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Intercessional services, when guided by a few directing words, at which men and women would gather to fix their minds on great ideals—on peace—on sympathy with the oppressed—on the needs of children and prisoners, would gain force from the association of a building where generations have prayed and hoped and suffered. And if, as well as being more frequent, such use were more carefully considered the effect would be much deeper. It is not enough, for instance, that the service should always follow the old form, and the music be elaborate and the sermon orthodox. Consideration might be given so that prayers, and music, and speech might all be made to work together with the influences of the building to touch the spiritual side of the object interesting to the congregation. The soul of the least important member of a civic council or a society is larger than its programme. The cathedral service might be, by much consideration, designed to help such souls to realize something of the vast horizons in which they move—something of the infinite issues attached to their resolutions and votes, something of the company filling the past and the future of which they are members. The cathedrals, by such frequent and well-considered uses, might do much to spiritualize life.

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