Altar rail

“ I hardly knew which was the nave, or which the cross aisle, of this singular edifice, so perfect is the confusion of its parts. The pavement demands attention, being inlaid so curiously as to represent variety of histories taken from Holy Writ, and designed somewhat in the style of that hobgoblin tapestry which used to bestare the walls of our ancestors. Near the high altar stands the strangest of pulpits, supported by polished pillars of granite, rising from lions’ backs, which serve as pedestals. In every corner of the place some glittering chapel or other offends or astonishes you. ”

“ The true philosopher does not think of coming just in time for his train except as a bet or a joke.
The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to be late for the one before. Do this, and you will find in a railway station much of the quietude and consolation of a cathedral. It has many of the characteristics of a great ecclesiastical building; it has vast arches, void spaces, coloured lights, and, above all, it has recurrence or ritual. It is dedicated to the celebration of water and fire the two prime elements of all human ceremonial. ”

“ In a vault below the pavement of the Cathedral, the dead Bishops and Priests have been accumulating for centuries. Under the great dome, in front of the choir, they are now erecting a magnificent altar, some thirty feet in height, of white marble and metal, gilded and burnished, which was imported from Rome at a cost of fifty-thousand dollars, and hauled—Heaven knows how—over the terrible, and, as we found them, almost impassable roads, all the way from Vera Cruz to Guadalajara. ”

“ They followed her to a comparatively quiet spot near the west end, and there, while the locomotives without rumbled a mighty triumphal paean, the simple old words of the marriage service transformed, for that little company, the resounding vault of the railway station into the lofty spaces of a cathedral, and the multitudinous voice of the hurrying throng became to them a hymning choir, chanting unceasingly of the love that is brave to meet life and strong to endure. ”

“ What a relief it was to find no coro blocking up the nave! The eye could wander over the whole of this lofty interior—could follow the beautiful open work of the triforium and rest on the stained glass of the clerestory windows. The aisles are very shadowy, all the light being concentrated in the nave and the crossing, and the vision, with a great sense of good effect, is led up to the white tabernacle on the High Altar and the immense retablo beyond. ”

“ Within the doors a flight of steps leads down into the church, and one’s impulse on entering is to stand at the head of those steps and gaze in silent admiration and reverence at the scene before one. It is so grand, so calm, so severe, so solid, and yet so graceful in the perfect proportion of lines, arches, columns, shafts. The nave extends between two side aisles in a line of faultless symmetry till it reaches in the centre to a double flight of stairs, the one flight leading down to the crypt, the upper and smaller one leading to the high altar and choir. ”

“ So shout the railroad men, year in and year out, daily, hourly, their cry is to get on board the train. I often think if we preachers and mission workers were as faithful in our work to get people on board the old ship Zion, how many to-day would be en route for Heaven who are on the broad-gauge rapid transit to the bottomless pit of destruction. Will we not arise and shine for God as we have never done before? ”

“ The floor of the nave proper is, indeed, too often a useless appendage to the building, desolate, dreary, unused, and cold; whereas in the transepts, the services at the altar and in the choir are both seen and heard, and this accordingly is the people’s place. A passage is sometimes, or perhaps I ought to say is usually, made with low iron or brass screens or rails leading from the eastern gate of the Coro to the screen in front of the altar. ”

“ It is night time. A few oil tapers are burning in stone saucers, the pueblo lamp. The warriors come stealing down the ladder. No woman is admitted. The men are dressed in linen trousers with colored blankets fastened Grecian fashion at the waist. They seat themselves silently on the adobe or cement benches around the circular wall. The altar place, whence comes the Sacred Fire from the gods of the under world, is situated just under the ladder. The priests descend, four or five of them, holding their blankets in a square that acts as a drop curtain concealing the altar. ”

“ Here is a railway-train thundering along some evening {10} toward a broken bridge, and the track-walker rushes toward it with his swinging lantern, as though he had heard the great command, "Let your light shine before men;" and the train comes to a stop and the passengers stream out and see the peril that they have just escaped, and give thanks to their Father which is in heaven. And this is the reward of the plain, unnoticed man as he trudges home in the dark,—that he has done his duty well that night. ”

“ The nave is thickly set with wooden seats, brown and worn. What pictures there are, in the shrines and chapels, are dark and faded. On the whole, the edifice has a shabby aspect. On each side of the high altar, elevated on four pillars of beautiful marble, is what looks like a great sarcophagus of bronze. They are, in fact, pulpits, and are ornamented with mediaeval bas-reliefs, representing scenes in the life of our Saviour. ”

“ The rays even penetrated into the apse, and the sepulchral crypts were brightened up by them. The choir was a mass of flame, with its altar on fire, its glistening stalls, and its old railing, whose ornamentation stood out boldly. And the flight of the nave was stronger marked than ever, with the heavy curved pillars below, supporting the round arches, while above, the numbers of little columns grew smaller and smaller as they burst forth among the broken arches of the ogives, like an inexpressible declaration of faith and love which seemed to come from the lights. ”

“ At Verona the railway resumes, and runs all the way to Venice. What a transition from the diligence—the lumbering, snail-paced diligence—to the rail. It is like passing by a single leap from the dark ages to modern times. Then only do you feel what you owe to Watt. In my humble opinion, the Pope should have put the steam-engine into the Index Expurgatorius. His priests in France have attended at the opening of railways, and blessed the engines. ”

“ The choir and surroundings of the great organ are all of precious metal, and the gallery, leading down from the choir through the center of the church to the great altar on the north, has on either side a massive railing or balustrade of solid silver, sufficient in aggregate weight to load a first-class railroad car, at least. The altar is surrounded by burnished metal on every side, and all the altar ornaments, which are almost numberless, huge, and massive, are of solid gold and silver. ”

“ Addressing herself once more to the conductor, she asked him, "Do you love Jesus? I do, and if you love Him, He will let you ride to heaven on His railroad. I am going there and I wish you would go with me. I know Jesus will let me into heaven when I get there and He will let you in, too, and everybody that will ride on His railroad—yes, all these people. Wouldn't you like to see heaven and Jesus, and your little girl?"
These words, so pathetically and innocently uttered, brought a great gush of tears from all eyes, but most profusely from those of the conductor. ”

“ The leisure and liberty allowed to passengers by car are amusingly refreshing in these days of steam; and I thought, as we sauntered towards Sainte Terre, how astonished the guard of an express train would be, to behold his fellow-travellers quietly strolling off to inspect the cathedral, at Peterborough, York, or Lincoln.
We found little to admire, as to architecture without, or ornament within; but a priest, who went with us from the car, said it was “beautiful,” and looked as if to him it was so indeed, as he knelt with others reverently praying there. ”

“ Temples inevitably arise where the tide of life flows strongest; for there God manifests, in however strange a guise. That tide is nowhere stronger than in the railroad, which is the arterial system of our civilization. All arteries lead to and from the heart, and thus the railroad terminus becomes the beating heart at the center of modern life. It is a true instinct therefore which prompts to the making of the terminal building a very temple, a monument to the conquest of space through the harnessing of the giant horses of electricity and steam. ”

“ There is a whole world of difference between the mediaeval cathedral and the modern railway, but this they have in common, that they are the work not of a few hands but of many, not a sudden creation, but the product of labours continued year after year. ”

“ But alas! the life of the nineteenth century has broken in upon it; the railway has dashed through that beautiful valley with its sacrilegious march; and at Wells, the cathedral of Ina, with its matchless front, studded with apostles and martyrs, kings, bishops, knights, and mystic emblems, vocal as it were with history, now frowns upon the contentions of two rival companies; whilst at Glastonbury there is a railway station erected almost over the very bones of the saints. ”

“ It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the mass of spectators. It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions be if more people could see him! The grand altar stuck up under the dome not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the mass behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point of display in the church to a mere chapel. ”

“ Electric trams have come to be sure, and certain improvements in the way of boulevards and squares have been laid out, but, in the main, the narrow, tortuous streets which ascend to its cathedral-crowned height are much as they always were; and the native pays little heed to the visitor, of which class not many ever come to the city—perhaps for the reason that Le Puy is not so very accessible by rail. ”

“ I asked the Station-master, "that you really believe that a train has a ghost, and that ghostly trains run over actual railways at night?"
"If you were a railroad man," replied my friend, "you'd see the foolishness of asking such a question? Do I believe in ghost trains? You might as well ask me if I believed in Pullman cars. Why, man! every railroad man knows that ghost trains are liable to be met with almost any night. ”

“ The boys do say that every once in a while there is a train made up of a locomotive, a baggage-car, and a Pullman sleeper that comes down the road a hustlin', and goes off the Muskahoot bridge into the river. I never saw no such train myself, but there's lots of folks living along this road that have seen it, and you'd have hard work to convince 'em that it isn't the ghost of the wrecked train. ”

“ Has America discovered a dignity in shop-keeping? The station of the Pennsylvania Railway is one of the glories of New York, and here again New York is certainly right, though I—it is a purely personal feeling—am infuriated to find the calm self-restraint of the Greeks associated with anything so blatant as a railway train. Anywhere else in the world the great hall of the Central Station would be the nave of a Cathedral. It is impossible not to feel—even when hurrying for a train—that the porters are really acolytes masquerading for a moment in honor of some fantastic fool's day. ”

“ The altar is of stone of the thirteenth century, with five detached shafts in front, supporting the slab or mensa. The whole church is groined. It is worthy of notice that the choir makes a great bend out of the straight line towards the north—so much, indeed, that it is impossible to avoid noticing it as one enters the church. The steps from the nave to the choir lack dignity. But it is true that if they had been in the centre, and the entrances to the crypt on each side, the crypt would not have been seen, as it now is, from the nave, and a striking effect would have been lost. ”

“ To secure perfect safety in ascending and descending such a tremendous grade, the track is composed of three rails bolted to a trestle of heavy timbers, the centre rail being an immense wrought-iron ladder, with rounds four inches apart, into which the cogs of the locomotive drive-wheel fit, and thus drag the train up the steep as well as control it, with aid of air-brakes, in making the descent. One and a half hours are consumed in making the round trip, and the fare is six dollars, but the view from the summit is so magnificent that it fully justifies the expense. ”

“ At length, on looking down from the summit of a hill, he descried the funeral train: the head of the column had apparently been in motion for some time, and was now winding through the rocky defiles into the long narrow strath which lay below him; but such was the extent of the train that the rear had but just cleared the sea-shore. It was a solemn and impressive spectacle to look down from such a height upon the sable and inaudible procession stealing along and meandering upon the narrow ribbon-like paths that skirted the base of the mountains. ”

“ We had to climb a road leading skyward, like an interminable staircase, by the funicular railway. It was incredible that the locomotive, standing on his hind legs so to speak, should creep up the mountain; I thought no one but a goat could surmount it. The funicular contains two cars, roofed but open from the sides, the seats are tilted back, which enables the passengers to sit level while going up the steep incline. Whether going up or down, the engine is always at the lower end of the train. The passengers sit backwards going up, and face forward going down. ”