Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/35

 stranger, but will find himself amongst brethren of the faith." As a companion picture to this may be added the testimony of one of the ablest and most accomplished of Australian journalists, Mr. Howard Willoughby, who, in his collected series of sketches entitled "The Critic in Church," writes in this graceful and appreciative strain: "St. Patrick's Cathedral is a pile which looms above Melbourne, the first object starting into sight as we approach the city from any quarter; a structure massive, isolated and grand, like the communion it represents. It is in its infancy just now, but the infancy is that of a giant. Already it is the wonder of the Eastern Hill, whose summit it crowns, and some time it must be its architectural pride. We may anticipate the day when the stranger, drawing rein on the Nunawading heights, or the Keilor Hill, or, as off Gellibrand's Point the liner's royals and to'gallants are reefed aloft, and the bellying canvas let fly below, will obtain his first glimpse of the double spires and of the lantern tower, near 350ft. in height, and will feel something of the glow of Chaucer's pilgrims when they caught sight of the 'Angel Towner' rising far away at the head of Canterbury's forest vista. In every way does the cathedral shed a glory on its founders, and probably they will not live to claim more than that title. They will begin, but others must finish. It shows how they can rise above the prevalent meanness and littleness of the present day, the selfishness which cares not about the future, which forgets that our buildings are the tombstones of the generation, and that by them our children will stand and judge us. England received cathedrals from her struggling forefathers; Melbourne is likely, but for the builders of St. Patrick's, to send down nothing in ecclesiastical architecture but specimens of hard bargain-driving and cheap contracting—the greatest