eases, and wonder and surprise; and many visits are needed before
its infinite beauties can be appreciated.

From the moment of entering you are charmed beyond all words. Here is a
building no human mind could plan or human hands have raised. Never
other building suggested this. However great the admiration--from St.
Peter's at Rome, largest in the world, to Westminster Abbey, one of the
most exquisite--nothing seems beyond man's power to accomplish.
Barcelona alone strikes one as a dream-vision enchanted into shape and
substance, possessing something of the supernatural, and is full of a
sense of mystery. A faint light softens all outlines; half-concealed
recesses meet the eye on every hand; mysterious depths lurk in the
galleries over the side chapels. Sight gradually penetrates the darkness
only to discover some new and beautiful work. Not very large, it is so
perfectly proportioned that the effect is of infinitely greater space.
Not a detail would one alter or single outline modify.

[Illustration: PULPIT AND STALLS, BARCELONA CATHEDRAL.]

Some of its coloured windows are amongst the loveliest and richest in
the world. Rainbow shafts fall across pillars and arches. We are in Eden
and this is its sacred fane. The whole building is an inspiration.

It is cruciform, and stands on the site of an ancient Pagan temple.
This, in 1058, gave place to the first Christian church, very little of
which now remains. Converted into a mosque, it ceased to be Christian
during the reign of that wonderful people, the Moors--wonderful
throughout their long career, and falling at last, like Rome, by a fatal
luxury. The more one sees their traces and remains, the more their
strength is confirmed. Their influence upon Spain was inestimable. In
all they did a certain religious element is apparent, not an element of
barbaric worship, but of cultivation and reverence. Strange they should
have hated the Christians, failing to realise an influence that was
gradually changing the face of the earth.

In Spain their history runs side by side with that of the Christians,
yet they were so divided that nothing done by the one was right in the
sight of the other. So each kept its school jealously separate, to our
endless gain. The very name of Moorish architecture quickens the pulse,
conjuring visions that appeal to all one's imagination and sense of
beauty. Intellectually they were more advanced. The rough and warlike
Christians had not the nerv