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But the cathedrals which make this appeal can hardly be said to be well used. There are the somewhat perfunctory services morning and afternoon, often suspended or degraded during holiday months when visitors are most numerous; there are sermons rarely to be distinguished from those heard in a thousand parish churches; there is a staff of eight or ten clergy who may be busy at good works, but certainly do not make their cathedral position their platform; and there are guides who for a small fee will conduct parties round the church. Among these guides are indeed to be found men who have made a study of the building, and are able to talk of it as lovers, but the guides for the most part give no other information than lists of names and dates, sometimes relieved by a common-place anecdote. The cathedrals are treated as museums, and not so well as the Forum of Rome. The question is: Can they be made of greater use in spiritualizing life? I would offer some suggestions:—

1. Cathedrals might, I think, be more generally used for civic, county and national functions, for intercession at times of crisis, and for services in connexion with meetings of conferences and congresses. The services might be especially adapted by music and by speech to deepen the effect of the building with its grandeur and memories. The use in this direction has increased of late years, and even when the service seems to be little more than a church parade, those present are often helped by the reminder that their immediate concern has a place in a greater whole. But the use might be largely extended, so that every example of corporate life might be set in the framework which would give it dignity. Elections to civic councils might be better understood if the newly-elected bodies gathered in the grand central building where vulgar divisions would be hushed in the greatness, and the ambitions of parties lifted up into an atmosphere in which the rivals of past days are recognized in their common service to the State. The meetings of congresses and conferences—of scientific and trade societies—of leagues and unions for social reform would be helped by beginning their deliberations in a place which would both humble and widen the thoughts of the members.