- clad tourists amongst the crowd "doing" the
building; these were the first regulation tourists we had come upon during our drive, which circumstance brought to our mind the fact, possibly not realised by the many, that our cathedrals have become more like vast museums than places of worship devoted to God. I have attended a cathedral service on a week-day, and have made one of a congregation of five—all told; which seems, to me, a great waste of clerical and choirical energy. I afterwards asked the verger if they did not generally have more people at that particular service, and he replied meaningly, "When the weather is wet we sometimes have fewer." And I could not help wondering whether it might not be possible, on certain occasions, when the elements were especially unpropitious, that the vergers had the elaborate service and superb singing all to themselves! Which is magnificent! When the service in question we attended was over, the tourists, who had been waiting outside, trooped in hurriedly and in numbers more than I could conveniently or perhaps possibly count. I venture to say that in our cathedrals, during the year, the people who come merely for sight-seeing vastly outnumber those who come purely for worship.
Over the ancient fane, and its immediate surroundings, there seems to brood the hush of centuries, a hush heightened rather than broken, when we were there, by the cooing of innumerable pigeons that love to linger about the hoary pile, and give a pleasant touch of life to the steadfast masonry. Leaving the cathedral and the city on the hill
