Glasgow Cross

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 15, 19 April 1923, Page 33

Glasgow Cross

J he effort to save the old Tolbooth steeple in connection with the proposed alterations at Glasgow Cross has (says an exchange) a peculiar interest for Glasgow Catholics- 'it was near the Tolbooth steeple, where the Gallowgate and High Street tramlines cross, that the Veil. Father John Ogilvie, S.J., was martyred in 1615. . Last year many Catholics made their way to the Cross or, March 10, at 4 p.m., the. day and hour of the venerable Jesuit's martyrdom—to make an act of devotion to his memory; and the number of pilgrims will certainly he increased this year owing to the quickening of interest in the lives of the martyrs of Scotland caused by the work of the Scottish Martyrs' Committee. • Speaking in London on a recent Saturday, Sir Thomas Paxton, Lord Provost of Glasgow, who has taken a leading part in the movement to preserve the old steeple, said that one could not understand the attitude of those who wished to remove such ancient landmarks, because, in all conscience, very few were left. And one would have thought that the vandalism of their ancestors, who rtuhlessly demolished the Bishop's Castle, the Western Tower of the Cathedral, and other beautiful raid historic relics,- would have been a lesson to the present generation.lt is a lesson that Catholics do not require to be taught. The destruction of the places mentioned—as also-the deaths of the Scottish martyrs—was the work of the "Reformers." And some of the successors of those vandals would appear to-day to have learned but little in the direction of toleration.