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.