MEMENTOES Or THE PAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 79

MEMENTOES Or THE PAST.

By A Bankeb

Who can enter one of those grand old minsters erected by our Saxon or Norman, forefathers, or by the; brilliant architects of the fourteenth aud fifteenth centuries, without a thrill of veneration, a thrill almost of solemnity and awe cotirsing through the veins ! In some — as at the imposing and stately fane of St. Giles, Edinburgh — decorated with the honoured remnants of innumerable battle flags, tattered regimental standards which in many a hard-fought conflict — in the Peninsula or in Russia, at Waterloo or in India — have been pierced by hurricanes of bullets, or torn to shreds by giape and canister until scarce a> vestige of the inspiriting symbol was left intact.

In others, as at Westminster Abbey, the interest is more centred in. the many tombs and monuments erected in honour of a long line of nionarchs aud warriors, benefactors and scientists, statesmen and poets. Here, amidst relics of the dim, far-off past, is the tomb of Kjng Sebert, erected there nearly thirteen centuries ago , here the mausoleum of Queen Eleanor, whose devotion to her wounded husband will be remembered for all time; and here the stately monument of the Great Elizi»~

belli, who«e valiant s-en captains, aided by t,btoims ol heaven, scattered and desuojed that mighty Aiuiid,i winch was to brinji proud England to hei knees. Now v " come to a =po. where rc| o=e the allies of many ku'Sfs and queen- oi a. Ur bygone ago, thur g'lded effigies unharmed, some a'niost j= perfect a= when placed there hunuieds apcl hundiods of vcars ago; then features mostly noble, d'gnihed, and regal ; their gaib garish and old-time. And now, in Poets' corner, statues or lnemo'ial tablets of many a goniih whose poesy dud idyl's have ofttimea stirred within u<- a responsive choid, and whose writing? will ho appreciated a» ldig as mankind remains go ;>d ai-c! noble — Milton, that saintly and almost inspired master mind, whose '"Paradise Loat" surpasses any other book e^'er penned — of course, cxcap^ing one jj oo kk — m graphic word-pictures and bold miaspry, alternating botween abysms of lurid honor "and a supernal Eh sunn of transplendent sublimity , Chauoei , that earliest, and Tcmiyoon, latest, of English poets . the gifted Longfellow, greatest of America's poets, to vhose memory a memonal tablet has well been raised : "with niam- and many another altogether too numerous to quote. But, and oi greatest interest than all, forming part of the Coronation chair, rests the "Sftone of Destiny," that stone held in veneration by perhaps more than a thousand generations, upon v-hich the Kings and Queens of England have been crowned for centimes past; that venerable tune- worn relic believed to be the very stone upon which the patriarch Jacob rested" his head when, in the reveries of the night, thai, wondrous vision of angels was revealed to him.

But a day will come when the Arehange.'s trumpet will pound loud and long, and all these mausoleums will burst open, ard sea and land shall give up their dead. Then shall we all stand before the throne of the Great Judge, to be judged according to our deeds. Happy they who, with Divine help, have done their best to Kve a godly lilts . pnd who, having laid their sins upon Him who died upon the cross to atone for them, find that there remains net the record of one ■olitary transgression against them. _ For for thorn — and for them alone — there ■will sta ca coa^ezanstion.