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Page 9
But as I refer to this page for the exact word, my eye is caught by
one of the sentences of Londonian[4] thought which constantly pervert
the well-meant books of pious England. "We see also," says the Dean,
"the union of innocent fiction with worldly craft, which marks so
many of the legends both of Pagan and Christian times." I might simply
reply to this insinuation that times which have no legends differ
from the legendary ones merely by uniting guilty, instead of innocent,
fiction, with worldly craft; but I must farther advise you that the
legends of these passionate times are in no wise, and in no sense,
fiction at all; but the true record of impressions made on the minds
of persons in a state of eager spiritual excitement, brought into
bright focus by acting steadily and frankly under its impulses. I
could tell you a great deal more about such things than you would
believe, and therefore, a great deal more than it would do you the
least good to hear;--but this much any who care to use their common
sense modestly, cannot but admit, that unless they choose to try the
rough life of the Christian ages, they cannot understand its practical
consequences. You have all been taught by Lord Macaulay and his school
that because you have Carpets instead of rushes for your feet; and
Feather-beds instead of fern for your backs; and Kickshaws instead
of beef for your eating; and Drains instead of Holy Wells for your
drinking;--that, therefore, you are the Cream of Creation, and
every one of you a seven-headed Solomon. Stay in those pleasant
circumstances and convictions if you please; but don't accuse your
roughly bred and fed fathers of telling lies about the aspect the
earth and sky bore to _them_,--till you have trodden the earth as
they, barefoot, and seen the heavens as they, face to face. If you
care to see and to know for yourselves, you may do it with little
pains; you need not do any great thing, you needn't keep one eye open
and the other shut for ten years over a microscope, nor fight your way
through icebergs and darkness to knowledge of the _celestial_ pole.
Simply, do as much as king after king of the Saxons did,--put rough
shoes on your feet and a rough cloak on your shoulders, and walk to
Rome and back. Sleep by the roadside, when it is fine,--in the first
outhouse you can find, when it is wet; and live on bread and water,
with an onion or two, all the way; and if the experiences which you
will have to relate on your return do not, as may well be, deserve the
name of spiritual; at all events you will not be disposed to let other
people regard them either as Poetry or Fiction.
[Footnote 4: Not _Londinian_.]
With this warning, presently to be at greater length insisted on,
I trace for you, in Dean Stanley's words, which cannot be bettered
except in the collection of their more earnest passages from among
his interludes of graceful but dangerous qualification,--I trace, with
only such omission, the story he has told us of the foundation of that
Abbey, which, he tells you, was the Mother of London, and has ever
been the shrine and the throne of English faith and truth.
"The gradual formation of a monastic body, indicated in the charters
of Offa and Edgar, marks the spread of the Benedictine order
throughout England, under the influence of Dunstan. The 'terror' of
the spot, which had still been its chief characteristic in the charter
of the wild Offa, had, in the days of the more peaceful Edgar, given
way to a dubious 'renown.' Twelve monks is the number traditionally
said to have been established by Dunstan. A few acres further up the
river formed their chief property, and their monastic character was
sufficiently recognized to have given to the old locality of the
'terrible place' the name of the 'Western Monastery,' or 'Minster of
the West.'"
The Benedictines then--twelve Benedictine monks--thus begin the
building of existent Christian London. You know I told you the
Benedictines are the Doing people, as the disciples of St. Augustine
the Sentimental people. The Benedictines find no terror in their
own thoughts--face the terror of places--change it into beauty of
places,--make this terrible place, a Motherly Place--Mother of London.
This first Westminster, however, the Dean goes on to say, "seems to
have been overrun by the Danes," and it would have had no further
history but for the combination of circumstances which directed hither
the notice of Edward the Confessor.
I haven't time to read you all the combination of circumstances. The
last clinching circumstance was this--
"There was in the neighbourhood of Worcester, 'far from men in the
wilderness, on the slope of a wood, in a cave deep down in the grey
rock,' a holy hermit 'of great age, living on fruits and roots.' One
night when, after reading in the Scriptures 'how hard are the pains
of hell, and how the enduring life of Heaven is sweet and to be
desired,' he could neither sleep nor repose, St. Peter appeared to
him, 'bright and beautiful, like to a clerk,' and warned him to tell
the King that he was released from his vow; that on that very day
his messengers would return from Rome;" (that is the combination of
circumstances--bringing Pope's order to build a church to release
the King from his vow of pilgrimage); "that 'at Thorney, two leagues
from the city,' was the spot marked out where, in an ancient church,
'situated low,' he was to establish a perfect Benedictine monastery,
which should be 'the gate of heaven, the ladder of prayer, whence
those who serve St. Peter there, shall by him be admitted into
Paradise.' The hermit writes the account of the vision on parchment,
seals it with wax, and brings it to the King, who compares it with the
answer of the messengers, just arrived from Rome, and determines on
carrying out the design as the Apostle had ordered.
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