ST. PAUL’S AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
Wall, after a seen of almost inexpressible wretchedness we reached St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Josiah a-gittin’ it into his head that it wuz fashionable to read up about places of interest, had flooded his brain almost beyend its strength to bear about the Cathedral. And that information oozed and drizzled out of the instersises of his brain all the time we wuz there. As for me, when we entered the great central western door I wuz almost lost and by the side of myself as I ketched sight of the vast interior.
As I looked down the immense, soft gray yeller depths of distance, I felt almost as though I wuz lookin’ down some of Nater’s isles, with shadders of blue mist a-lurkin’ in the corners.
After my senses come back gradual I could pay some attention to the rich, dark carvin’, the crimson cushions, the big organ towerin’ up, etc., etc. I felt lifted up considerable by the grandeur of the spectacle.
But Josiah wanted to show off.
Sez he, a-wavin’ his hand down the long aisle—
“There is the place for knaves! See, Samantha, the beautiful arrangement—they’re set apart from good folks. It sez the ‘knave runs down that way.’ He is made to run so’s to separate him still more from Christians that go slow.”
“Where did you git that information, Josiah Allen?” sez I.
“Right here,” sez he, and he took out his guide-book and pinted to the words—
“The long nave runs down through the centre.”
Sez I, “How do you spell your vile person, Josiah?”
“N-a-v-e, nave,” sez he—“the easiest way.”
I groaned, and sez I, “I would shet up that book, Josiah Allen, and go back to Webster’s old spellin’-book.”
He acted real pudgiky.
But Alice wanted to go into the North Chapel, where the short service for business men wuz a-goin’ on, it bein’ almost noon when we got there. It wuz a impressive sight to see these busy men takin’ a breathin’ space from the hard labors of the day to give thought to the Better Country and the best way to git there.
A beautiful sculptured head of the Christ looked down on these busy, careworn men, as if He wuz sorry for ’em and wanted to give ’em a breath of peace and love to go with ’em through the hot, feverish toils of the rest of the day.
After lookin’ up into the ineffible beauty and love of that face, it didn’t seem as if those grocers could put so much sand into their sugar and pepper, or the merchants pay so little to the poor wimmen who make the garments they sell.
But I d’no.
Wall, the chapel on the south side wuz meant to be a place to administer jestice at different times, affectin’ meetin’-housen and sech—what they call a Consistery Court.
And here Josiah agin tried to explain things to me.
Sez he, “This is called a Consistery Court—here is where they try to be consistent when they attend to affairs of the meetin’-house.”
And sez I in a dry axent, about as dry as a corn-cob, sez I, “It’s a pity they don’t have sech a court in American meetin’-housen.”
Sez I, “They’re needed there,” and my mind roamed over the pressin’ need of consistency in sech cases as Dr. Briggs, Parkhurst, Beecher, Heber Newton, Felix Adler, Satolli, etc., etc., etc.
“And even in Jonesville,” I sez to myself, “is it not possible to even now have one built in the precincts of the Jonesville meetin’-house, where the members could go in half a day or so a week and try to be consistent?”
Thinkses I, If they did honestly try to live up to the buildin’ they wuz in, and be consistent, there wouldn’t be so much light talk aginst religion as there is now, and more young folks brung into the church.
Howsumever, whether Josiah got it right or not, one thing I do know, right in the midst of this court is a elaborate monument to the Duke of Wellington, that almost fills it up, so jestice is fairly scrunched up and squoze for want of room.
That noble old Duke wouldn’t wanted it so. But how little can we tell what people will do with our memories when we have left ’em! But probble most of us won’t have no sech immense memorial riz up to us after we have passed away.
But my reflections wuz agin cut short, for Josiah wanted to agin show off. Sez he, “The man that that wuz riz up to wuz made of iron mostly—lost his legs and arms, I spoze, and had iron ones made to replace ’em.”
“Iron legs!” sez I; “how could he git round?”
“By main strength.” Sez he, “He wuz a powerful man; he wuz called the ‘Iron Duke.’”
I gin him a pityin’ glance, but strangers wuz by, and I wouldn’t humiliate him by disputin’ him. I merely sez, “If I wuz in your place I would keep still for the rest of the day, Josiah Allen.”
But Adrian, who took it all in good part, and with immense interest, sez—
“How funny it must be to shake hands with him, but how it would hurt to have him strike you over the ear!”
Sez I, “Adrian, you keep with Alice and me.” Sez I, “We’re a-goin’ to look at General Gordon’s statute.”
This noble life and noble death are kep’ in memory by a beautiful statute, recumbient and a-layin’ down. The face, they say, is a good likeness. And as I looked at it, the thought of that noble and manly creeter almost brung tears to my eyes.
Wall, we proceeded on eastward to the dome. Here is the pulpit and the place where the bigger part of the congregation sit.
Lookin’ up, we see glitterin’ spaces filled with beautiful mosiacs, and up there are the benine figgers of the Evangelists, and the four great Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
Agin that thought of what would be done with our memories hanted me. They wandered about in goats’ skins here—afflicted, persecuted; did they think they would ever be throned in sech gorgeous places? No, indeed.
Above Daniel, Isaiah, etc., is the whisperin’ gallery, where the lowest whisper, clost to the wall, goes all round the entire distance—a sight, hain’t it?
And way up in the dome we see paintin’s of the life of St. Paul and his deeds.
Wall, down on the floor to the south are immense statutes to Lord Nelson and Cornwallis. Good creeters, both on ’em, I believe, though mistook in jedgment. And a great monument to Major-General Dundas. There wuz lots of monuments to other eminent men. Most of the statutes, as is nateral, as is done in our own country, wuz mostly riz up to men who had been famous for fightin’—them who had been successful in killin’ off thousands and thousands of men, leavin’ trails of agony and blood behind ’em, clouds of black gloom, under which widders and orphans groped, seekin’ for bread, and fallin’ down hopeless in the quest.
Wall, it’s nateral; I couldn’t say a word—America duz it.
I also see, as in America, the skurcity of female statutes. We see the absolute dearth on ’em. Why, if a inhabitant of Mars should light down there some day and take a fancy to go through the cathedral, he wouldn’t have a idee that there wuz ever sech a thing as a woman in the world. He would go back to Jupiter and say: “One peculiarity of the planet Earth wuz, there wuz no wimmen there—only a race of men.”
And if they questioned him too clost how they wuz born, he would say that most probble they growed jest like trees.
And then the old Mars would gather round him and congratulate themselves on bein’ on a planet where equal jestice wuz awarded to men and wimmen both, and where there wuz no more war.
The red lights on the planet don’t mean war, I don’t believe; it means the rosy glow of the strange foliage that the Mars gather for their children, and the Pars, too, for all I know.
But I am indeed a-eppisodin’.
But a few centuries from now let that same visitor come down and look into our great cathedrals, on both sides of the Atlantic, and he will see statutes to wimmen risin’ up jest the same as to men. Under the benine faces of some on ’em he will read—
“There is no more war, for the former things have passed away.”
The former things wuz what made war—injestice, intemperance, brutality, licenses for prostitution, drunkenness, and infamy, etc., etc., etc.
But I am a-eppisodin’ too fur, too fur.
The stained-glass winders we see on every side wuz beautiful in the extreme. But if you’ll believe it, this meetin’-house hain’t finished yet. Seein’ there has been a meetin’-house here for thirteen hundred years or so, you’d a-thought they’d ort to got it finished; but, then, they’ve been burnt out several times.
I don’t want to brag over ’em, I didn’t feel like it at the time, though I couldn’t help a-thinkin’ that we built the Jonesville meetin’-house in three months. But, then, this one is bigger and has more work on it.
Though the steeple on our meetin’-house is very much admired.
Wall, we went down into the crypt. It is called one of the finest in Europe. It is the same size as the cathedral.
Here are some more warriors buried—Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, etc. But to give credit to those who got up the buryin’-ground, there are some ministers buried there—sech as Dr. Liddon, Dean Milman, and eminent painters, sculpters, etc.
Here lies the great architect of the cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren.
Josiah read the tablet on his grave, and then went to explainin’ it to us.
Sez he, “It tells the date of his birth and his death, and then it sez sunthin’ about spice—allspice, I guess. Christopher wuz probble fond of it.”
Sez I, for I knowed the words by heart—
“Reader, if you ask where is his monument, look about you.”
Sez Josiah, “You’re wrong, Samantha. There’s the word spice all writ out.”
Sez I, “It’s a dead language, Josiah—I’ve translated it. And,” sez I, “if you felt as I did a-lookin’ round on his matchless monument, sech as no man ever had before, you wouldn’t talk about allspice.”
He acted real huffy, and moved on.
Here are many monuments to illustrious people who are buried somewhere else.
Down here in the east end is a chapel where they have early service every week day.
In the west end is kept the funeral car on which the body of the Duke of Wellington wuz carried to the grave—
“To the sound of the people’s lamentation.”
It is a handsome structer of gun metal. One gun took at each of the Duke’s victories bein’ melted to make it. Twelve horses wuz needed to draw this car—it broke through the pavement in many places.
As I wuz a-explainin’ this to Alice, I hearn Josiah say to Adrian:
“On account of his legs and arms bein’ so heavey, I spoze, and his bein’ so great.”
And then I had to explain to that child agin that his greatness wuz not his heft by the steelyards, nor his bein’ called iron wuzn’t because he wuz made of cast iron.
I guess Adrian understood it—I guess he did. But Josiah Allen wuz a drawback to correct information—indeed, he wuz.
For as we wended on I hearn him explain how this cathedral wuz sot on fire in 1590 by a woman called Anne Domono.
Sez Adrian, “She was a bad woman, wasn’t she?”
“YES,” SEZ JOSIAH, “OLD DOMONO PROBBLE HAD HIS HANDS FULL WITH HER.”
“Yes,” sez Josiah with a deep sithe, “old Domono probble had his hands full with her—she wuz a fiery creeter.”
But here I interfered and explained it all out to Adrian, much as I hated to go agin my pardner’s words.
Strange doin’s has been done in this old meetin’-house durin’ the long centuries that it has stood here. It almost made my brain reel to think on ’em.
Councils of the church wuz held here, the Bishop of Exeter sought refuge here from a mob—wuz proclaimed a traitor and beheaded. Here Wyckliffe wuz tried for his religious opinions. Here popes sent out their legates. Here kings held their councils, and here men and wimmen sold their goods. And some with stuns and arrers killed the pigeons who made their nests in the ornaments of the walls. Here, too, they played ball and other games. Queer doin’s for meetin’-housen, but it wuz true. But what would the world say if my Josiah and Deacon Bobbett should take to playin’ ball in the Jonesville meetin’-house, or Sister Gowdy and I should play tag round the pulpit? Why, how foreign nations would be all rousted up and sneer at us!
Here the leaders in the War of the Roses acted and carried on. Here Richard, Duke of York, took a solemn oath to uphold Henry VI., and then tried his best to shake him off the throne—lyin’ and actin’ in a meetin’-house. Here the dead body of Henry lay in state.
After the Reformation had begun it wuz desecrated by the very meanest kind of doin’s. All kinds of business wuz carried on, all kinds of amusements. Busybodys and gossips made it their resort, and the Holy Evelyn said—
“It was made a stable of horses and a den of thieves.”
Then, if you’ll believe it, some of the reformers, or them who called themselves sech (queer creeters, I guess), stole the beautiful altar clothes, communion plate, candleabra, etc.—jest carried ’em off under the mantilly of religion they’d put on.
Curous! curous! but, then, that old mantilly covers up lots of stolen things to-day, and meanness of all sorts.
After this the grand old meetin’-house wuz completely burnt down. I should thought it would have expected lightnin’ to strike it, or sunthin’. Anyway, it all burnt down to ashes. The present buildin’ hain’t been misused in that way—the services are carried on decently and in order.
Wall, we hung round there for more’n a half day. Josiah had took the precaution to eat a hearty lunch before we sot out, so he remained considerable quiet till the nawin’s of hunger overtook him agin. And we left at sunset.