As we have before said, when we approach one of these structures, so imposing and wonder-inspiring,--so out of proportion with everything else to be seen or imagined in the region,--when we suddenly come upon one of these, we are inclined to consider this to be _the_ cathedral, and as though there was, or could be, but one in all England, and this enough for all, and that the remainder were simply parish churches. We wonder every time anew, how they could have come into existence; where the means for their erection came from, and what influence could possibly have been brought to bear on any lot of mortals to induce the required interest. The later thought is that it was done centuries ago, when monastery and abbey and priory and convent were in full action, church and state one, Papacy powerful in the extreme, this life nothing, and the other everything. A superstitious reverence was superior to an intelligent Christian faith; and so time, labor, money, all were free to erect these great centres of religion and faith. Next, the country was divided into communities with interests of their own, and composed, as it were, of tribes, often hostile to each other, though entertaining a common superstition and reverence for what they thought to be truth and divine things. There were few roads across the country, and so comparatively little intercommunication or exchange of thought. With no books and no newspapers, the people were shut in and ignorant; and only was the condition disturbed and the lines removed when by some invasion,--as of Saxons or Normans, of Danes or of Scots,--or the result of civil war, the kingdom of Mercia or of Northumbria became weakened and was absorbed by a stronger power. These cathedral towns or provinces were then realms with an identity of their own; and so cathedrals were not only possible, but necessities, and were begun, and continued, and used for centuries, till by-and-by, isolation being unnatural, the great laws of association acting,--for "He made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth,"--as enlightenment came, advancement came also; a union of interest followed, which meant a division for use of the best things; and then cathedrals became in a sense common property, not only to people of England, but by-and-by to those of America as well.