The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-23

the old Abbot Eustatius had died and that in spite of prohibition against 1t the monks were about to elect a new chief of the ancient religious house. When they arrived at the devastated abbey Roland's head was still full of Catherine Seyton, but even the thoughts of that fair maid were temporarily banished by waht he saw there. The brethren had met in the abbots house, which, though injured, was still habitable, and had there, in defiance of the edict of the government, chosen a new abbot. He was none other than Ed ward Glendinning- brother Ambrose. The ruin which had been brought upon the abbey was appalling The stately offices, the pleasant gardens, the magnificent cloisters were all dilapidated and ruinous, Some of the material of which they were composed had apparently been put Into requisition by the people of the neighbor- ing village, who, former vassals of the monastery, had not hesitated to appro- priate to themselves a part of the spells. Roland saw fragments of Gothic pillars, richly carved, occupying the place of doorposts to the meanest huts: and here and there a mutlated statue. inverted or laid on its side, made the doorpost or threshold of a cowhouse.
 The church itself was less injured than the other buildings of the monastery, but the images which had been placed in the numerous niches of its columns and buttresses had been broken or thrown down, and the rich and airy canopies and the pedestals shattered Our pill grims saw the demolition of these sacred and venerable representations of saints and angels with a feeling that such i'm piety deserved the vengeance of heaven. A porter conducted them through a side gate to the interior of the church and left them alone in the great vaulted space whose style of rich yet chaste architecture referred its origin to the best period of Gothic building But the inches had been stripped of their images in the inside as well as the outside of the church, and, in pell mell havoc, the tombs of warriors and princes had been in- cluded In the demolition of the shrines
 Lances and swords of antique size which had hung over the tombs of mighty war riors of former days now lay strewn among relics with which the devotion of pilgrims had graced the tombs of their peculiar saints.
 In former times when newly chosen abbot appeared In the church, when the great folding doors were thrown open and he was seen standing on the threshold in the full blown dignity of his Offira with
 matique and crosier, his hoary stand ard d-hearers and his juvenile incense swingers proceeding him and the ven
 erable train of monks behind him. his appearance had been the signal for the magnificent Jubilate to arise from the organ and music loft to be joined with the corresponding burst of Alle- luiahl from the whole assembled coe gregation. Now all was changed. In seven or eight old men, bent and broken as much with grief and fear as by age, shrouded hastily in the nro- scribed dress of their order. wandered like procession of spectres from the door to the high alter, there to install their elected superior as a chief of rulers. But if the brethren had an appearance of mingled grief, fear and shame, not so Father Ambrosius. His features wore, 1t is true. an expression of deep melancholy as he walked up the aisle amid the ruins of things sacred. But his brow was undejected and his step firm and solemn.
 At length he stood upon the broken steps of the high altar, bare-f footed as was the rule, and holding in his hand the pastoral staff-the gemmed ring