NATURE IN ENGLAND. 15 



cene period of man's religious history, the period 

 of gigantic forms. How vast, how monstrous, how 

 terrible in beauty and power ! but in our day as 

 empty and dead as the shells upon the shore. The 

 cold, thin ecclesiasticisrn that now masquerades in 

 them hardly disturbs the dust in their central aisles. 

 I saw five worshipers at the choral service in Can- 

 terbury, and about the same number of curious spec- 

 tators. For my part, I could not take my eyes off 

 the remnants of some of the old stained windows up 

 aloft. If I worshiped at all, it was my devout ad- 

 miration of those superb relics. There could be no 

 doubt about the faith that inspired those. Below 

 them were some gorgeous modern memorial win- 

 dows : stained glass, indeed ! loud, garish, thin, 

 painty ; while these were like a combination of pre- 

 cious stones and gems, full of depth and richness of 

 tone, and, above all, serious, not courting your atten- 

 tion. My eye was not much taken with them at 

 first, and not till after it had recoiled from the hard, 

 thin glare in my immediate front. 



From Canterbury I went to Dover, and spent 

 part of a day walking along the cliffs to Folkestone. 

 There is a good foot-path that skirts the edge of the 

 cliffs, and it is much frequented. It is characteristic 

 of the compactness and neatness of this little island 

 that there is not an inch of waste land along this sea 

 margin; the fertile rolling landscape, waving with 

 wheat and barley, and, with grass just ready for the 

 Bcythe, is cut squarely off by the sea ; the plow and 



