WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2425, 5 September 1900, Page 43

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

The history of Westminster Abbey, ' The seat of the Inmerial throne — the home of the

Englisli nation," has often been told, yet so near to the heaits of the English-speaking race does the subject lie that the story possesses a perennial interest. '" Westminster Abbey ' formed the theme of a lecture delivered by Mr S. Hurst Seager, A.R.1.8.A., at the Choral Hall on Monday evening. Ifa ooctipied about an hour and three-quarters in its delivery, and was profusely illustrated with lantern views of such a high-class nature as to frequently evoke demonstrations of appreciation. From the outset it was evident that Mr Seager was enamouied of his theme. He had studied and mastered Ins subject in its many phases, and presented it to his audience in a compact, succinct, absorbingly interesting fashion. He traced the history of the building first from an architectural point of view, utilising it to convey a graphic epitome of the history of architectural ait 'throughout the centuries. After explaining the- different changes which it underwent, culminating in the majestic pile of tho present day, tho lecturer proceeded to sketch the historic associations surrounding every part of the building and its environments. ' - There is no building," he said, " which entwined itself by so many continuous cords with the life history of the whole nation. In this respect Westminster Abbey stands alone, a stately pile among the buildings of the world." He continued to say that, to trace its history, we must allow ourselves in imagination to be carried far back into tho dim and misty past— back to those times in which the slight historical threads are so closely interwoven with legendary lore that it is impossible to clearly distinguish the one from the other; back to those turbulent times four and five centuries before the Norman conquest, when the various- heathen and barbarous peoples who .inhabited Britain at that time were fighting each other, either for supremacy or existence, and the first Roman missionaries were striving for their conversion to the Christian faith." The lecturer, commencing at this period, spoke of the Pagan temple that had been converted into the first Christian church at Canterbury, while in the northern slopes above the silvery Thames had been erected a small church dedicated to St. Paul. In a, desolate spot, Sebert, King of Esses, in 616 erected a church, winch he dedi-

cated to St. Peter, to balance the compliment it was said he had already paid to St. Paul. This church and the monastery adjoining cama , to be known in contradistinction to St. Paul's | in the East, as the Monastery or the Minster of the West; hence the name of the- Abbey of Westminster, or Westminster Abbey. Aftei! referring to a curious and ancient legend associated with the consecration of the Abbey, and upon which the abbots based their claim • to certain rights, the speaker went on to say that the church and monastery of Sebert'a were destroyed by the Danes, but the spot remaining sacred to St. Peter was chosen by Edward the Confessor as the site of the church, he erected in honor of that saint. In thosa early Christian days, as now in Roman Catholic countries, religious sentiment took the forra of special devotion to some particular saint. To St. Peter Edward looked for help when, exiled in Normandy, and he %owed, should he return in safety to England, he would make a pilgrimage to the apostle's tomb at Rome. On. his ascendency to the throne, his nobles vtould not permit him to undertake so perilous a , journey, so it was made by proxy, and Edward 1 got a release from his vow from the Pope on. condition that he should erect a church io thfi honour of the saint, of which the King was tobe the special patron. The Church of Edward, although built in Saxon times, was not by any means a Saxon church. Although the last of . the Saxons, Edward was the first of the Normans. His Norman mother and grandfather were far more to him than his Saxcn~~father — the Nornian priests far more than the old Saxon hierarchy ; hence the introduction of Norman thought, Norman work, and Norman, artisans, and the erection of a church based, not on the rude Saxon architecture of his forefathers, but on the magnificent Norman cathedrals, which had already beea erected in many, parts of Franco. This origin of the most national of our mediaeval churches marks clearly, ' the difference to be noted between the origin, of Pagan temples and Christian churches. Pagan temples were always erected by the , nation or community for solely national pur1 poses. Christian churches, on the other hana, were always erected by individuals either as 1 a mark of personal piety or in the hope of , personal reward. It was this feeling, this hopa ■j of reward, which led Henry 111 in the thirteenth century to take down the greater pari ; of the Confessor's building, and commence the ' erection of a church, more worthy of the patron saint, and it was this feeling, acting through, cntury after century, which led to the gradual ,' growth of the Abbey — piece by piece, chapel by ctiapel, monument by monument— until it had grown to be as it was to-day — " the most lovely and lovable thing in Christendom." The historical associations of the additions and i changes which the structure underwent were ' admirably related, and the latter history of the ■ nation as depicted in its monuments and tombs was all told in a manner that enchained the unremitting attention of the audience. The manipulation of the lantern was very skilfully carried out by Mr A. R. Shepard, of the New Zealand Bible, 'Tract, ond Book Society. To : j night the lecture will be repeated, and should be well attended. < * ■ ■