Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/22

 Patriotism, the seat of the Temple with its Holy of Holies, its hidden rites performed by a sacerdotal hierarchy; the writer of the Middle Ages had in his mind some pinnacled and climbing town that rose roof by roof, gable by gable, spire by spire to the vast far-lifted towers of the cathedral, where the idolatrous mass was daily offered: we, wiser far than Jew or Catholic, read the words and think of Manchester or Leeds or Sheffield. Why do you start? You are surely not deluded by what has been called the superstition of antiquity, by the false glamour which a few writers have unfortunately woven about past centuries and forgotten arts? The mediæval city was dirty and insanitary in a high degree, liberty was unknown, cruelty was rampant, a degrading superstition had usurped the place of true religion, Free Churchmen were unheard of. Can such a place as this symbolize to us the City of God? Surely not. Again, I say, Manchester must present a far more appropriate image of that ideal to which creation moves.