Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-27
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
THE FIRST IMPRESSION ONE OF plsAP.
POiSTMENT.

Rev. George Hodges Tells of His Visit to
EnSland's Most Famous Structure-The
Great Principle Taught by the Tombs
Therein.
THE first impression of Westminster Abbey
is disappointment. That is inevitable.
Hardly anything less wonderful than Soomon's
Temple could satisfy the anticipations of the
tourist
THAT antique pile behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold;
1t gives them crowns, and does their ashes
keep:
There made like gods, like mortaIs there they
sleep"
Yon do behold it, and what is it that you see?
You pass the stately Parliament Houses, and
turn in beside the plain church OF st. Margaret,
where Archdeaeon Farrar is the minister and
behold the Abbey! Well it is great building,
OF course, but not SO immensely great. There
are no clouds around the SUBMITS of its towers
And it is imposing, but not so overpoweringly
imposing. The first thing which you see is a
great pile of scaffolding against the wall of the
north transept The great wall is quite hid
den behind the ugly lattice of rough timbers
This means mendiug, patching, restoration"
Ihey are always doing something to the Abbey.
Indeed, there IS hardly cathedral In En-
SldHu WueT6 LH6 WOrKml0S blouse does not
brush against the Virgins gown, and where the
prayers are not punctuated by the pounding of
the carpenters hammer. was amazed TO find
the great churches so unfinished, so ragged. SO
out of repair There is work enough to keep
TWO or three generations more in dilligent en-
ployment. There are hicks in the pillars, and
breaks in the pavements, and bare walls which
ought to be adorned with color, and the statues
are defaced and dismembered, good many of
them, and there is surprising amount of
white glass in the windows. The iconoclasts of
mark. You cannot heIY seeing it everywhere. here.
This is true even of he Abbey. Outside and
in the repairer is at work building up what
was ignorantly or wickedly pulled down and
see as you look toward the altar stands long
ladder.
Other Causes of Disappointment.
WEsTMENsTER Abbey is disappointing even
after you get inside. The moment 1 en-
tered Westminster Abbey felt kind of awe
pervade my mind. which I cannot describe.
The very silence seemed sacred. That is how
it seemed to Edward Burke. And every tourist
desires to experience the same impression. But
to the majority the interior of the Abbey is
like great, enclosed. over-roofed and decorated
marble yard; or like cemetery with stone for
turf, and branching columns for trees, and
carved work for clouds. 1t is green wood in
doors. And when you study the names upon
tneSe monuments and hnd that some OF the
most elaborate of them belong to people of
whom both literature and history and even re-
ligion are ignorant, the disappointment
deepens.
And then you fall into the hands of the
Ferger. You may wander at your will about
nave and choir; you may explore the poets
corner at your leisure: but if you desire to visit
the chapels which are clustered about the
chancel, and to look upon the shrine which was
built for the bones of Edward, the Confessor,
and to see the sanctuary which Henry VII.
built you must go with the verger.
There are vergers in the cathedrals of the
Continent. That is, there are officials whose
function it is to display the wonders of the
place before the wide-open eyes of strangers.
They are personages clad in gorgeous raiment,
resplendent in red and green and blue. and
they have a great deal to say and they say it
in the most impressive manner. 1 remember
the sacristan at Milan who showed the gold
crucitixes and the jeweled book-covers of the
cathedral treasury, and the sacrisIan at Notre
Dame who let us see tine coronation robes of
Napoleon and the blood-stained yestments of
Archbishop Darbsy. They entered with the
most elaborate and enthusiastic explanations,
But we did not understand them They spoke
language which. to the average American
tourist conveys no meaning. So that the Con-
tlnental verger does not take much space in
the notebook of the observing traveller.