at present to permit the completion of the tower above its first story. The well-proportioned chancel of this edifice will allow divine service to be celebrated chorally in it with becoming dignity. We trust it may be so; and that the povertystricken district around may receive the benefit of the ministrations of the Church in all their fulness.

S. Jude, Poyntzpool, Bristol.-We have seen with great satisfaction a notice of this new Middle-Pointed church, by Mr. Gabriel, in the local papers, though we feel that we can hardly describe it from them. Prayers are said in a stalled chancel with a high screen.

S. John Evangelist, Penge, Surrey.We have for some time been desirous to review this church, which, as seen from the Brighton railway, near Sydenham, looks very commendable. But it so happens that one of our contributors, who has examined the building, is again prevented from sending us his criticisms. In the meantime, a small view from the south-east, which the architects, Messrs. E. Nash and J. N. Round, have sent us, enables us to say that it is a First-Pointed structure, having chancel with a sacristy to the north, nave (clerestoried) and aisles, a west tower and spire, and a south-west porch. The design has some excellent points; the chancel is well developed, and the sacristy seems well treated and the tower, though rather thin, is not stinted in height, the belfry stage rising clear above the ridge of the nave roof, and the octagonal broach stone spire, with two rows of spire lights on each cardinal face, tapering with very graceful outline to a proper weathercock. The windows and buttresses, on the contrary, seem, in this slight woodcut, to be very commonplace in their treatment. have chiefly inserted this superficial account, instead of waiting further for a better one, in justice to the architects who (we understand) are laudably anxious to be acquitted of blame for the very defective interior arrangements which were enforced by the committee. The chancel for example had been properly fitted and the erection of a screen begun : these were removed; and a reading-pew, facing west only, was erected, under the architects' protest; and even some of the unappropriated benches were, on principle, furnished with needless doors. The FirstPointed style again was forced on the architects, we understand; and the committee would not permit the font to have canopy or cover.

But we

Moss Side, Chorlton on Medlock, Manchester.-We have received an almost incredible document: a bill announcing that an auctioneer was