BRITAIN'S SPIRITUAL CENTRE

Evening Star, Issue 18159, 27 December 1922, Page 5

BRITAIN'S SPIRITUAL CENTRE

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. MOST FAMOUS OF CHURCHES. INCREASING MULTITUDE OF PILGRIMS. By the testimony of tho authorities and the'evidence of personal observation, ono of the most remarkable developments_ of the present year has been the increasing multitude of pilgrims to Westminster Abbey. ... There is no easy means of estimating that increase statistically (declares a special correspondent in the ‘Daily No record is kept of the persons who visit the portions which arc always open to the public, or the chapels on the day in the week on which they are thrown open without charge. But the impression of all familiar with the Abbey over a coTisderable term of years is that never have so many visitors from the dominions and 1 , the United States been seen within its walls, and) tills though the high cost of ocean travel still severely limits the number of those who can come to Great Britain-. The Abbey has, in fact, become holy ground to Americans as well as to the British. _ It has been a strange and impressive sight during the summer to mark the increasing concourse round the grave of the Unknown Warrior, this new shrine which draws men with a surer magnet than ever did tho tomb of Edward the Confessor. The Abbey between its services has been always full. In tho past there was an agreement among the authorities that most foreign visitors were content with a hasty inspection. But now one striking fact is that so many of the visitors return time after time. Americans are no longer satisfied till they have studied 1 its tombs and listened to the solemn music of its service? repeatedly. 'They find! that the magic of the place grows upon them, and! that with each visit some now wonder reveals itself. Vergers yvlio conduct the parties round tell me that since the way they have noticed a great development in the affection which Americans bear to the Abbey and .a growth of tho .feeling of participation in its glories and memories. That is all to the good, and it means that an additional tie now binds them to tire country whence their civilisation sprang. Since the war, too, there has been a very marked multiplication of visitors from the _ dominions. Tens of thousands of Canadians, Australians, andi New Zealanders saw the Abbey for the first time as soldiers, and felt the force of its appeal; they Como back to it as the homing pigeon returns to its ooto, and bring over their womenkind with them to see it. THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR.

The increasing concentration! of interest on Westminster Abbey is beyond question duo in large part to the fact that there lies the Unknown—the fighting man who typifies the million of the British race who laid down their lives for freedom in the war. . . That grave with its crowded! inscription, which is so often and so severely criticised, has always a gathering about it, whatever tho -day, and the gathering increases on the anniversaries of those terrible battles which punctuate tho calendarbattles in which the flower of British youth perished, bringing anguish to so many hearts. Last September, stanco, fell tho anniversaries of the First Mairno, of Loos, of several of those snncuinary and obscure engagements of tho First Somme, of the fearful struggle in the mud at Passohendaele, and) of the storming of tho Hind'enburg Line. There is hardly a month which has not to show a similar list of battles With each anniversary there are deputations of comrades, bringing wreaths of remembrance to their fallen friends —all of whom are personified in ibe_ Unknown. There is the constant procession of men, wearing the silver badge and' limping, or outwardly whole and covered with medals. Saddtest of all there are tho women in black, to whom this- tomb means so much, with haggard eyes, though the years are flying swiftly and the first sting of their pain has been assuaged) by Time, the great healer. They weep there, like Rachel, for their children gone, yet feel some comfort in the evidence of the universal love and respect in which that famous tomb is held. About it, evdn more than about the Cenotaph —another memorial justly dear to Englishmen, but without the religious influence which pervades the -grave of the 'Unknown- —are fast growing up a thousand "noble and tender associations. To the British pilgrims ,the tomb speaks of tho son who_ fell at Yprcs; or the brother who vanished on the Somme; of tho husband who went down in that great mist of poison gas which spread oyer the land as the Germans opened their last furious onset, when our men fought “ with their backs to the wall,’ and General Currie called on them to die rather than let tho enemy through; -or the father who was called up in our last desperate muster of the children and tho middle-aged, and who perished in the terrific struggle of the Hundred Days’ Battle, “ dark to the triumph which he dial to gain.” It is a shrine of remembrances, keeping alive the cult of valor and duty, and reminding living man) of the eternal truth “ All that Is most real and best in our lives is that which has no material reality—sentiment, love, honor, patriotism—these continue when the material things pass ■away.” To the visitor not of our race to look or. the tomb is as moving as it is for the modern to stand upon the mound which marks where the Athenian dead rest after their great victory of Marathon. There is the same sense of personal touch with immortal events, and with the actors in them. The ages may pass bringing oblivion on most human things, but this feeling will surely survive, and the sense of gratitude, and love to those who saved freedom for mankind will grow rather than diminish. In its appeal to tho" imagination and emotion tho Abbey is worthy of this tomb and tho affection which gathers round it. §t. Peter’s at Borne, with all its glories, is young in years and poor in associations compared with Westminster Abbey. 1 Notre Dame in Paris is older, but the Revolution stripped it of much of its human interest: nor was its history intertwined with tho very life of France as that of the Abbcv is intertwined with the life of Britain. '“Tho Abbey is net only to-day the great shrine of a great people; it has been their national shrine for now nearly ten centuries. NINE HUNDRED YEARS OF CORONATIONS.

Ovor the pavements of the Abbey generation after generation has passed. Living princes have moved in procession to be crowned; the famous dead, whom the nation would commemorate, have been borne to receive their last honors. For SCO years every English Sovereign has there been anointed with the holy oil, of which in the old days, according to legend, a miraculous supply was given by the Virgin to St. Thomas of Canterbury. Indeed, the whole Abbey was once full of the miraculous. There St. Peter had appeared in person to honor the church dedicated to him 5 there the body of Edward the Confessor refused to decay; there was the very stone with the imprint of Christ’s foot at the moment of the Ascension: a chalice with His blood which Henry 111. had carried bareheaded through London: a tooth of Athanasius; and I know not how many other relics. There was and is the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, the last to work miracles in this land. Of the relics, most disappeared at the Reformation, and any that survived were made away with by the Puritans. Yet never was the Abbey wrecked as Notre Damo was. The English temper showed itself in this. Anabaptists, Calvinists, and Levellers respected it, though it had one moment of terrible danger under Edward VI., when the Protector Somerset is believed to have contemplated its destruction as a hateful relief of the eld religion. Cromwell buried there his greatest fighters as a supreme honor, and himself was laid beneath its floor, to have his body tom up‘at the Restoration and the head chopped off on Tower Hill. So it came about that with very rare exceptions, tombs left undisturbed, save lor subsequent repairs or burials. Thus when in 1871 eomeyroork was being

done on the tomb of Richard 11., who died in 1400, fragments of bis peaked shoes nearly 500 years old could bo fieonl in his coffin. Tlio visitor, when he loaves the Abbey, might find it hard to answer the question : What went yo out for to see? In that building there is so much to see, and there are united so, many appeals. Fresh discoveries arc always being _ made, fresh, treasures are constantly being disclosed, as in tlio last few months by the- cleaning of tho tombs on, the north side of the high altar and tho painted ooat of arms on tlio spandrels of the north and south choir aisles. Tho colors are now visible ini all tlvoir thirteenth century brilliance, as though the 500 years that have elapsed since they were first applied were but a watch in the night. POLITICAL HAPPENINGS.

'There is the appeal of race. The Abbey is, above all other churches and buildings, the object of veneration not only to those of English and British stock, but also to those who have adopted our language and customs. It is to them all that and much more than tlio Temple was to the Jew. and it makes this appeal to a hundred and fifty millions of the most energetic of tho human race.. , Connected with the Abbey arc the ideals which England has given to th-o world the institutions by which) she has striven to realise them. Tho birth of roprcuenlativo government was in its precincts; the meet in it place of the first Parliament was in its Chapter House. No building has exorcised such a profound and far-reaching influence on the political life of man. Indeed, the very exactions of Henry lIL to beautify this glorious edifice brought into tho field tho parliamentary regime. In those days the nation's) representatives wished to apply something curiously like the “ Geddea axo ” to bin building propenS 1 Again, in its ritual and, most of all, in its noble Coronation Service have been sot forth the truths on. which sovereignty must ho founded if it if! to endure—the love of law and order, tho hatred of tyranny and violence, tho assertion of the belief that above tho transient in the Stale is the Eternal, and that beyond our human justice and its vicissitudes is. a Divine Authority. Not in England, as in Germany, was the nation ever elevated above the law of God.

THE SHRINE OF ENGLAND’S HEART,

As the Abbey is English <A tlio English, it is tho shrine and temple of our English heart. No single building in tire world contains so many lamons dead, among whom are counted tho most of our'great English rulers, leaders, and thinkers. Santa Croce and the Pantheon have nothing to show in ■comparison with tho veritable multitude of men of genius who’ are gathered here, or with tho array of monuments which connects tlio edifice so closely with every phase and period of our national life. And,, as the English have, above all peoples, the instinct of toleration and a breadth of patriotism which has never been equalled, they have admitted to this shrine amV canonised in it certain of those who are not of English blood or of British allegiance. Tho immemorial antiquity _ of English history and the continuity of its traditions and beliefs are demonstrated at every turn in the Abbey. The tomb of the traditional founder, Sebert, King, of tire East Saxons, contains an ancient stone coffin which probably dates back to his death about 616. A .grant from Ofla of Mercia is among the documents shown in tho Chapter House, and rro.es back to 785. There is a magnificent set of Great Seals from Edward the Confessor to_ Victoria, and! there is a charter from William the Conqueror granting six “hides” of land, from which it can,' be seen what his writing was like. This most famous of ail churches in the world has by degrees grown to bo the spiritual centre of the British Empire, and some hold that as Empire develops it may even become the spiritual centre of the world.