CITY OF PILGRIMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20623, 23 July 1930, Page 16

CITY OF PILGRIMS.

HISTORIC CANTERBURY.

EIGHT-HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY.

INSPIRING WEEK'S FESTIVAL. Tho historic English city of Canterbury has been once more crowded with pilgrims. Tho grey cathedral looked down during the week commencing on Saturday, Juno 7, on a closo busy with people from all over England, coming and going through tho great doors and over tho smooth grass. Thero were more bishops walking together in the cloisters, more processions of choir boys and singing of chants than tho old city has seen or hoard for many a long year, says tho Daily Express. Tho second week in Juno saw for this a celebration of a rare and solemn kind —tho oight-hundredth anniversary of the ecclesiastical heart of England. It was a triple commemoration that began with a great sorvico of thanksgiving. It is 800 years since the dedication of Canterbury as the first Norman cathedral of England; 750 years since tho first Mass was sung between the tapering stone pillars of tho present choir and 600 years since Edward the Black Prince, "tho flower of chivalry of England," was born into a life of battle and devotion, to be laid at length in a painted tomb in tho cathedral that ho loved.

Two thousand people waited in tho cathedral arid many nioro in the close when tho thanksgiving procession, which included 14 bishops and 200 clergy, carao across tho grass and into tho dim nave. Bedesmen with white wands gravely preceded the Cross of Canterbury; then tho Lord Bishop of Dover, in his white sleeves, tho canons, tho bishops of the province and of the Anglican Communion, tho Lord-Lieutenant of Kent, in the black velvet and lace of an 18th century courtier, the Mayors of Kent —among them a groy-hairod, dignified woman, tho Mayor of Sandwich —soldiers, sailors and airmen and a mysterious group dressed in gold and velvet and splendour, the coronation barons of the Cinque ports. Inside the cathedral tho afternoon light filtered through tho age-old glass to a green dimness, making the south aisle pillars look like tho colonnades of a submerged cathedral, with here and theio a patch of scarlet and bluo on. tho stone, where tho sun struck a more blilliant pane. The elligy of the Black Prince lay with mailed hands pointing together, his blackened armour hung above his head and his feet covered with roses.

The Bishop of Rochester, addressing the, people in place of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was too ill to attend,, asked for their prayers for all those who, known and unknown, have raised and glorified the cathedral through its 800 years; every mason, every carpenter, every devout, dead monk who carried the stones; every consecrated archbishop -from St. Augustine to Randall Thomas Davidson, who has served in it.

Tlio festival of commemoration, so grandly befiun. lasted for seven days and during that timo the city was as full of pilgrims as ever it was when Chancer told tales from Southward to Canterbury. There were services,' recitals, lectures and plays and an exhibition in the cathedral library of rare borrowed treasures that.have had their part iu Canterbury's long history of faith.