I vaguely
hoped for this universal comity when I stood in Stonehenge, on
the Acropolis in Athens, or in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
But never did I so desire it as in the cathedrals of Winchester,
Notre Dame, Amiens. One winter's day I traveled from Munich to
Ulm because I imagined from what the art books said that the
cathedral hoarded a medieval statement of the Positivists' final
synthesis, prefiguring their conception of a "Supreme Humanity."
In this I was not altogether disappointed. The religious history
carved on the choir stalls at Ulm contained Greek philosophers as
well as Hebrew prophets, and among the disciples and saints stood
the discoverer of music and a builder of pagan temples. Even then
I was startled, forgetting for the moment the religious revolutions
of south Germany, to catch sight of a window showing Luther as
he affixed his thesis on the door at Wittenberg, the picture
shining clear in the midst of the older glass of saint and symbol.
My smug notebook states that all this was an admission that "the
saints but embodied fine action," and it proceeds at some length
to set forth my hope for a "cathedral of humanity," which should
be "capacious enough to house a fellowship of common purpose,"
and which should be "beautiful enough to persuade men to hold
fast to the vision of human solidarity.
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