Ecclesiastical Curiosities

That first impressions have no small influence in moulding the opinions of most people can scarcely be denied; and therefore in our estimate of the architectural value of a church the door is an element of some importance. A shabby and undignified entrance raises no expectations of a lofty and solemn interior; and that interior must be emphatically fine, if we are not to read into it some of the meanness of its portal. On the other hand, though the church be but plain and simple—so that it lack not a measure of the dignity which may well accompany simplicity—our thoughts will be raised and fitted to find in it something worthy of its high purpose, if we have been prepared by passing through a noble porch, and beneath a doorway that speaks itself the entrance to no ordinary dwelling.