in the many years since his arrival in yami , that impressive cathedral he had first beheld with awe from his ship had fallen into disrepairthe bell of its tower still chimed as it had before , once at dawn and once in the early eve ; but services were no longer held as that institution of theology upheld by the supports and crossbeams of its structure no longer had the financial resources to preserve itself as well as the more established , more ubiquitous institutions of the republic , which had accumulated not only a substantial amount of wealth from tithing and armed conquest , but had also commissioned with these immoderate funds no shortage of artistic , architectural and cultural feats endowing their respective faiths with the full weight of that aggrandizement and bootlicking demanded by a noble creed from its followers .