CHAPTER LX 



IN THE EUROPEAN ATMOSPHERE- 1853-1856 



EAVING Yale in 1853, I passed nearly three years 

 in Europe ; and observation of the effects resulting 

 from the various orthodoxies in England, France, Ger 

 many, Eussia, and Italy developed my opinions in various 

 ways. I was deeply susceptible to religious architecture, 

 music, and, indeed, to the nobler forms of ceremonial. 

 I doubt whether any man ever entered Westminster Ab 

 bey and the various cathedrals of Great Britain and 

 I have visited every one of them of any note with a 

 more reverent feeling than that which animated me ; but 

 some features of the Anglican service as practised at 

 that time repelled me; above all, I disliked the intoning 

 of the prayers, as I then heard it for the first time. A 

 manly, straightforward petition made by a man stand 

 ing or kneeling before his Maker, in a natural, earnest 

 voice, has always greatly impressed me; but the sort of 

 whining, drawling, falsetto in which the Anglican 

 prayers were then usually intoned simply drove out 

 all religious thoughts from my mind. I had a feeling 

 that the Almighty must turn with contempt from a man 

 who presumed thus to address him. Some prayers in 

 the church service had from a very early period taken 

 a deep place in my heart: the prayer of St. Chrys- 

 ostom in the morning service, the first prayer in the 

 ante-communion service, the prayer &quot;for the whole state 

 of Christ s church militant, &quot; and some of the collects 

 had become, as it were, part of me; so much the more 



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