Such was the deep impression made in the Himalaya Cathedral upon the elder members of the party. Being elderly they saw things that way. How about the younger members? Youth does not see things in nature as elders do; youth has much to learn yet; and old heads rarely grow on young shoulders.
Adele had insisted upon going to a greater height up the mountains. She longed to reach some high summit. She wished to lose nothing of the lofty that could be reached; and neither Paul nor the Doctor failed to second her motion.
XXXIX
ON A PINNACLE IN NATURE
FROM the time that this region of the Himalayas first impressed itself as a Cathedral upon the mind of Adele, an idealist, she invariably spoke of the various natural beauties of the locality as parts of the Grand Edifice.
“This Cathedral has magnificent proportions. I must explore it, and go all over it, from crypt to dome, visit the baptistry, and, as the Doctor says, ‘mount upon a pinnacle;’” then musingly: “I should like to attend a service.”
“All right,” said Doctor Wise, the liberal, “we can have a service of some sort, even if we are obliged to read prayers ourselves.”
“It would be better to have the natives officiate—one of the local bishops,” said Adele.
“He would not have Apostolic succession,” said Paul, of Non-conformist proclivities.
“Apostolic, nevertheless,” remarked Professor Cultus, who habitually looked at things from a literary point of view. “He would consider himself sent by some one—that makes him apostolic. He would have been ‘called’ to preach, or to write, or to do something, fundamentally apostolic, if he is a true man.”
“I should like to see a primitive cassock or stole,” said Miss Winchester, who was inclined to ritualism, “and a real old-time monk with his beads and a rope around his waist.”