THE FANES OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 96

THE FANES OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

By a Bankee.

Scattered throughout Western and MidEurope still stand, unimpaired' either by -the ravfiging hand c£ time or .by the subverting throes of earthquake, many magnificent relics of the past which strikingly exhibit the chaste and: refined art and transcendent genius of the great architects of a bygone age. And it would appear as though, with each succeeding period one master-mind 1 conceived the inspiration -which evolved the triumphs" 'of that particular age; after a reign of a century or more a. desire for change becoming manifest, until at length ano-fch-er genius originates a superb and artistic style entirely different -to that which for "generations had 1 held 1 despotic eway, and at once the new design is universally adopted! throughout civilisation, and, like its predecessor, dominates with imperious rule, and wholly supersedes it. And then after more generations have come and gone, a nondescript style obtains, and for a time architecture appears to be a lost art.

And how replete wnh stirring interest are many of these fanes of our forefathers, which, especially in Britain, are so numerous. Here a village church, erected in the days of the Conqueror, its bold Norman architecture still perfect and its walls decorated wiih fine brasses recounting the prowess or the virtues of the far-off knightly ancestors of the family which still inhabits the same ancestral hall, while on each, side of the aisle are effigies of knights and squires, the very helmet -worn at . Agincourt or Crecy hanging above. Her-© several altar tombs upon which, rest recumbent marble- or alabaster figures of erusad-ers in plate armour, copied probably from the very coat of mail which they wore in the battles with. Saladin in the Holy Land. Here (in the fine old Norman fane of Winborne Minster) a quaint orrery mode 600 years ag_o by a monk of G-lastonbury, showing the sun, moon, and. stars revolving round the earth! Or here, as at the fine cathedral, ci St. Giles, Edinburgh, and also in many others, the tattered) war flegs borne by gallant men at Waterloo, at Badajos, or at Inkerman.

And in each one of all these old cathedrals and minsters and village churches are effigies and records of men and women, vaJiani warriors, great statesmen, celebrated divines, or others who have conferred benefits upon their race, whose ashes for centuries have rested in the soil beneath.

And a time will come when at Archangel's trumpet call all these old tombs will give up tjjeir dead. Then -will the angels separate them all into two great divisions. And to one of these companies, those whote transgressions have bean blotted cut of t>s record in virtue of the Great Expiation made for them by the Saviour of the world, ihe loving welcome — "Come, ye blessed, inherit t'ae Kingdom" — will be addressed. But t~> the other great j»-Feni^'lage. those who hacl forgotten tbeir Gcd, the dread sentence of condemnation to the realms of remorse — "'Depart, ye!" — will be uttered.