The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-03-06 00:00:00

THE GREAT EASTERN NEW STATION

IN LONDON.

The approaching completion of the Great Eastern
Company's new main passenger station at Liverpool-
street adds another to the several large and extensive
structures of this character connected with the
different leading railway companies having their chief
termini in the metropolis (remarks the Builder). So
far as regards its actual area, we believe we are cor-
rect in stating that it will be the largest of the
metropolitan passenger stations, inasmuch as it covers
no less than ten acres in extent, and is 2,000 ft. in.
length from Liverpool-street to its extreme north-
eastern boundary in the direction of Bishopsgate and
Shoreditch. The architectural features of the sta-
tion buildings themselves are bold and striking,
the structure having four lofty frontages uniform, to
a great extent, in the Gothic character of their
design, in addition to a fifth elevation fronting the
interior of the station. The west elevation is 320 ft.
in length, the central portion of this frontage, which
Kojects several feet beyond the general face of the
elevation, rising to a height of 90ft. That portion of
the frontage at the angle bounded by Liverpool-street
also projects to the extent of 181 t., and is uniform in
height with the-central part of the elevation. The
other portions of the frontage are 67ft. in height. The
east elevation closely resembles that just described,
the frontage being the same in length. The station
front of the north wing is 146 ft. in width, and four
stories in height in the central portion all of which is
enclosed by the station roof. The materials used in
the general face of the several elevations are whit
Suffolk brick, with a free introduction of Bath stone
for dressings and ornamentation.

THE WILLS OF GREAT LAWYERS.
The fact that the wills of two Lord Chancellors
within as many years should have occasioned grave
difficulty is not a little remarkable. Lord Westbury's
will, carefully prepared by himself, was said to be ex-
ceedingly hard to construe by the Master of the Rolls.
In the case of Lord St. Leonardo the difficulty is still
more grave. His will, written "in his own handwrit-
ing-, on five or six sheets of old quarto white letter-
paper," has been lost, and the advertisement declares
that it has been lost since August, 1873." Unless
the document is forthcoming, the presumption of law
may possibly be in such a case that the testator
destroyed this will animo revocandi, and serious
results to his family may be the consequence. It
is curious how often the wills of eminent lawyers
have occasio#ed litigation. Lord Chief Justice Saun-
ders appears to have made a speculative devise:upon
the validity of which his executors—Maynard, Holt,
and Pollexefen, all great lawyers—were divided in
opinion. The wills of Lord Chief Justice Holt and
Mr. Serjeant Maynard were the subject of Chancery
proceedings. So was the will of Chief Baron Thom-
son. Mr. Serjeant Hill's will was "so singularly con-
fused that, but for the respect due to the very learned
serjeant, it might, not unreasonably, have been held
void for uncertainty." The will of Sir Samuel Romilly
was inartificially drawn. The will of Mr. Bradley,
the celebrated conveyancer, was set aside by Lord
Thurlow for uncertainty; "and a late learned Master
in Chancery directed the proceeds of his estate to be
invested in Consols in his own name."—Pall Mall
Gazette.

DEAN STANLEY on SIR CHARLES LYELL
and SIR STERNDALE BENNETT.

The remains of the late Sir Charles Lyell were in-
terred in Westminster Abbey on Saturday, Dean
Stanley officiating. The Duke of Argyll, Mr. Justice
Grove, Professor Huxley, Sir E. Ryan, and Dr.
Hooker were amongst the pall bearers.
A funeral sermon, with especial reference to the
deaths of the distinguished geologist and Sir W.
Sterndale Bennett, was preached in Westminster Abbey
on Sunday afternoon by the Dean, who selected as his
text this passage in the first chapter of Genesis—" The
earth was without form, and void." He said it so
chanced that within that short month of February,
by a most unusual coincidence in mortality, twice
the gates of that Abbey had been opened to
pay the last honours to two distinguished English-
men—one, the acknowledged chief of the English
musicians of our time; the other, who was yesterday
laid in his grave, the acknowledged chief of those who
had devoted themselves to the study of oar mother
earth. Of all the branches of art or letters none re-
vealed so fully the hidden capacities of the human
soul as music, and heathens as well as Christians in
all ages had not scrupled to call it Divine. As an
eminent living writer had said, seven notes in the
musical scale—call them thirteen if they would—was
indeed a poor outfit for so vast an enterprise as the
genius of the great masters of that glorious art had
succeeded in completing. And to illustrate its marvels
was the mission of the gentle musician who, three
weeks ago, was laid to his rest within the walls of that
venerable abbey, and again and again would his
memory be recalled to them as they heard the
sacred melody on which be had written, as on
waves of light, those divine words which ought
to stand as the principal of all Christian worship
—" God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth." Having dwelt
thus feelingly and at some length on the memory of the
departed musician, the Dean said he proposed for a
brief space to call the attention of his hearers to the re-
ligious aspect of the science of geology which . a great
modern historian had called "the paculiar boast of our
age." It was well known to most of them that when
the science of geology first arose, it was involved and
entangled in endless disputes as to the possibility of
its reconciliation with Scripture. The illustrious
student of geology who had just passed away was the
first t, establish on a sure foundation the doctrine
now so well understood and believed, that the frame
of this earth was gradually brought into its
present ,state by the slow and silent action of causes
operating, as we saw them operating now, through
a long succession of ages, reaching back beyond the
memory or imagination of man. It was not expected
that this doctrine should agree with the strict letter of
the Bible. Experience tind sagaciais seientifie inquiry
had determined that. No one nowadays inferred, or de-
sired to infer, that the earth was so fixed that it could
not move, or that the sun came forth actually and
literally "as a bridegroom from his chamber," or that
the morning stars sang with an audible voice at the
dawn of creation. To insist on any of these details
as being historical or scientific would be as contrary
to, the objects and character of the sacred books
as it would be to the established facts of science
itself. On the contrary, by a careful investigation
of the subject we found an affinity which we should'
expect to find between the most sacred, majestic, and
atcient of records, to call them nothing else; and
the most certain and sublime of modern discovenes.
Geology has tauglst us that the successive layers of
the earth's surface had been formed by the same con-
stant action of wind and wave, of falling leaves and
silent streams, of floating ice and rolling stonses, that
we now saw daily before our eyes; that there Aias one
primal law which formed and governed all created
things. And what was this but the echo of those
voices which of old told us that in the beginning the
heavens and the earth were created, not by a thousand
deities, but one supreme and invisible God—which
told us that God's word endureth for ever in heaven,
and that His faithfulness is throughout all, gehers-
tions ; that He hath giten to all thiatigassilitwessati6ll
shall not be broken, and that He upholdeth all
things by this law, for His mercy endureth for
ever? All honour, he would say, be .to the herald
and archmologist of our race who had unrolled in
all its length and breadth the genealogy of the an-
tiquity of man and his habitation! All honour to
the bold yet reverent touch which in the temple of
the Alost High, not made with hands, had rent
aeunder from the top to the bottom theveil yiluch