Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-10-10
CHURCH DOTTED ENGLAND.
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH.

Canterbury Cathedral is larger than Trinity
Church, Pittsburg. And the nave is thre.
times as large as the choir. And beside
| the choir and the nave are the transepts
and the great ambulatories, and the wide
chapel spaces behind the altar. And under
meath all, wide as dozen churches, is th,
, great crypt.
tween the parish churches of the two coun.
tries, and especially with regard to the
churches of the rural parishes. Everybody
knows how the country church looks in the
American village. 1t is built of wood. The
architecture is carpenters gothic. 1t il
| plain even to ugliness. And poverty is
printed in blunt letters on every clapboard
and shingle of it. 1t IS the meanest looking
building in the town. 1t is the necessary
consequence of that condition of division
with which some Christian people claim to
the devil enters into every little community
| to persuade the people that they ought to
| have five or six different kinds OF Chris
| tianity. They run in debt to pay for the
| expensive privilege of writing half dozen
different adjectives before the noun
"church;' and the result is that they are all
poor-the minister the poorest of all. And
the miserable church buildings symbolic
poverty alike of pocket and of soul.
Ancient and Hallowed Sanctuaries.
BUT in England, in every smallest and
remotest parish, stands the ancient and
venerable church. The gray tower rises
above the tops of the trees; the graves are
set about the ivied walls; you approach, per-
haps, underneath an archway OF bending
yews, which were old when Richard of the
Lion Heart was young; the bells which ill.,
vite you with their CHEEKY voices were just
QG mn 1oin in, fhn RI xul,a
Columbus saw the other side OF the great
ocean; you enter by porch which the
monks built in the age of the Norman con-
quest; the stone floor is worn into waves by
the feet of the men and women of genera
tions past. whose family names, still borne
by the living, are cut into marble tablets on
the walls, or engraved in the ancient brasses
sunk in the chancel pavement: in the stone
pulpit men were preaching when preaching
was perilous business and when an excess
OF fire in sermon might mean an
application of very real fire at the stake;
prayers were said before the altar in the
days when the service was in Latin; and
looking out of the pictured windows and
up into the rafters of black oak, men sat in
armor in the time of the crusades, and in
black robes in the reign of Cromwell. Every
church has its conservation of delightful,
interesting and blessed memories. Giimley
Church was built by the monks Of Worcester
Abbey; at St. Nicholas, Harbledown, they
had an aisle for lepers; st. Cross Winchester,
was founded by the Knights Hospitallers of
Jerusalem; at Hursley, John Keble was
vicar; at Bemerton, George Herbert prayed
and wrote his poems; at Clovelly, Charles
Kingsley as boy listened to his tather's SER
mons. And the church is everywhere By tho
cliffs OF Cornwall, and on the moors of
Devon, out of even the faintest hearing of
the cry of the locomotive, everywhere is to
be seen the steeple or the square tower, and
there are ivied walls and venerable church,
yards Whenever the coach stops to change
horses you climb down and look into one of
these ancient and hallowed sanctuaries, and
the efdgies of old knights lie along by the
windows, or the pew ends are carved by
medieval artists, or there is font in which
babies we're baptized before the Saxons and
the Normons fought at .Senlac. Every child
in England is brought up in daily sight of
building which is a symbol not Of the pow
erty of religion, and not of its un.Christain
divisions, but OF its dignity, of its stability,
of its relations to the past, the present and
the future.
What the Parish Church Should Be.
THAT is great thing. 1t is true, in
deed, that the most important building in
the parish is that which is built up out Of
the living stones is erected out OF the good
deeds Of the parishioners. But it must not
be lost sight of that we are made with eyes,
and that we learn with our eyes, and that it
makes difference even with mature men
and women, still more with boys and girls,
what the symbols OF religion look like The
appearance of the church edifice affects the
of the parish. 1t ought to be
made as good as the parish can make it. 1t
ought TO express the highest thought which
the parish has about the value and the
meaning of religion. No parish has any
right to be content until the parish church
is better and more worthy building than
the house OF the wealthiest parishioner
Now, in these churches, what kind OF a
service do they have? Almost everywhere
the service is choral; that is, the responses
are sung, and the psalter is sung, and the |
prayers are sung, and everything Is sung
except the lessons and the sermon; and the |
choir is composed of men and boys in sur.
plices. This is the custom in the cathedrals,
believe, without exception, and it was |
followed in every parish church which 1 !
attended. Never. in the course OF two sum.
mers in England, have l heard the service |
read except at ON early celebration, or when |
The choir was of on q holiday; and never |
have seen any other choir than this COM
pany OF men and boys in their white gowns.
In the cathedrals this seems natural and |
lifting. Even the intoning of the prayers.
or which confess I have no liking, seems
n these great buildings the only right way
n which to lead the devolions Of the people
only by information can the voice be easily
'arried over wide spaces Listen to the man
Who cries the departure Of the trains in the |
Union station; he intones his announce
So do fhA |
# the streets. Any other than a choral
ervice would seem unnatural, bare, thin
md unworthy in cathedral. And such
celestial music! 1t is like the carolling of
he Bethlehem angels. l suppose that there
s no service in Christendom SO touching, so
ppealing, SO uplifting, SO rich in inspira-
ion and devotion, SO true voicing OF all
hat is ideally best in human prayer and
,raise and aspiration, as the service which
s sung day after day in some Of these great
anctuaries. The golden gates are set ajar,
nd you hear the echoes of the choruses of
eaven.
The Heart Not In the Music.
THE other day I spent Sunday at
Wells. They sing the 'amens' at Wells as
hey are sung nowhere eIse The prayer is
nded. the priests voice dying away in a
alling cadence, and you hear a single note
way up i'll the treble. high and clear and
v eet, and then another voice joins in, and
mother, and presently the tenors and the
asses. 1t is like a rain of silver bells out OF
he night sky.
The singing in the parish churches did not
lease me SO well. The service was not any.
there SO hearty as those to which we are
ccustomed here. Even IN the cathedrals
he anthems were not anywhere sung SO
'ell-it seemed to meas they are sung in
alvary. In the parish churches for the
lost part the service was poorly rendered |