Before passing to speak of Westminster Abbey, which next to St. Paul’s
is the great ecclesiastical edifice of London, it may be interesting to
go back to the earliest church-building in Britain, and notice the kind
of edifices in which our remote ancestors assembled for divine worship.
One of these buildings is represented in the cut below; as to which only
a few words of explanation will be needed. About the close of the sixth
century, it is said, the pope sent Austin, with some forty missionaries,
to convert Britain to popery. Many of the ancient Britons, however, shut
themselves up in the fastnesses of Wales, and refused to be either
persuaded or driven to embrace the new faith which he proclaimed. Still
Austin went on with his work, and the more efficiently to fulfill it,
erected rude edifices, in which to gather the people, to teach them, and
train them to the forms of worship. The first building erected under his
auspices, was at Glastonbury, in the county of Somerset. The view given
of it above is from Somme’s “Britannia Antiqua Illustrata;” and the
following particulars about the building itself are taken mainly from
the “Chronicles of William of Malmesbury.” Its length was sixty feet,
and its breadth twenty-six. Its walls were made of twigs winded and
twisted together, “after the ancient custom that kings’ palaces were
used to be built.” “Nay, castles themselves in those daies were formed
of the same materials, and weaved together.” Its roof was of straw, “or,
after the nature of the soil in that place, of hay or rushes.” The top
of the door reached to the roof; it had three windows on the south side,
and one on the east, over the altar, or communion-table. Such was the
rude and humble building in which Austin first preached to those that he
was able to gather to hear the gospel from his lips.