The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-03
THOMAS A BEcKErs BONES

THOMAS A BECkETS BONES.
A London correspondent became a
Canterbury pilgrim and visited the an
Gent cathe dral in consequence Of pub
lished report that excavations beneath it's
subterranean chapel had resulted in the
discovery of the long searched. after
bones of Thomas Beckett. He found
the immense and complicated edifice
sometimes called "a world of masonry"
fairly bathed in spring.like sunshine.
This seemed to beam particularly be-
nignly through eight out of the hun
dreds of windows. These eight contained
stained glass commemorative OF the acts
and life Of the great ecclesiastic there as
sassinated eight centuries ago. The SUM-
shine could not, however, reach the tomb
OF the famous Black Prince, nor that of
Archbishop Langton, of Magma Charts
fame, among the hundreds and hundreds
OF buried greatness.
The morning service was proceeding
when the correspondent entered the vast
interior so almost exhaustless in histori-
cal interest. Archdeacon Smith, with
five canons in attendance, was preaching
from the parable Of the sower, his feeble
voice curiously echoing through the vast
pile. 1t was st. Agatha's day. After.
ward choir of voices and the grand Or
gan furnish he'd soul-stirring music across
a choir 200 feet in length. After the SER
vice ended and there had dispersed a
congregation really large enough to fill
an average church, but which in the Co
lossal edifice looked like handful Of
Lilliputians, the visitor captured YER
ger, who was put through pleasant
cross examination. He showed the indu-
bitsble spot where the Primate was as
sassinated. OF course the once famous
shrine was gone, sacrificed, with carvings
and ststuaries and windows, to Orom-
wellian times, when Roundhead soldiers
stabbed horses there and bivouaced in the
transepts and chapels. The pavement
around the spot was made, however, suf-
ficiently monumental by having been
worn down by the knees of crowds of
worshipers that during at least three GEN.
turtles bad thereat offered myriad OF
prayers and oblations. Those are the
verger's phrases The visitor did not
ask him about the tens of thousands of
American sightseers who have rubbed
sole-leather thereabouts very oblation-
less.
at has long been a disputed question
among ecclesiastics and antiquaries at
what spot Thomas Beckett was there
buried" began the verger. "We"-and
he laid proud stress on the pronoun-
"began excavations in the crypt beneath
the spot where 1T was on his lips to
say ''old chap" but he said" Bishop
fell on the pavement above u.s." To cut
short his long, prosy story, his Canter-
bury tale, as it were, amounted to this.
At one stage in the excavations last
week the csut;ously-hsndled picks struck
upon something very hard, which soon
proved to be the tomb of Thomas Draw
ardine, a Canterbury Archbishop Of 1349.
The skull and scepter were intact and
the Inscriptions settled the identity. Not
far away the pickaxes again struck
hardness and hollowness. The obstacle
proved to be the lid of a stone coffin.
When denuded Of earth and the lid raised
it contained not only a skull and bones,
but broken bits of an altar piece. The
skull showed breakage near the forehead,
as if by violence. The cathedral author