Hawthorne that he exclaimed, "Good God!" thus making the
matter much worse; but as even I, who sat next him, did not hear him,
I presume that the same great spaces which took up the canon's voice
disposed of Mr. Hawthorne's exclamation. I am sorry the children were
obliged to stay through the sermon, as it rather spoiled the effect of
the preceding service. It would have been far better to have had
another of David's Psalms chanted. While listening to those of the
morning lesson, I thought how marvelous it was that these Psalms, sung
by the Jewish king and poet to his harp three thousand years ago,
should now be a portion of the religious service of nearly all
Christendom; so many organs grandly accompanying thousands of voices
in praising God in his very words, as the worthiest which man has yet
uttered. And they are indeed worthy; and in this stately old Cathedral
with its manifold associations they sounded grander, more touching,
more eloquent than ever, borne up from the points of the flaming
pinnacles, on solemn organ-tones, to God. This united worship affected
me very deeply, it is so long since I have been to church,--hardly
once since Una was born! You know I always loved to go to church,
always supplying by my imagination what I did not find. . . . I think
that the English Church is the merest petrifaction now. It has not the
fervor and unction of the Roman Catholic even (that is dead enough,
and will be dead soon). The English Church is fat, lazy, cold, timid,
and selfish.
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