I was present in a great church the other day at a service held at the hour of sunset The dying light fell richly through the stained windows, lending a deep and beautiful mystery to the scenes there depicted.  The pale faces of pictured saints, with their rich robes, were outlined with a pathetic sweetness against backgrounds of solemn buildings or confused woods.  The lighted tapers of the choir threw a faint glow up to the intricate roof, which seemed flooded with a golden mist; the gilt pipes of the organ gleamed softly; the music began to roll and stir, with a grave melodious thunder, like the voice of a dreaming spirit.  A procession of white-vested figures moved with a ceremonial dignity to their places, and then the service proceeded through soft gradations of prayer and praise, in words of exquisite and restrained felicity, all haunted with the echoes of the ages.  I sate alone, a silent listener, and it seemed to me that every appeal which the beauty of art could make to the spirit was here delicately displayed.  Eye and ear, emotion and intellect, were alike thrilled and satisfied.  They sang the 119th Psalm, that perfect expression of holy quietude:  “Thy testimonies are wonderful; therefore doth my soul seek them.”  Wonderful, indeed, and gracious, sweet as honey.  The heart, in that glad moment, drew near to the tender Father of life, who seemed, as in the old parable, to see the repentant son of his heart wandering sadly a long way off, to go forth to meet him, and to fill the house with light and music, that he might feel it to be home indeed.

That the instinct that has drawn all the treasures of art into its service, and with them welcomes and sustains the wearied soul, is a pure and beautiful one, I make no doubt.  But then I thought of all that lies outside:  of crowded cities, of the ugly mirth, the sordid cares of men and women; of the dark laws that wound and slay; of pain and shame; of tired labour and cruelty and harshness, of lust and greediness.

I thought of how few there were of mankind to whom the sweet pomp which I sate to see and hear makes any appeal, I thought that for one to whom such beauty was desirable and satisfying, there were thousands who would prefer the brisk interchange of life, the race-course, the athletic spectacle, the restaurant, the tap-room.  Was this, indeed, religion at all?  I wondered.  It did, indeed, use the language of religion, surround itself with the memories of saints, the holy wisdom of the ages.  But what was the end of it?  Did it inspire those who heard it with the desire to win, to sustain, to ameliorate other souls?  Did it inculcate the tender affection, the self-sacrifice, the meek devotion that Christ breathed into life?  Did it not rather tend to isolate the soul in a paradise of art, to consecrate the pursuit of individual emotion?  It is hard to imagine that a spirit who has plunged into the intoxication of sensuous delight that such a solemnity brings would depart without an increased aversion