The cathedral staff would have to be constant learners, and take up different sides of interest. They would themselves frequently accompany parties and individuals, so that in intimate talk they would learn the mind of the people, and they would be continually instructing the regular guides. Their special duty would be to give at certain times short talks on the history, the architecture, and the art, so that visitors might be sure that at these times they would learn what light new knowledge was throwing on the familiar surroundings.
The power of the past is dormant, it is buried beneath the insistent present, but it is not dead, and it is conceivable that thoughtful and devoted effort might rouse it to speak through the buildings which have witnessed the highest aspirations of successive ages. If such effort succeeded, and if the people of to-day could be helped to know and feel the England of old days, they would be conscious of a spiritual force bearing them on to great deeds. They would begin to understand how things which are not seen are stronger than things which are seen. The cathedrals have in themselves a message which would help to spiritualize life, but without interpreters the message can hardly be heard.
4. I would add one other suggestion arising from the monuments which in every cathedral attract so much notice. They are the memorials of men and women notable in national or local history who belonged to various parties and classes, to different forms of faith and different professions representing divers qualities and diverse forms of service.
It would not be difficult for each cathedral to make a calendar of worthies. A lecture every month on one such worthy would give an opportunity for taking the minds of modern men into the surroundings of the past, where they would see clearly the value of character. Familiarity with the lives of Saints has been doubtless a great help to many lonely and anxious souls, but this hardly applies to those who hear sermons on St. Jude, and St. Bartholomew, and other Saints of whom little can be known. If, however, from its great men and women each cathedral selected twelve, for one of whom a day should be set apart each month, the people in the locality would gradually become familiar with their characters and gain by communion with them.
Thoughts are best revealed through lives, and the attraction of personality was never more marked than at the present day. Through the lives of the great dead, and through the persons of those who walked or worshipped within familiar walls, it would be possible to make people understand great principles, and gradually become conscious of the Common Source from which flows “every good and perfect gift”. The dead speak from the walls of the cathedral, but they have no interpreter, and the mass of the people who are waiting for their message go away unsatisfied. A power which would help to spiritualize life is unused.
But perhaps it may be urged that if all were done which has been suggested, if the minds of visitors were kindled to admiration, if the past were made to live and the dead to speak, much more would be necessary to spiritualize life. Certainly the “spirit bloweth where it listeth,” and only they who feel its breath are born again and enter a world of power, of peace, and of love.
But it may be claimed that some attitudes are better than others in which to feel this breath, and that people whose pride has been brought low by the beauty of a great building, or whose ears have been opened to the voices of the past, will be more likely to bow before the Holy Spirit than those who have no thought beyond what they can see, hear, or touch.
The age, we sometimes say, is waiting for a great leader—a prophet who will make dead bones to live. It is well to remember that for all redeemers the way has to be prepared, and the coming spiritual leader will be helped if through our cathedrals people have developed powers of communion with the Unseen.
Samuel A. Barnett.