But after the
day is done, and we are standing beside our little beds, and all
around is as silent as one can expect it to be in an hotel where
people seem to be arriving all night long with heavy luggage, and to
be all, more or less, in trouble, I argue with him, and gently
reprove him. To avoid the appearance of sermonising as much as
possible, I put it on mere grounds of expediency.
"How are we to find time," I say, "to go to all the places that we
really ought to go to - to all the cafes and theatres and music-halls
and beer-gardens and dancing-saloons that we want to visit - if you
waste half the precious day loafing about churches and cathedrals?"
He is deeply moved, and promises to swear off. He vows, with tears
in his voice, that he will never enter a church-door again. But
next morning, when the temptation comes, all his good resolutions
are swept away, and again he yields. It is no good being angry with
him, because he evidently does really try; but there is something
about the mere odour of a church that he simply cannot withstand.
Not knowing, then, that this weakness of his for churches was so
strong, I made no objection to the proposed visit to Cologne
Cathedral, and, accordingly, towards it we wended our way. B. has
seen it before, and knows all about it. He tells me it was begun
about the middle of the thirteenth century, and was only completed
ten years ago. It seems to me that there must have been gross delay
on the part of the builder. Why, a plumber would be ashamed to take
as long as that over a job!
B. also asserts that the two towers are the highest church towers in
the world. I dispute this, and deprecate the towers generally. B.
warmly defends them. He says they are higher than any building in
Europe, except the Eiffel Tower.
"Oh, dear no!" I say, "there are many buildings higher than they in
Europe - to say nothing of Asia and America."
I have no authority for making this assertion. As a matter of fact,
I know nothing whatever about the matter. I merely say it to
irritate B. He appears to take a sort of personal interest in the
building, and enlarges upon its beauties and advantages with as much
fervour as if he were an auctioneer trying to sell the place.
He retorts that the towers are 512 feet high.
I say:
"Nonsense! Somebody has imposed upon you, because they see you are
a foreigner."
He becomes quite angry at this, and says he can show me the figures
in the guide-book.
"The guide-book!" I reply, scornfully. "You'll believe a newspaper
next!"
B. asks me, indignantly, what height I should say they are, then. I
examine them critically for a few minutes, and then give it as my
opinion that they do not exceed 510 feet at the very outside. B.
seems annoyed with me, and we enter the church in silence.
There is little to be said about a cathedral. Except to the
professional sightseer, one is very much like another. Their beauty
to me lies, not in the paintings and sculpture they give houseroom
to, nor in the bones and bric-a-brac piled up in their cellars, but
in themselves - their echoing vastness, their deep silence.
Above the little homes of men, above the noisy teeming streets, they
rise like some soft strain of perfect music, cleaving its way amid
the jangle of discordant notes. Here, where the voices of the world
sound faint; here, where the city's glamour comes not in, it is good
to rest for a while - if only the pestering guides would leave one
alone - and think.
There is much help in Silence. From its touch we gain renewed life.
Silence is to the Soul what his Mother Earth was to Briareus. From
contact with it we rise healed of our hurts and strengthened for the
fight.
Amid the babel of the schools we stand bewildered and affrighted.
Silence gives us peace and hope. Silence teaches us no creed, only
that God's arms are around the universe.
How small and unimportant seem all our fretful troubles and
ambitions when we stand with them in our hand before the great calm
face of Silence! We smile at them ourselves, and are ashamed.
Silence teaches us how little we are - how great we are. In the
world's market-places we are tinkers, tailors, apothecaries,
thieves - respectable or otherwise, as the case may be - mere atoms of
a mighty machine - mere insects in a vast hive.
It is only in Silence that it comes home to us that we are something
much greater than this - that we are MEN, with all the universe and
all eternity before us.
It is in Silence we hear the voice of Truth. The temples and the
marts of men echo all night and day to the clamour of lies and shams
and quackeries. But in Silence falsehood cannot live. You cannot
float a lie on Silence. A lie has to be puffed aloft, and kept from
falling by men's breath. Leave a lie on the bosom of Silence, and
it sinks. A truth floats there fair and stately, like some stout
ship upon a deep ocean. Silence buoys her up lovingly for all men
to see. Not until she has grown worn-out and rotten, and is no
longer a truth, will the waters of Silence close over her.
Silence is the only real thing we can lay hold of in this world of
passing dreams. Time is a shadow that will vanish with the twilight
of humanity; but Silence is a part of the eternal. All things that
are true and lasting have been taught to men's hearts by Silence.
