"Abbot Darnton he placen this stone Full true and well, i the days of King John. For full three centuries reft and strown, Prophecy.) Shall be-and Bernard claims his own " (Old Monastic Crumwell, with the wisdom of the the mine, which, with a little management, to must "possess the land" of all right great serpent, condemned the smaller monmaster's his to be worked could great a The above quotation has reference do to days monasteries, and pickings asteries first, and in the preamble of profit, and out of which ones and prophets. In ancient suppression God was but in do a greater wrong? would no doubt be possible for him- the Act for their eorle stoned the prophets, in man the person, testimony If an unbiassed Dom Gasquet pro- thanked that "the great and solemn others." and self these days the stones bear could be trans- ceeds to show that Crumwell set about abbeys of the realm" were in a wholeIt is not safe to the moon, for instance, to the prophets. unless they ported to the scene and the sites of the blackening the character of those he some and excellent state. But in the take prophets seriously,Scriptures. never hav- wished to rob, projecting a royal visi- reports from the "Visitors" all the Mr. abbeys, ruins of England's have prophesied in the the prop- ing heard of them before, and told of tation of all monasteries in the aut- monasteries, great and small, were G. K. Chesterton says that what peocondemned, and how good King Hal, in the cause of to umn of 1535. The next step was the alike besmirched hets of our day prophesy as wait truth and goodness, and of his thirst selection of fit subordinates "utterly hence it is seen that no "Black Book" people the and do, to going ple are on the House of ruin this table the wrought on had bury placed justice, was for then in unscrupulous and entirely reckless until the prophets are dead, the miracles of stone, those "cliffs of their accusations." An army of of Commons, as many authors assert, them nicely, and go and do something the Act who those could to how up hold so, The walls" which still preachers was let loose over the land for, if it were else than what was prophesied. seems to will think clamorous evidence of the to orate against the monks as "hypo- testify to the "wholesome and excelprophecy in the verse above of the greater abbeys? No, of the great work shown in the wealth of idle drones," etc., and lent state" was have reference to the ruining sensible enough not to that carving, panelling, and moulding still cries, sorcerers, Crumwell stone the which of so orators tell us monastery that to be traced amid the moss -grown just as present-day bite off too much at once, but to preproof wings the clipping holds it was part, and to promise about "full three ruins,which the monks of England's much the anti -abbey preachers made -pare people into unsurprisedness at in some day of this century, return Catholic days traced and wrought fiteers, what would happen next. Wlat hapshall Cistercians the centuries," which pened next was the peaceful coercion to inhabit the long silent Abbey individually of Abbots and communihis own. waits for Bernard to claim Says Dom Gasquet. faith ties. For ourselves, we place neither in it Dissolution, "The first Act of nor hope in the prophecy, but use tale. strange as the assertion may seem, was charity to adorn our rest of the The one. the only fact in Our tale is a borrowed one, made abbeys were not legally suppressed. Dom mostly from the materials which Gasby the hands, They came into Henry's Gasquet, O.S.B. (now Cardinal attainder of abbots, as in the case of entitled, work his in quet), supplies Woburn and Glastonbury, or, as was but "The Greater Abbeys of England," generally the case, by the free, though beginthe verses of prophecy at thethe Carcoerced surrender of the house into to unknown are ning and end the royal power. Then, when all was own dinal, and are the results of our asover and the greater number of the Mr. G. K. Chesterton research. monasteries and their possessions were uttered Lord Our when serts that already in the King's power, Parliathe words, "If these hold their peace proment passed an Act giving Henry all very stones will cry out," He he had got by force, or by his new inphesied the whole of Gothic architecterpretation of the law of attainder." ture, which, with its griffins and garThese few facts are the badly rememthe goyles make their mute cry from of bered things which the ruins of Enggloried, storied towers and turrets is land's Abbeys call upon us to recall. cathedrals of Europe-, but there The stones cry out, calling our attenanother cry of stones, which Cardinal tion, and Gasquet has interpreted for us,much "To Glastonbury, where the winter which causes Englishmen to give but were, thorn thought to the things that the of manner the to "are not," and Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of when centuries, the of men the of lives Our Lord." as England was known the world overGasThe stones cry out, calling us to read Cardinal "Merrie England." the riddle of the ruins of Romsey and quet's cry of stones comes with an inRievaulx, and to weep for the woes of sistent voice through the arresting Woburn, and Waltham, and Welbeck, pages et his valuable volume, and in and Whalley. And the clamorous cry order that many might catch the echo of the silent stones, loud in their silof its tones-"I have written what folence, and insistent in their placidity, lows," as Pat Clancy said in his will. asks of the prophets, how shall it be This essay is the voice of one crying with England of a newer day? Shall in the city, and bidding people, Engthe sound of the chanted psalm again lish Catholics very specially, and Eng-re-echo through the cloisters of Crow lish Protestants most particularly, to land? Credo! and Buckfast shall come pause, and reflect, and reconstruct for again, and Fountains shall flourish, themselves, the glories that the mute and once more must its glory come to stones of England's ruined abbeys cry Gloucester, and at Pershore and Netwith an eloquence that claims considley and Sherborne a stone shall be the along eration from all who pass raised upon a stone, until the old days way, and for all who with more leisure have come again, and the abbot premay sit down and reflect. The ruined sides in his Chapter. And the towers place abbeys of England are in the first of Tintern and Thorley shall lift the stones that have been left upon cross to the clouds again, and the Abstones, memorials of something that with infinite labour, the man would one great point of this, that "if the bot of Evesham shall come "to hold That suggestive "something" probably decide that there must be abbeys went down the King would and to hallow". the fair fields of Worwas. must have been universal in England, another side to the question, for that never want for any taxes again." Th$ cestershire, and and in very good estimation everyto note is that are it was inconceivable to him that such most important thing monasteries was "The time shall be when Buckfast's where, for the ruined abbeys must fair, beautiful works should have the destruction of the bell widespread. That "something" of any independent that pre -determined, and and doomed, devastated been unpopular-perhaps very have become might send in. Shall tidings of the Mass time tell. in "Visitors" man the The report of it. come should good of And when it does the days of yore, very un-English, for the quarries the moon would be very shrewd in, The Royal "Visitors" sent in their re- Shall. come again to go no more." choirs and cloisters, to have become that guess. Many had so guessed be- ports "with a vengeance"-with two such in nation, the of "the quarry" That is to say, the days of yore, the fore Dom Gasquet had supplied the or three vengeances. The whole work hold No real wise as to have been reduced to three Catholic times, shall come again, and answer, and this is what the learned was done in a few months. the made in up their mangled fragments for been their second coming shall be for ever. have hapcould inquiry really "What. says: storm of Benedictine were needed. The and England shall be "Mary's Dowry" hundred years as signs of the and pened to bring about the suppression time, even if onething surged that fury, note is that to indeed, and its true men, "Merrie Eng. iconoclastic of the English monasteries in the rapa- next important Let us then, heeding the swept "from turret to foundation cious days of Henry VIII. may here all the reports were entirely the work lishmen." abindividual the all stone," through cry of the stones, deplore with them of the "Visitors," no report or combe usefully but briefly set down. heaven's to "lifted they until "Visitors" to the the fair beys that abbeys were destroyed, The inception of the idea of de- plaint had been made vault their broken walls, their capless anybody outside. Even if such and implore with them "in England like stroying the monasteries may cer- from made, there was no now," that the blessing of Benedict pillar,1,, their fragments of arches, reports had been ingenious, to the be credited tainly into them contemplated, nor and Bernard shall come speedily in gaunt skeletons lifting their fleshless must capable, and all-powerful minister of inquiry arms itt warning or in protest,"or at VIII., Thomas Crumwell. He were the accused ever intended to be our century, and that with their "days Henry condemned, renewed as from the beginning" the surely ;have been saw in the monastic property a gold put upon their trial. least a cused, of some gigantic crimin_ cowled monks shall pace the cloisters again, and the silence that was in al act, or acts, or system of falsehood, heaven "as it were for half an hour," equal o the worst that is imagined of heart black the from ited, of which St. John has told, shall deand in scend, instead of the silence which is of the mr>st guilty of the devilsso?in the It dearth for want of voices to chant to hell of i the damned. Was it is that decide, to truth to uty the Most High, as now is most barren is our Good Engand unblessed in the void spaces where to deci de for ourselves. School for Young Ladies. Boarding Class and shallow-pated people lishme once all the blessings of earth and their it considered have general y, heaven met, and were dispersed to the Pupils prepared for all Examinations. Sleeping to duty f r nearly four hundred years refour quarters of England as the Abthe out accommodation. dismiss the question. and bot with his crozier in hand blessed proach of the ruins of English abbeys, the land and its people that it should The Sisters also conduct a Boarding School "the m st attractive spots in a land of be in St. Benedict's keep. terosts," with an allusion to for Boys from seven to thirteen years of age. many the vici bs lives led by the monks, For Terms and Prospectus apply to e cloak of goodness and the under Priests consider this world only as a monasti, cowl, but was the hunger -CHARGE. diligence in which they can travel to -IN SISTER VIII. Henry of justice nd th' t after another.-Napoleon. ch superlative lengths that he n b
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