The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-30
PILGRIMS VISIT CANTERBURY TO HONOR MEMORY
 OF ST THOMAS

Yesterday was the festival Of st. Thomas of Canterbury, and thousands of pilgrims gathered in the ancient Kentish city to pay honor to the memory of the great archbishop. saint and martyr, who was assassinated TAP years ago. Dec. 29, 1170. In the Can terbury Cathedral pilgrims may see the site of the murder of the saint, in the northwest transept, which still shows the mark of the altar erected in it's cornmemora ton, though a prev alent story of a, stone ir the pavement from which his bloodstain has been cut is declared to be modern fiction. The visitor may also see the site of the ancient shrine itself, shown by the rough flooring in the center of it's chapel the commissioners of King Henry having destroyed the very pavement on which 1t stood
 Five years hence will be celebrated the eight hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas A. Beckett. now known as St. Thomas of Canterbury He was born in Southwark, England, and as youth was attached to the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. He became Archdeacon of Canterbury, later Lord High Chan celIor of England and in 116O. follow ing the death of Theobald, he was consecrated Archbishop of Canter- bury. In that position he entered in to a controversy with Henry II, who was seeking to diminish the power of the church. With the support of the Pope Becket defied the King, and was aseasinated in the Cathedral by four barons, agents of the monarch. Just as vespers were beginning on the twenty-ninth of December, 117O, the knights broke into the church, crying: where is the archbishop, the traitor?" The monks lied, and Thomas might have escaped, but he advanced and said: Here I ammo traitor, but answered.: "Your 1ife!" and fell upon the archbishop, hacking and hewing until life had departed.
 Six months later Henry II submit ted to be publicly scourged at the shrine of the archbishop. In 11T2 the martyr was canonized, and the ami versary of his death has ever since been kept. Soon the Christian world began pilgrimages to his shrine, and miracles were said to be worked at his grave in the crypt of the cathed- raI and at the well in which his bloody garments had been washed A few days after Henry did penance for the murder in the church he gained victory over the Scots in the battle of Alnwick, and, considered result, the fame of the martyrs power and the popularity of his worship became esta blished throughout England. On the rebuilding of the cathedral after fire in 1175 a magnificent shrine was erected to St. Thomas, and for three centuries it was thronged with pill grins of all classes, from emperors down to peasants. Scores of hotels were built for the accommodation of the steady flow of worshippers. A pilgrimage to Canterbury became not only a pious duty, but also pleasant summer excursion, and the poet Chaucer has given us an admirable picture of such journeys of the devout to the shrine of the saint. The shrine with it's vast collected wealth was de- stroyed and every reniniscence con- nected with it as far as possible ef- faced by order of King Henry VIII, in 153s. but the worship of St. Thomas of Canterbury has continued through the centuries.
 Andrew Johnson, seventeenth Presi- dent of the United States, was born 104 years ago. A native Of North Carolina, he removed to Tennessee, and in the village of Greenville, in that State, there still stands a rude and wea,ther-beaten hoveI bearing sign which reads. "A Johnson, Tail or'' There the future President, 1- literate and uncouth, made the long tailed coats and fancy trousers for the Tennessee "dudes.''
 
 VIERECK, 2S TOMORROW, IS NxSrNRTn,S GREATIre-T IIUINC