Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/389

Rh Choir, or Chancel, the other two being supplied by modern productions. Thus the stained windows of the old Herckenrode Abbey, that for centuries looked down upon continental monks at their worship and vibrated to their Latin chaunts, now flood all the aisles, arches, and delicate traceries of this English cathedral with the haloed smile of their eyes.

Having visited all the cathedrals of Great Britain, and studied them with all the interest of American admiration for such structures, I am inclined to believe that this exceeds all others in the quality of beauty, both in its exterior and interior structure and embellishment. After Hawthorne's exquisite description of it in "Our Old Home," it would be presumption in me to attempt another. But, as this volume may be read by some who have not seen his, I will dwell a little longer upon two or three features of the edifice. It illustrates, more fully than any other that I know, the power and almost immeasurable capacity of the voluntary principle in England. Let any intelligent person see what that principle has produced here, and then compare the result with the production of the same principle in the Cologne Cathedral, and he will be deeply impressed by the contrast. He will see what a community educated in benevolence can accomplish by their voluntary contributions. Here they have produced and beautified a