The Halifax Comet. — 1894-01-13 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

JANUARY 13, 1894.  ABOUT RELICS.  A fouth o' auld knick-knacket 8, . Rusty aim cap t hnd jiglin lackids, Wad baud the Lothians thrae, in t tekets,  A towmond gad ; Are parritel pat 3 and auld saut backt vs, Afore the Hood. ' Buns  HE love for relics is one which will never be eradicated as long as feeling and affection  are denizens Of the heart. It  is a love which is most easily excited in , the best • and fev kindliest natures, and which ir—a:re callous enough to scoff at. Who vould not treasure the lock of hair that once Idorned the brow of the faithful wife now 1'.°41 in death, or that hung down the neck of a beloved infant now sleeping under the sward ? Not one! They are home relics, wh°Bo sacred worth is intelligible to all: °Poils rescued from the devouring grave, iich to the affectionate are beyond all tucc• How dear to a forlorn survivor the ook over whose pages he has pored with °ne departed ! How much greater its value, if that hand, now cold, had written a thought, an opinion, or a name, upon the leaf! Besides these sweet domestic relics, there are other, which no one can condemn: relics sanctlfied. by that admiration of greatness tallild goodness which is akin to lave; such as e coPY of Montaigne's Florio, with the I,arae of Shakespeare upon the leaf, written °Y the poet of all time himself; the chair Preserved at Antwerp, in which Rubens sat he painted the immortal Descent from e Cross; or the telescope, preserved in the .11.1iseurn of Florence, which aided Galileo in 1115 sublime discoveries. Who would not look .tith veneration upon the undoubted arrow of illiam Tell—the sword of Wallace or of k-clainpden.--or the tible whose leaves were furned by some stern old, father a the faith? Thus the principle of reliquisra is hallowed and enshrined by love. But from this germ 131 Purity how numerous the progeny of errors and • superstitions! Men, in their admiration of the great, and of all that appertained to them, have forgotten that goodness is a component part of true greatSS, and have made fools of themselves for 'no jawbone of a saint, the toe-nail of an apostle, the handkerchief a king blew his .r,riose in, or the rope that hanged a criminal. coifing to rescue some slight token' from the graves of their predecessors, they have confounded the famous and the infamous, the renowned and the notorious. Great saints, great sinners great philosophers, great quacks. great conquerors, great murderers; great ministers, great thieves; each and all have had their admirers, ready to ransack earth, from the equator to either polo, to 6nd a relic of them. The roliquism of modern times dates its Origin from the centuries immediately preceding the Crusades. The first pilgrims to the , Holy 'Land brought back to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the purchase of which they had expended all their store. The greatest favourite was the wood of the true cross, which, like the oil of the Widow, never diminished. It is generally asserted, 'n the traditions of the Romish Church, that the Empress Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, first discovered the "true cross" in her pilgrimage to  --wil.  446711Llifrar