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Walpole, Hugh, Sir, 1884-1941

"The Cathedral"


* * * * *
And now every one was inside. The great bell dropped notes like heavy
weights into a liquid well. For the cup of the Cathedral swam in colour,
the light pouring through the great Rose window, and that multitude of
persons seeming to sway like shadows beneath a sheet of water from amber
to purple, from purple to crimson, from crimson to darkest green.
Individuality was lost. The Cathedral, thinking nothing of Kings and
Queens, of history, of movement forward and retrograde, but only of itself
and of the life that it had been given, that it now claimed for its own,
with haughty confidence assumed its Power...the Power of its own
Immortality that is neither man's nor God's.
The trumpets began. They rang out the Psalm that had been given them, and
transformed it into a cry of exultant triumph. Their notes rose, were
caught by the pillars, acclaimed, tossed higher, caught again in the eaves
and corners of the great building, swinging backwards and forwards....
"Now listen to My greatness! You created Me for the Worship of your God!
"And now I am your God! Out of your forms and ceremonies you have made a
new God! And I, thy God, am a jealous God.


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