ABSTRACT
While travelling in Europe, the author had the opportunity to make a number of visits to churches, museums and art galleries. Once while visiting a church he forgot to remove his hat, and when reminded, he felt very contrite. A church's towering vault draws and lifts the mortal soul. Far from the congregation, close to the roof, the black-robed, hymn-singing choir stands in its semi-circular loft, voices falling drifting spilling from the heavens to marvellous effect. Church organs are also vehicles of a kind of sacredness or power, the heights of holiness and piety, something other-worldly from within the ether, yet something towards which this world yearns. It is this Jesus nailed to the cross that has the power to shock. His long hair and beard. This image on the cross seems to be an effective warning to the world, a call to awakening. Christ must be the most wretched of gods.
