Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-01
Simplicity of the Celebration.

IN the choir and chancel they have the COM
munion service; in the nave the preaching
services. The seats in the nave are set length
wise, like choir stalls, with the pulpit down
about the middle of the church on one side, as
in the Cathedral at Antwerp. 1 was greatly
interested in the simplicity of the celebration
of the Holy Communion. Here in st. Mary's
began that great religious revival, which has
dignified the worship of all Protestant
Christendom and given new meanings to the
word reverence" The best of it has become
pat of our Christianity, while its nom
essentials and extravagances are passing away
TO-DAY in that gorgeous sunset OF green and
purple yestments, and clouds of incense, which
we call "ritualism." But Newman and Pusey
and Keble were none of them rituaists. The
yearlings of the divinity schools know more
than those unlearned saints dld ABOUT the
mysteries of ecclesiastical dressmaking. And
ST Mary's is as simple IN its ritual as one
could wish. Surplice for chasable, bread for
wafer, flesh stole instead OF sections OF rain.
bow, and the north end OF the altar instead OF
the eastward position" characterized the
service as saw II.
In general plan the colleges of Oxford are
all alike Everyone & OF them Is :SIil IKE a. coat al
the street. You go underneath great arched
gateway and come into fair green quadrangle
and there are the five fronts OF the building
facing this inner square. Sometimes out OF
this central quadrangle open three or four
more. Often there are smooth trim lawns and
shady gardens. There are two rivers in Oxford,
the Isis and the Cherwell. Christ Church
College with its Broad Walk is beside the
Isis the meadows of the Werton and the water
walks of Magdalen border upon the Cherwell.
Along these narrow rivers run the boats,
whose oarsmen are making ready for the races.
There are no adequate words for the venerable
stateliness of the college buildings, with their
great walls. part green with ivy and part
brown and grey with stone, with their five
towers and carved and sculptured
pateways OF course, it was in vacation time
when 1 visited Oxford. and it was good
deal like visiting fine house in the absence of
the owner But here and there gowned figure,
with tasselled "mortar-board" on head, passed
along the cloister of some silent and empty
quadrangle or woke the echoes OF the deserted
and stir of term time. And, anyway, the ghosts
were all there. The memoirs of past days, of
saints and scholars wto made these colleges
their home were all there. They take no vaca-
tion.
The Dining Room and Chapel.
EVERY college, besides its dormitories, has
l. chapel and hall. In the chapel the daily
nravers are said. The hall is the college din
ing.room. From the outside you can scarcely
tell which building was erected for devotion
and which for dinner. One looks as ecclesias-
tical as the other. The dinng-room is like
the refectory of a monastery, the windows Of
stained glass and the ceiling of carved oak.
Along the walls are hung fine paintings of the
faces of great men of the college, an inspira-
ton. one would think, to the young men who
daiiy sit beneath them. The tables for the stu
dents are set lengthwise along the hall. The
1fellows', sit at a crosswisa table on a raised
platform. At Christ Church College saw the
kitchen, built by Wolsey, an imposing struc-
ture with a fireplace as big as a small house.
Beside these features, which are common to
all the colleges each has Its own peculiar inter-
est and beauty. At Christ Church. in the bel
! frey, hangs Great Tom," the big bell on which
/ even to-day they ring the curfew every night
| at five minutes after o'clock. Great Tom
rinqs hundred and one. That was tine num-
her of scholars in the college when the rule was
made. And it still means that every scholar in
| the college must hear the last stroke of that
great bell from within the great gates. not from
Without. At Magdalen (or Mandle,, as they
call IT. is the stately tower, the glory of Oxford,
where they sing hymn, with the choir up in
the sky, at 5 clock in the morning. every May
day And in the quadrangle ia the great stone
| paipit out in the open air. where they used to
| have sermon preached upon the annual fes,i.
val day of st. John Baptist with the walls and
windows of the college building decked with
| green boughs tn represent the Jordan wilder
ness At Keble college is the original OF Hol-
man Hunts familiar picture, THE Light OF the