New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1920-09-17

hfiSHIt u tie lslSilNl-NptnhT
ing rice" lie got this phrase from an American
friend. The American being shown around the
Abbey 10y the dean, exclaimed
Can any sacred building in the British en-
pire compare With Westminster Abbey? Is II net
the unique and priceless treasure Of the English
speaking race And using this explanation AZ
Il text the dean says:
1T was not made In The tone of rhetorical com
plImeni, but with the intense conviction Of one
who had quite suddenly been awakened to a fun
sense OF the Significance of this great inheritance
from our common .Angio-SaXon ancestry. 1t is the
same story il You take round friends or visitors
Who have just come from Canada. or Australia.
or New Zealand, or South Africa, and who have
never before been In the mother country. one
feels overwhelmed and Inundated in The pres.
"nce of their delighted enthusiasm. their rover
encc for the historic associations of the building.
their appreciation of its antiquity. their emotion
ut the sight of places and things Of which they
have so OFTEN heart. Familiar ms 1t is 10 some of
rs, Ia them the abbey Is The heart SHRINE of the
Worldwide empire. The thought of II j. inter
twined with the most sacred feelings and deep
est affections OF brothers and sisters scattered
over the whole world"
Westminster Abbey has been called 'the his.
tory of the English race set in stone" In Il sense,
1t is the symbol of English monarchy for Harold,
The last Saxon king. was crowned here; 50 was
William the Conqucror, in lGGG; 50 was ever since
every English king. Yet, as the TIMES says OF the
abbey
1T Is no history Of II dynasty or OF a kingdom
HAT speaks here. II is the history OF IL race in
every branch OF human activity. told generation
after generation by the hands that. through good
days and through evil, carried and handed down
me torch.
Deeply rs HES" great repositories of the great
dead must move all educated men, the stsry they
have to tell Is short and confined To that embodied
here. That is all-embracing, unhroken, widening
down from Hastings 10 the great war, from the
Saxon Witan and the Kings council to the parlia-
ments Of the empire and. not less truly If less d.
rectly, to the congress Of the United States"
There is II lot Of legend about the beginnings
of Westminster Abbey. The first church is said
to have been built about Gi6 by King Sebert Of
Essex. Edward the Confessor in 1049-65 built a
church on the present site aud gave II its present
name. Henry III In the thirteenth century began
the reconstruction which was carried on by his
successors. The towers were not built until I722-
~. The Abbey was disendowed during the Ref
ormatiOn. but was restored by Queen Mary. Its
present organization. n dean and l. canOns. dates
from Elizabeth. The practice Of interrlng the
great began under Richard II.
Lord Macaulay, who himself lies In westmin-
ster Abbey. wrote Of It "No other spot in the en-
pire contains within such narrow space so many
illustrious citizens" His statement is undoubtedly
true. and the list Of the great il all the more in
teresting for the reason that Westminster il no
vallalla established by ordinance and decree. And
IL is certainly an Interesting collection-CeciI. VII
Tiers, Blake. Monk, Clarendon. Argyll. OrInond, the
Pitts. Fox. Canning. Palmerston. Gladstone.
Chaucer. Spenser. Dryden. beaumont. Ben jon
son. Prior. Gay. DIR. johnson. Browning. Tennyson.
Dickens-and 80 on. tbeologians. actors, musi-
clans. artists AID scientists.