The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-03-03
DR.. HuME'S LECTURE.
RE Gives the Members of the Monday
Evening Club Charming Evening
With King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table.

With King Arthur and the Knights of
the Round Table.
AT the hospitable and elegant home
of Mrs Parker, on Edenton street, the
members of the Monday Evening Club,
with few invited guests, gathered
last night to hear DR.. Thomas Hume,
of the University, lecture ON ''The
Legend of Arthur Speaker and au-
dience were en- rapport and the lecture
was all that President ID. III. Hill
promised in his introduction. 1t is not
possible in the compassof local notice
to give full idea of the beauties and
grace of the lecture.
We give few hints suggestive of a
many-sided treatment. The Legend of
Arthur is a growth of ages. Oral
tradition in Brittany (of France) and
in Wales told of the deeds of one sent
of God who, in the sixth century, put
back the invading Saxon heather as
the representative of a half-formed
Christian civilization. Some of the
myths pertaining to a God who dis
pensed the fertilizing and beneficent in
fuences of the sun and the spring
time were mingled with these accounts
of the Celtic cuIture-hero. This god
made raids into Hades, into the realm
of the unseen, into mysterious isles
of the sea, and brought back rare yes
sells and other treasures which were
endowed with miraculous virtues that
healed disease, relieved ignorance, and
blessed men generally. The union of
the hero of the race who contended
with outward enemies and of the sun
god who dispelled darkness and sick
ness helped to enlarge the conception
of a mere petty Welsh prince. The
French, the Germans, the English took
the enlarged conception and super
added to it all the fine symbolism and
the beautiful pageantry of chiyalry.
The religion of the middle ages, with
its interest in the Lords supper, con-
nected the lost cup or dish, called the
Holy Grail, used at the last supper,
with Arthur's story. Joseph of Arima-
thea was fancied to have brought this
cup to Britain working marvels with
it on his way. None could see it who
did not have spiritual preparation for
the vision Of this sacred symbol of
mans relation with the unseen God.
Arthur had established the Round
Table as a type Of the perfect social
order and had succeeded for a time,
but his queens unworthiness Slapped
the foundation of home love and social
life growing out of home. So when his
knights go on the quest of the Grail
which has been withdrawn from the
ordinary ways of men, they are not
prepared for the work, save Galahad,
the mystical young hero, pure in heart
and life. Arthur himself finds his
best service for others in living as
true husband and faithful king. Lust
and pride contend against the realiza-
ton of his ideal. His knights react
from vague mysticism to sensual self
indulgence. lie fails in the great battle
in the west fighting against foes of his
own household, but is caught up by
supernatural powers and borne to the
isle of Avilion whence he shall return
TO restore the world to righteousness
and peace. The likeness of this ideal
here to Christ, the allegorical meaning
of the Siege Perilous and all the parts
Of his arInor, the connection OF the
idyls one with another, from the COM
ing to the passing of Arthur, the COM
parison Of old Malory's Morte d'Arthur
with Tennyson's deliberately artistic
epic of the nineteenth century-all
were carefully made by the lecturer,
that he might show the genesis and
growth Of great poem from little
germ of myth and legend through
successive accretions. Many ilfustra-
tions of the subject were given. 1t
was a study in literary method, in the
scientific and philosophic investiga-
ton of great epic.