SHORTER NOTICES. -
THE LIVERPOOL CATHEDRAL OFFICIAL HANDBOOK. Conipiled by Vere E. Cotten: -
This is a -notable record of a notable achievement. The new Liverpool Cathedral will, .when .completed, be the largest church in England, and inferior in size only to St. Peter's and Seville among the Cathedrals of the world.; The architect, Mr. (now Sir) G. G. Scott, a grandsonaf Sir Gilbert Scott-, R.A., was only 21 years of age at the time of his appointment ; the foundation stone was -laid by Edward. VII., July 19th, 1904 ; the consecration ceremony took place twenty years later in the presence of the reigning King—July 19th, .1924.-- The response to the appeal for funds -has been princiely ; but the completed cost of the building cannot, fall .short of t2,000,000.--"The committee are justified in their reflection that the standard of gratitude and public Spirit has not declined among us since the great days of the mediaeval foundations ; nor has the faCt that the diocese of Liverpool is probably the most Protestant in the country proved in- zonsistent with its having given' the Church-a - Cathedral which rivals in magnificence those which have Come down to us from the Ages of Faith. Bishop Chavasse, in whose episcopate the work was begun, left the entire responsibility for the building to the laity ;- and, in particular, allOwed Sir Frederick Radcliffe a free hand in .the selection of subjects for the stained windows.. Hence an impression of reality in the figures. In the Lady Chapel, e.4., beside the thirteenth- century mystic, Juliana of NZ:civic-la; we have the mother of the Wesleys, Elizabeth Fry, Josephine Butler,' Lady Burdett- Coutts, Mrs. Gladstone, Christina Rossetti, Mrs. Browning, Miss Clough, of Newnham, - and Queen Victoria. - In the Cathedral itself among the Prophets are Wycliffe, Savonarola, Cranmer, Wesley ; among the Martyrs Bishop Pattison and Harmington, and—parallel to the nameless soldier of the Cenotaph—an unknown Negro, Cinaman, Melanesian and Madagascan • while under the head of the Holy Church come Columbus,. Bich, William[ Wilberforce, Newton; Linacre, an Lord Roberts. The orientation of the building is approximately north and south, not east and west ; but this is in accordance with traditional usage, which lays down that the main axis of a church shoUld point towards the rising sun on the name-day of the- Patron Saint. Liverpool Cathedral is dedicated to Christ ; and therefore faces the rising sun on Christmas Day.
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