We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty things, and making it seem almost undesirable to inquire into the dates and periods of construction of one of the most glorious buildings ever raised to the glory of God. Edwin’s wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in 1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still later. THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT CHAPTER VII THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT In the south-western parts of Yorkshire there still remains sufficient unspoiled scenery to remind us that, before industrialism claimed this area, it was as picturesque as many parts of the North Riding. No landscape in the world can remain beautiful when its atmosphere is polluted with grime, when ugly black villages are huddled near big factories and tall shafts, and when once luxuriant vegetation is blighted by sulphurous vapours. If a government brought into power with a mandate for beautifying England seriously set to work, no doubt smoke, the greatest trouble of all, could be dealt with by the compulsory use of some improved form of smoke-destructor. Following on this would come a thousand boons, and perhaps before another century had passed, in a clearer atmosphere, men might see things plainer, and light those Beltane fires in which Mr. H. G. Wells pictures the destruction of all the ugliness in this country.