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The charitable being now assured that no Beggar need suffer hunger or be destitute of lodging, it is particularly requested that donations of every kind, money, food, or clothing, may be withheld from them, so will one temptation to Vagrancy be removed, and the deserving poor in their own neighbourhoods may be largely benefited by receiving what has hitherto been bestowed upon Impostors."

WORDS AND DEEDS.

Ill-natured deeds are very rare when compared with ill-natured words; in short, the proportion of the deeds to the words, is as Falstaff's penny-worth of bread to his monstrous quantity of sack. It would be a shrewdly good bargain for the world to agree that illnatured deeds should be multiplied by ten, if only the ill-natured words were to be diminished by one half; for, though the deed may be a much larger and more potent thing than the word, it often does not give nearly as much pain. Dependents would gain very much by this bargain, for they seldom suffer much from deeds, but a great deal from words. Many a man goes through life scattering illnatured remarks in all directions, who has never done to his knowledge, an ill-natured deed, and who probably considers himself a very good natured fellow, but one, however, who takes a knowing view of all human beings, and of all human affairs, and is not to be imposed upon by anything or anybody. A. HELPS.

SONNING:

BAPTISMS.

July 30, Beatrice Fanny, daughter of Joshua and Fanny Bailey. August 20, Phœbe, daughter of Joshua and Anna Rackley.

ALL SAINTS' :

August 20, Florence Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Eliza Evans.

BURIALS.

SONNING:

July 30, John Goodchild, of Sonning, aged 64.

August 5, Leonard Wheeler, of Woodley, aged 9 months.

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Church Services.

The same as in the month of September.

MOTHERS' MEETINGS.

The Mothers' Meetings will be held during the winter at Woodley School-room, on every Wednesday, at two o'clock. The first meeting will be on Wednesday, November 8th. We have been requested to say that members who are unable to buy at every meeting, are welcome to attend, bringing their own work.

On the ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE of ENGLAND, between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation.

Every art has for its end the production of something useful or something beautiful. Where the production of something beautiful is the sole or a considerable ingredient in the end, the art is one of the Fine Arts. The most important of the Fine Arts are, Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry. Architecture differs from the other four in being an Utilitarian as well as a Fine Art. It includes, while it refines, the homely art of building. To provide shelter is the primary object of every building from the wigwam to the temple. Architecture is nothing more than the art of beautifying constructions raised with that primary object, and other objects subsidiary to it. The work of the Architect should therefore exhibit in harmonious combination the two principles of utility and beauty. Modern Architects have too often failed to recognise or comply with this cardinal and supreme rule of their art. From sordid motives of economy, or from ignorance of their craft, they have covered the earth with buildings so mean, bald, flimsy, and prosaic in appearance, as to make the eyes sore; or they have, through servile adherence to the styles of antiquity, through want of scientific attainments, and through fantastic crotchets and conceits of their own, omitted to make their erections serviceable for the purposes to which they are destined. Hence we have, even in this age of mechanical knowledge, walls that do not keep out the cold, and roofs that do not keep out the wet; ceilings so low as to endanger our heads; fire places that give no heat; chimneys that decline to take up any smoke; music halls with an echo so loud as to be destructive of music; and churches in which the minister cannot be heard. And not unfrequently inconvenience and ugliness enter into a conspiracy together, and become joint tenants of the same edifice.

Now in the earlier days of Architecture in England, and especially during the period of about 470 years between the arrival of William the Conqueror and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, this was not the case, or at any rate the Architects of those days did not wilfully and with their eyes open violate the fundamental canons of their art. (Continued at end.)

We omit the consideration of civil and military, and confine our selves to Ecclesiastical Architecture. During the whole of that long period in every part of the country, and in widely varying styles, Cathedrals and Abbeys, Churches and Chapels arose, were enlarged or modified, in which use was not sacrificed to ornament, and beauty was not sacrificed to convenience.

It is our intention, in some of the subsequent numbers of this Magazine, to give a short account of the several styles of Architecture which successively prevailed in this country from A.D. 1066, to A.D. 1536. The remainder of our space in the present number will be devoted to a somewhat more detailed examination of the principles according to which architectural works should be designed and must be judged. These principles we asserted at the outset to be two in number, utility and beauty.

(1) With regard to the former of these two principles, it must be borne in mind that a building often outlives the needs it was originally intended to supply. And it will doubtless not have escaped our readers that the ecclesiastical buildings erected in England between the dates above mentioned, were built under circumstances and in a state of society very different from our own, and for a form of worship in many respects unlike that with which we are familiar. But the Architect must of course stand or fall according as his work was well or ill suited to the purposes for which it was in the first instance designed.

(2) We proceed to inquire in the next place what it is that renders a building beautiful, or in other words, what are the conditions of successful architectural effect. Unless we probe to some extent and analyse our notion of beauty in architecture, our estimate of the merits of any particular building will be arbitrary and precarious. The following seem to be the most important elements which go to constitute the complex whole of architectural beauty in its perfection.

I.-Size.

II. Stability and repose.

III.-Magnitude and costliness of the materials employed.
IV.-Simplicity of construction.

V.-Judicious combination of curves and straight lines, &c.
VI. Elegance of proportion.

VII.-Effective ornamentation; as regards both form and colour.
Under this head will be included the help derived from the
arts of sculpture and painting.

VIII.-Unity of design and symmetry.

The foregoing are all elements within reach of a competent Architect. But in addition to these, there are yet two others over which he has no control, but which greatly enhance in our eyes the beauty of our ancient Churches,—the appearance of venerable age, and the manifold assemblage of solemn associations, religious and historical, which have gathered round their hoary walls.

(To be continued.)

F. H.

THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS.

And is there care in heaven, and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?

There is, else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O the exceeding grace
Of highest God that loves his creatures so,

And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.
How oft do they their silver bowers leave,

To come to succour us that succour want ;
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies like flying pursuivant,
Against foul friends to aid us militant.
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant,

And all for love, and nothing for reward;

O why should heavenly God to man have such regard.

EDMUND SPENSER.

RICHARD HOOKER, the great author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, being asked on his death bed what were his thoughts, replied, that he was "meditating the number and nature of angels, and their blessed obedience and order, without which peace could not be in heaven, and O that it might be so on earth!" After which words he said, "I have lived to see this world is made up of perturbations, and I have been long preparing to leave it, and gathering comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account with God, which I now apprehend to be near; and though I have, by His grace, loved Him in my youth, and feared Him in mine age, and laboured to have a conscience void of offence to Him and to all men, yet if Thou, Lord, be extreme to mark what I have done amiss, who can abide it? And therefore where I have failed, Lord, show mercy to me, for I plead not my righteousness, but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His merits, Who died to purchase pardon for penitent sinners." Isaac Walton's Life of Hooker.

SONNING.

BAPTISMS.

September 10th,-Tom, son of Thomas and Hannah Lewis.

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13th,—Maud, daughter of Iltid Evans and Mary Ada Witherington.

MARRIAGE.

SONNING.

August 23rd,-Henry James Sadler to Jane Hearn, both of Sonning.

SONNING.

BURIALS.

August 24th.-Elizabeth Rackley, of Sonning, aged 85 years.

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27th.-James Turner, of Woodley, aged 38 years.

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