THE ORATORY AMONG THE ROCKS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 858, 9 November 1916, Page 5

THE ORATORY AMONG THE ROCKS.

"At one time our British shores were engirdled by posts of prayer," says "Chambers's Journal." "Pious men spent the hours of day and night in spray-dashed towers, so that no ship, either large or small, left the harbours or pasesd the rocky headlands without some humble petition being offered for the safety of the busy souls she carried. "One sits within the mouldering walls of such an oratory, looking out over a great bay of the north, and muses regretfully, and yet in some ways thankfully, of the days that are gone. Times may have changed greatly, but the witness of the little oratory is still eloquent, not least in these days of dreadful war. "In the old days, as now, the existence of this reaim, this England, depended on her full dominion of the sea. From many a wind-swept oratory the hermit or votary or priest looked down and out on the shipping of his nation. He saw"the light craft of the fisherfolk gliding along and scarce marking the moving plain of

, water. He watched in its proper | time the many-oared galley tracing j its way in silver and in foam through the tide-stream. He saw later the j high-pooped ships shaking out their j broad sails, outward bound for trade, •| for exploration, for war. And on I the souls in each and every one he 'humbly asked the blessing of the (Most High. . . . "As I stand here between the ■j mouldering walls I listen to the sob '! and the song of the sea as it pushes and rushes among the skerries; I ! watch the sea-birds hover and float, ; and I hear their wild screams and' •calls; I watch the golden sunlight , gleam along the wet sandbanks, the •glimmer of distant and still more 'distant waters in and beyond the 11 islands. There is no change in the '. shadows of purple and blue and j | green Which delighted the first one » who "prayed at the oratory as .they • delight me to-day. He, too, saw the ' sea rise up in storm, heard the heavy f shock of the waters beneath, and ;| drew in with every breath the water'jfog which encompassed and entered 'ibis rude dwelling. And when the , fogs of winter clung along the title, ; and 'hid even the breakers from his ken, he would give his strongest cry to God for help to those mariners who might be groping nearer and ever . I nearer the rock-bound coast. Per- ' haps he tinkled his little hell incesJsantly in warning, just as the great -fog-horn now rings from the distant ; I port-head to preserve our keels from 11 sandbank and rock-reef. "! "One cannot but admire the men Mwho held this outer guard of prayer, "this oratory among the rocks, during i j days of storm and darkness, through j; nights of snow and sleet and hail; • iwho piited their voices in prayer [against the majestic roar of the iibreakers, againsi the rumbling thunder of the hurricanes; and one likis >: to feel that there were men of action - as well as of prayer among them, ; men who would lead forlorn hopes ;|to rescue at least one soul from the ' shattered wreck, who counted their (■! personal danger but small when ser- • vice was offered. i "Living in such narrow bounds as - this rock-girt oratory, they could not 1 be lovers of great fame, but they might be very brothers to those in distress and need."