The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-09-29
Westminster ABBEY.
BY c. G. Brown in Baptist Courier.

An abbey IS an ecclesiastical building
presided over by an abbot. An abbo
was once high church dignitary, the
head of com unity of monks, who
was supposed to exercise functions
above those of the ordinary churchman
This illusion has largely vanished
and men are rapidly finding com mon
level, both in church and State. The
present Westminster Abbey was open.
ed for worship in A. D., 1859, and was
the successor of an abbey completed on
the same spot in 1O65. Edward the
Confessor built church which he de-
signed as bis burial place, and was
inferred before its altar few days be-
fore its conservation. This became a
part of the present abbey, and since
his day, every king of England has
been crowned beneath the same roof,
in the same chsir, beneath which is
the traditional stone used by Jacob
for pillow, and within few yards
of the dust of the Confessor. AS time
wore on, swarm of traditions grew
up about the name of Edward, and in
ll63, he. was canonized by the Pope of
Rome. 1t gradually became prize
TO be buried near his ashes, and 30 a
sort Of fad arose to bury the great dead
there, real or imaginary. AS a place
of burial, it suits we'll enough; as a
place of worship, it is, in the truest
sense, monumental failure. I sal
within fifty feet of the reader in one
of the main pulpits during service
there, and was moi. able to understand
a single word from his lips. The build
ing itself is worshipful; it stirs up and
provokes a sense of awe ard reverence
by its size; but every u'terance within
by the human voice seemed to he but
an anti-climax, something that died
away into insignificance, as unfit and
out of place.
But how are the dead buried there?
How is it possible to dig graves within
the walls of building? The answer
is tow-fold. In some cases, a granite
slab of which the floor is made, is taken
up, and the graves made beneath.
When the slab is replaced, an inscrip-
ton is engraved upon it, such as the
living see fit to put there, which, in
most cases, is very short and simple.
But the walls of the building, as of all
the old abbeys and cathedrals, are very
thick, varying from four to ten feet
In the ancient days, it was easier TO
use great stones in building than II
was to cut them into pieces. Hence
we find some ancient ruins, as at
Muckross Abbey in Ireland, with
walls as thick at the bottom as twelve
feet. The Westminster walls are
thick enough TO allow an opening to
be cut in them for the reception of a
BODY. Over this a mural slab is set
properly inscribed. However. it does
not often happen that the corpse of a
man recently dead is buried in the
church. The rule is that only his
ashes are deposited there, after the
BODY has been consumed in some other
grave. In some cases, only the heart
is brought to the church for interment
In other cases still. as with the two
Wesleys, the body is buried elsewhere,
and q mural tablet is p aced in the
Abbey as a memorial OF the honored
dead. The result is that almost the
entire building, on the walls and in
the floor especially in the chapels into
which part of the building is Givid-
eds taken up with the ,tombs and
memorials of the dead. In the chapel
of Henry VI, one walks through a
wilderness of marble memorials, and
reads the epitaphs of departed kings
and queens and princes, until he is
weary of the ancient history which
they involve.
Our last morning in London, was
spent at the Kensington Palace, where
Queen Victoria spent her youth, and
there We saw the room in which she
was aroused at midnight to hear the
news that she was Queen of England.
The palace is now used as the home OF
two superannuated princesses and as q
museum and picture gallery. We saw
there the toys the goou Queen played
with when she was chlld-the fir.t
pair of shoes she ever wore-the dresse'
she had as girl-the uniform in which
she arrayed herself when riding at the
head Of the English army, and so on
and so on, thousand or more memoir:
ais of the Queen from her childhood
to the end of her long life.