Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-07

you and the object Of your reverent ad-
miration. The cathedral is like great
PRAYER TO which you may listen or not,
but of which you must ever be more or less
conscious. 1t is too great to be disre-
Rarded like ordinary chuI ches. invisible
beyond their own block. 1t is the mighty
expression of the piety of past ages,
more pious. more simple than our own;
and it receives the dust of this careless
age with grand Inconsistencies Of
aught but the inspired and loving thought
OF those that reared it. 1t forms the
background Of poor. squalid quarters, II
looks down with holy solemnity into busi-
ness squares, the losing and gaining, the
buying aud selling, and Is silent pro-
test and a judgment against the sin COM
mitted in Its sight. Do they never look
up at il, those heated with the madness
of their SHINING. and feel struck dumb,
humbied,
CRUSHED DOWN,
on to their knees, with the reproach OF
those mighty, watchfnl lowers, bean'i-
fui with the highest art of God-fearing
meni
1: is SO that these European cathedrals
have impressed me. Architecture is TO
me, except music, the highest Of arts,
and q great cathedral, its highest ex-
preston. | believe the moral and spr-
itual history of IA nation can be read In
its architecture. and that without senti-
mental exaggeraton. Pure conception
of form tuIIies with moral purity. Moth
ing tells US so strkingly of the degenera-
tion of the Eighteenth century as the
architecture of that age, the rennls-
sance. We do not need to read the
books of that century; but their build
ings are more or less forced upon US, and
we read there-vulgarity, spiritual
blindness to true beauty. Thank heaven,
although the Nineteenth century is not
creative one in art (being occupied with
equally beautiful science), it is at least
appreciatve
AND DISCERNING OF TRUE IDEALS.
The beautiful Old gothic churches that
were disfigured by the renaissance rest
| toraiions are now being restored to tn ir
original sim pIicity and decorated in per-
feet keeping.
The old cathedrals are doubiy interest
ing, because one feels now that the age
of cathedrals has passed. The world is
too busy conquering distance and time
with railroads and telephones; too much
occupied in solving great mental prob
external expressions of pIety. As re-
lgion grows more rational, more spirit
ual, there is surely less need of any out
ward expression. And not only religion,
but the tendency of ever thing seems 10
he toward the purely mental, and the
time must come when the ideal itself
of beauty aud truth will satisfy us Us can
no material representation, So 1t does
not seem likely that the
AGES OF GREAT BUILDINGS,
for augbt than necessary purposes, will
ever be repeated. So we gaze at the old
cathe rails as at past religions. and read
In them with reverence and love all that
was noblest and most enduring i'll the
thought of men from the eleventh to the
eighteenth century. No one can doubt
the real piety which made these labors of
love during ages OF war and discord.
They are ''living epstles, written over
with unmistak ibie characters of fervent
religious feeling. Just notice the cary
ings of the capltols, the patterns of the
op, n-work ballustrades, in any OF these
old cnthedrals! No one pattern has
been adopted and the work done by the
job lot. Each capitol is an idea Of itself,
involving individual thought and care;
each little section of the ballustrade ID
different in design from any other; why,
almost every sto in the vast edifce has
received especial attention! Aud then
the EXTERIOR! To realize the work ex-
pended upon that one needs TO see a
restoration going on, the restoration of
a choir for instance, or the wing of a
transept.
THE wORKMEN' s SHOPS
are built right by it. Piece by piece the
work is taken down, copied and restored.
One sees the pieces lying around on the
ground; gergoylis that are six feet high,
and seem but few inches when pu; up
on the roof; bits of leaf-carving and
Dullustrades that seem only a little ua-
tursi finish " hen in their places but, seen
near by, one ,rsalizes they are great
stones leach one involving days of skilled
work. Then one notices the hundreds
and hundreds of stones on the exterior,
which are carved in this wav, and the
years on years of steady toll necessary to
make thing so grandly, and naturally
beauty fash through one's mind. And
when one reads the history of the cathe-
drals, one sees: ''Destroyed By fire the
day after its conservation. Rebuilt on a
grander scale. 'sThe spire struck by
lightning. Renewed by so and so. -
Scarcely one of these great buildings
that has not been partly burnt down once
or twice. sometimes wholly destroyed:
anj always "rebuilt on grsnder
scale.'' God preserve the old cathedra!s
"a us-to preach 10 US OF patient love and
cure! JESSIE G. CHAhBERLIN.