Only the Crypt.[2]
We are entering the Beautiful Temple of God, said the children, a brother and a sister, as they passed reverently under the arched doorway for the first time.
But the roof was low, and the light faint. A feeling of chill and depression crept over them.
The weight of the vaulted stone roof seemed to crush the spirit. Through the small, narrow windows, with their diamond panes, the sunbeams crept in thin silver threads, and soon seemed to grow dim in the damps that came up from below, or to lose their way among the massive pillars of the low arched aisles.
"Can this be the Cathedral?" whispered the brother to the sister; "the glorious House of God our fathers told us of, and we have dreamt of?"
"They said it was the Cathedral," said the sister; "therefore it must have glories. We may not doubt the Builder, or Him to whom it is built. Let us rather doubt ourselves. Our eyes will grow used to the light, and then we shall learn its beauty. Our mother used to say the eyes of little children had to get used to the light before they could understand this world."
"Used to the darkness!" murmured the boy.
At that moment a patient sunbeam made its way in through one of the larger windows and lit up patches of the pillars, falling at last in a golden glory on a brazen cross with an inscription round it, inlaid in the slab at the base of one of the pillars.