Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/152

It seems impossible to be disappointed in York Minster, however high may have been previous expectations. When you first gain a view of this mountain of ecclesiastical architecture, or at entering cast your eye through a vista of 524 feet, or from the tesselated marble pavement gaze through column and arch up to the ribbed and fretted dome, 99 feet above you, or catch the light of a thousand wreathed and trembling rainbows, through gloriously refulgent windows, you are lost in wonder and astonishment. Its different parts, nave, transept, choir, chapter-house, and crypt, with the rich decorations of screen, statue, tracery, and monument, where sleep the illustrious dead, require many surveys, and repay all with the fulness of admiration. The original erection on this site is of geat antiquity, and the present edifice, though more than one hundred and fifty years in building, displays, amid variety of taste and style, great unity of design. It has loftily withstood the attacks of time and the depredations of war, but some portions have been considerably injured by recent conflagration, and are now in the process of repair. The magnificent swell of the organ, and the majesty and sweetness of the chants, especially during the Sabbath's worship, seemed unearthly. Twice on every week-day the service of prayer and praise ascends from this venerable cathedral, and it is a touching thought, that its great heart of stone keeps alive that incense to Jehovah, which too