The following day being Sunday, we availed ourselves of the opportunity of attending services at the Minster.  The splendid music of the great organ was enough to atone for the long dreary chant of the litany, and the glory of the ancient windows, breaking the gloom of the church with a thousand shafts of softened light, was in itself an inspiration more than any sermon—­at least to us, to whom these things had the charm of the unusual.

York Minster, with the exception of St. Paul’s in London, is the largest cathedral in England and contests with Canterbury for first place in ecclesiastical importance.  Its greatest glory is its windows, which are by far the finest of any in England.  Many of them date back to the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, and when one contemplates their subdued beauty it is easy to understand why stained-glass making is now reckoned one of the lost arts.  These windows escaped numerous vicissitudes which imperiled the cathedral, among them the disastrous fires which nearly destroyed it on two occasions within the last century.  The most remarkable of them all is the “Five Sisters” at the end of the nave, a group of five slender, softly-toned windows of imposing height.  The numerous monuments scattered throughout the church are of little interest to the American visitor.  We were surprised at the small audiences which we found at the cathedrals where we attended services.  A mere corner is large enough to care for the congregations, the vast body of the church being seldom used except on state occasions.  Though York is a city of seventy-five thousand population, I think there were not more than four or five hundred people in attendance, though the day was exceptionally fine.

There are numerous places within easy reach of York which one should not miss.  A sixty-mile trip during three or four hours of the afternoon gave us the opportunity of seeing two abbey ruins, Helmsley Castle and Laurence Sterne’s cottage at Coxwold.  Our route led over a series of steep hills almost due north to Helmsley, a town with unbroken traditions from the time of the Conqueror.  Its ancient castle surrendered to Fairfax with the agreement that “it be absolutely demolished and that no garrison hereafter be kept by either party.”  So well was this provision carried out that only a ragged fragment remains of the once impregnable fortress, which has an added interest from its connection with Scott’s story, “The Fortunes of Nigel”

Two miles from Helmsley is Rievaulx Abbey, situated in a deep, secluded valley, and the narrow byway leading to the ruin was so steep and rough that we left the car and walked down the hill.  A small village nestles in the valley, a quiet, out-of-the-way little place whose thatched cottages were surrounded by a riot of old-fashioned flowers and their walls dashed with the rich color of the bloom-laden rose vines.  Back of the village, in lonely grandeur, stands the abbey, still imposing despite decay and neglect.