OLD-WORLD CHURCH MATTERS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVIII, Issue 4365, 7 December 1897, Page 1

OLD-WORLD CHURCH MATTERS.

Mk William Andrews, who uuitei the f auctions of author, printer,

ana pu Dinner, has brought together much

curious matter in the volatne entitled " The Church Treasury, 1' which has just appeared under his editorship. The Rev, G, S, Tyack shows that wooden churches, now so rare in England, must once have been very common, if cot universal. £dwin was baptised in ■> stave-kirk at York, though he replaced it afterwards by a larger and nobler churoh of stone. Mr Ouming Walters gossips pleasantly about holy well*, and v so liberal as to include the " cursing well" of St Elian in the list. The method of curing insanity at St Nun's "Well appears to have been massively simple. . The patients we^e tossed into the cold water until " they 'forgot then- fury," Fortified eoclesiI astioal towers may perhaps be regarded ; as a development of the Church militant, and Mr Andrews shows that in some of the Border counties such protection against the then hostile Scots was far from superfluous. When the Earl of Leven besfrged Newcastle he threatened to destroy the spire of St Nicholas, the pride of the city. The stout Mayor, Sir John Morley, replied by filling the tower with Scoteb prisoners and telling the Earl that " the same moment be destroyed the bsautiful structure he should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed there on purpose either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with it." Thus the spire was saved. Mr W. H. Thompson supplies some interesting particulars of English mediaeval pilgrimages, and shows that in many respects they anticipated chat intensely modern device the personally conducted tour. On one occasion eighty pilgrim vessels were seen in the harbour of Corunna, and of these thirty-two were English. Not the lersst amusing part of the volume is that devoted to "ghost-laying," The Rev. li. Wilkhis Kees tells of Parson jkudaU, Parson Jago, and Parson Dodge, who have left great reputations m exorcists. So great was the power of the last named that n nod of his head would send " any troublesome ghost to that safest of all spirit prisons/ the depths of the I'ed Sea." John Wesley is included amongst the exorcists. One cSerical ghost-layer, the Rev. Thorn is Fiavei!, charged five guineas for the operation—a highly remarkable method, to modern eyes, of putting money in the Church treasury.