Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-09-24

the pilgrims tarried for rest and were met
by the olden monks who first Hehtened
their purses and sprinkled them with holy
water: Then outlying st. Dunstan's
church is reached.
No city In England sbounds in 30 large
number of almost unsltsred churches Of
the greatest antiquity as Canterbury. st.
Dunstan's chapel was vestry room six
hundred and sixty years ago. In the fam
lily vault of the Ropers in this church still
| lies the head of Sir Thomas More From
this venerable church, famous for its pa
tron saint, its great antiquity and its
| chimes, the way, now a Canterbury street,
intersects the ancient city from west to
east, crossing the two arms of the river
Stour, which makes an island of the west
| ern precincts of the town, and passes
straight on to Dover-the veritable street
! and way built by the legions of Julius Ce-
sar.
Before you descend the hill at the east
| of Hsrbledown you cannot but long and
| earnestly study the interesting scene be-
low. The valley of the Stour reaches far
to the north and south, an almost limitless
lawn, broken only by blcssoming hedge,
the CLASSY threadings of the river, half hid
hamlets and the city's central mass of gray
and red and green. Mossy st. Dunstan's
| is here to your left. At the northeastern
edge of the city that huge mass of walls
and towers is what is left of the once
world famous st. Augustine's monastery.
Nearer to where you stand Is Dane John
hill and obelisk. Between this and ST.
| Dunstan's that broken line of gray marks
the ancient city walls. Some of this ma
sonry is more than eleven hundred years
old. Five or six of the turrets of these
ancient walls still show like castle towers
among the bright red city roofs
Spires and round and square towers here
and there push above the foliage of the
huge old city trees. To the north, along
the winding Stour, are the barracks of the
soldiery; for Canterbury is still military
station, as in ancient Roman and Saxon
times. Along the horizon edge toward
Rsmsgste and Dover huge wind mills, like
those of Holland, flap their wing like arms
with sudden energy, or high and still upon
some rounded down, stand like ghostly
silhouettes between green of earth and
blue of sky. 80. go -
But all sights and seemings bring back
the eye to the one mass of white, to which
the city towers, roofs and foliage and all
the valleys, fields and hsmlets are as a
wide Etruscsn .bsss 1t scars from but
tresses to towers, from towers to spires
and from spires to pinnacles, feecy and
glittering in its wondrous dimensions and
height, majestic, spotless, fsultless and as
fancifully light aud delicate as a vast and
shapely crag of coral from which the sea
has disappeared and left it among the dal-
lying clouds.
From st. Dunstan's church you pass
through historic old Westgate, which has
stood there a thousand years. 1t is now q
Jail Underneath it flows the Stour. To
| the right and left strange old structures
overhang the stream and recall some of the
quieter sea lanes of Venice. From West
gate to the eastern arm of the Stour the
thoroughfare is called st. Peters. Then,
| in the densest part of the city, the way is
given the inevitable name of High street,
| which you will find in nearly every csthe-
| dral town of England. Here are scores of
the ancient houses like those of Chester,
| Gloucester and Exeter. Over them all
seems to brood a mournful air of departed
glory.
As you arrive opposite curious and ven
| cradle st. Mary Bredman's church O
glimpse is caught, to the west and north,
of the qusintest lane in all Canterbury.
This Is Mercery Lane. In the olden days
each trade or class of merchants was given
a separate thoroughfsre. The MERGERS of
hsberdsshers occupied Mercsry Lane. 1t
is now filled with all manner of little
shops, where merchants instead of monks
set upon the modern pilgrim. Overhead
the houses protrude, story after story, un-
til the gables are within whispering prox-
unity. 1t is pleasant place in which to
loiter, this Mercery Lsne, and when you
have come to its northern end you sudden
ly face the great cathedral, and are given
an oblique view of it's southern walls,
| transepts and its southernmost angle of its
| far eastern apse, while the top of the great
central tower looms vast and white and
hf,l.
towers at either side of the vast west win
dow.
While no one can deny the grandeur of
the proportions and richness in details of
this splendid cathedral of Canterbury, the
feeling is irresistible that there is too little
room without and too much within /
mean by this that the effect of SO vast q
structure being closely crowded by masses
of inferior buildings, precisely as with the
cathedral at Cologne, il dwarfing aud in
significant The interior lacks warmth,
and there is no doubt that unnecessary
vastness in sacred edifice lessons the de-
sirable effect of rspose.
For the student in ecclesiastic history
and architecture there is nowhere else in
England a SO grand and comprehensive
study. The cathedral certainly embraces
every variety of the styles of English &C.
clesiastic architecture from the rudest Sax
Ou tuS LuOst nulsDeu GOIQlC art. 1t
contains greater number, more famous
and richer tombs, shrines and effigies than
any other cathedral church of Britain.
Since its erection, out of Cauterbury's
ninety arehbishops eighteen have been
canonized, nine dignitaries have been sp-
pointed cardinals and twelve have been
made lord cbsncellors. In its history,
construction and all details OF cathedral
enrichment it lacks no element of gran
| deur and deep impressiveness.
But to me there is an emptiness a glsr-
ing whiteness. loneliness, a desolation,
| indeed dissertation, il that word may be
used, about this vast editice which reminds
| one of a tremendous mausoleum rather
| than q beautiful, venerable and tenderly
kept house of God. In no part or portion
| of the entire cathedral ia this ssddening
| impression modified. Even most of the
| inscriptions on tombs and brasses are of
the Stay, traveller, and reverenceI" varie-
| ty. You are constantly confronted with
| prlmacy, even in the eternal set speeches
t of the dead. The cloisters, though very
great in extent, are neither 60 beautiful
| nor reposeful as those at Gloucester. The
chapter house is lofty, lonely and dresr.
The great undercroft or crypt, where the
Huguenot weavers worshiped, suggests the
charnel house. The choir screen is of
| stone and the archbishop's throne is OF
| stone, instead of the beautiful carved oak
| which go distinguishes many English ca
thedrals, and there is no great glowing east
window above the high altar, with its food
of warmth and light, as noble emblem of
the source of light and life eternal.
All this may be deemed csptious by
some, but to the lay pilgrim, untrammeled
by religious politics or political religion, 1t
is the indefnable ex. !ession of all these
various objects and embIems which wins
or repsls, while the pompous heralding by
the vergers of every dreadful detail of the
murder, canonizstion and pilgrimsses to
the shrine of St. Thomas q Beckett, As
though the place were London Tower or q
wsxwork Chamber of Horrors" intensi-
fies the show place character of Canter-
bury, until one turns from the glittering
shell of a once noble sanctuary with a sad
and heavy heart.