his little friend, now gone to her rest, when just as he approached the
beautiful old porch of the church his train of thought was suddenly
disturbed by hearing what seemed to him the low, deep sobbing of
excessive grief. The night was not so dark but that he could see
distinctly within the porch, and he anxiously endeavoured to discover
whether the sound had proceeded from any one who had taken shelter there
for the night; but the place was evidently tenant less. "It must have
been only the hum of a passing breeze, which my fancy has converted into
a human voice," thought he, "for assuredly no such restless sobs as
those ever escape from the deep sleepers around me here." And so the
idea was soon banished and forgotten. But as he stood there, his gaze
became, almost unconsciously, fixed upon the old church porch. The dim
light resting upon it threw the rich carvings of its graceful arches,
and deep-groined roof, with its massive bosses of sculptured stone, into
all sorts of fantastic forms, and a strange mystery seemed to hang about
the solemn pile, which completely riveted his attention to it, and led
him into the following reverie:--"Ah, thou art indeed a 'beautiful gate
of the temple'! Well and piously did our ancestors in bestowing so much
wealth and labour to make thy walls so fair and lovely. And well ever
have they done in crowding these noble porches with the sacred emblems
of our holy faith. Rightly have they deemed that the very highest
efforts of human art could not be misapplied in adorning the threshold
of God's House, so that, ere men entered therein, their minds might be
attuned to the solemnity of the place[22]. All praise, too, to those
honest craftsmen who cemented these old stones so well together that
they have stood the storms of centuries, and still remain the unlettered
though faithful memorials of ages long gone by. Ah, how many scenes my
imagination calls up as I look on this old porch! Hundreds of years ago
most of the sacred offices of our Church were there in part performed.
Now, I think I see the gay bridal party standing in that dusky
portal[23]; there comes the Priest to join the hands of the young and
happy pair; he pronounces over them the Church's blessing; and the
bridegroom endows with her bridal portion her whom he has sworn to love
till one shall die. A thousand brides and bridegrooms, full of bright
hopes of happy years, have been married in that porch. Centuries ago
they grew old and died, and were buried in this churchyard, but the old
porch still remains in all its beauty and all its strength. There,
kneeling upon that well-worn pavement, I see the mother pour forth her
thankfulness to God for her deliverance from sickness, and for the babe
she bears[24]. And now, still beneath that porch, she gives her tender
infant into the arms of God's priest, that he may present it to Him in
holy Baptism. In yon dark corner I seem to see standing the notorious
breaker of God's commands; his head is bent down with shame, and he is
clothed in the robe of penance[25]. Now the scene is changed: the old
walls resound with the voices of noisy disputants--it is a parish
meeting[26], and passions long since hushed find there a clamorous
expression; but there stands the stately form of the peace-maker, and
the noisy tongue of the village orator is heard no more. Yes, rise up,
Sir Knight, who, with thy hands close clasped as if in ceaseless prayer,
hast lain upon that stony couch for five long centuries, and let thy
manly step be heard beneath that aged roof once more; for, though a
warrior, thou wast a good and peace-loving man, and a devout worshipper
in this temple, or, I trust, thy burial-place would never have been in
this old porch[27]."
The eyes of the Vicar were fixed upon the recumbent effigy of an old
knight lying beneath its stone canopy on the western side of the porch
(of which, however, only a dim outline was visible), when the same sound
that had before startled him was repeated, followed by what seemed the
deep utterance of earnest prayer, but so far off as to be but faintly
heard. He stood in motionless attention for a short time, and then the
voice ceased. He then saw a flickering light on one of the farthest
windows of the chancel; slowly it passed from window to window, till it
reached that nearest to the spot where he was standing. Then there was a
narrow line of light in the centre of the doorway; gradually it widened,
and there stood before him the venerable form of the old shepherd.
_CHAPTER VI_
THE PORCH
"Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with
praise."
Ps. c. 4.
"Why should we grudge the hour and house of prayer
To Christ's own blind and lame,
Who come to meet Him there?
Better, be sure, His altar-flame
Should glow in one dim wavering spark,
Than quite lie down, and leave His Temple drear and dark.
"What if the world our two or three despise
They in His name are here,
To whom in suppliant guise
Of old the blind and lame drew near,
Beside His royal courts they wait,
And ask His healing Hand: we dare not close the gate."
_Lyra Innocentium._
Illustration: Porch of Luebeck Cathedral
THE PORCH
Illustration: Porch and Parvise of St. Mary's Church, Finedon
"The Vicar's first impulse, on recovering from his
surprise at so unexpectedly meeting with the old Shepherd in such a
place, at such an hour, was, if possible, to escape unnoticed, and to
leave the churchyard without suffering him to know what he had heard and
seen; but at that instant the light fell full upon him, and concealment
was impossible.
"You'll be surprised, Mr. Ambrose," said the old man, "at finding me in
the church at this late time. But it has, I assure you, been a great
comfort for me to be here."
"My good friend," replied the Vicar, "I know you have been making good
use of God's House, and I only wish there were more disposed to do the
like. I rejoice to hear you have found consolation, for to-day has been
one of heavy sorrow to you, and you needed that _peace which the world
cannot give_. How often it is that _we cannot understand these trials
until we go into the House of the Lord_, and then God makes it all plain
to us."
"I've learnt that to-night, sir, as I never learnt it before. When I
had put the last bit of turf on the little grave, and knew that all
my work was over, there was such a desolate, lonely-like feeling
came over me, that I thought my old heart must break; and then, all
of a sudden, it got into my head that I would come into the church.
But it was more dull and lonesome there than ever. It was so awful
and quiet, I became quite fearful and cowed, quite like a child, you
know, sir. When I stood still, I hardly dared look round for fear I
should see _something_ in the darkness under the old grey arches,
and when I moved, the very noise of my footsteps, which seemed to
sound in every corner, frightened me. However, I took courage, and
went on. Then I opened this Prayer Book, and the first words I saw
were these in the Baptismal Service:--'_Whosoever shall not receive
the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein._'
So I knelt down at the altar rails and prayed, as I think I never
prayed before, that I might in my old age become as good as the
little maid I had just buried, and be as fit to die as I really
believe she was. Then I said those prayers you see marked in the
book, sir (she put the marks), and at last I came to those beautiful
words in the Communion Service (there is a cross put to them, and I
felt sure she meant me particularly to notice them):--'_We bless and
praise Thy holy Name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy
faith and fear._' I stood up, and said that over and over again; and
as I did so, somehow all my fear and lonesomeness went away, and I
was quite happy. It was _this_ that made me so happy: I felt sure,
sir, quite sure, that my poor dear wife and our child and little
Lizzie were close to me. I could not see nor hear them, but for all
that I was somehow quite certain that they were there rejoicing with
me, and praising God for all the good people He had taken to
Himself. Oh! I shall never forget this night, sir; the thought of it
will always make me happy. You will never see me again so cast down
as I have been lately."
"Well, Matthew, you cannot at least be wrong in allowing what you have
felt and believed to fix more firmly in your faith the Church's glorious
doctrine of the _communion of saints_."
For some time each stood following out in his own mind the train of
thought which these words suggested. Matthew was the first to break
silence, by begging the Vicar kindly to go with him into the room above
where they were standing, as he wished there to ask a favour of him.
Matthew returned into the church to find the key of the chamber, and Mr.
Ambrose at once recognized the volume which he had left on the stone
seat of the porch, as that from which Lizzie was used to read when she
sat beside the old Shepherd on the neighbouring hill. He took it up,
and, opening it at the Burial Office, he found there a little curl of
lovely fair hair marking the place. The page was still wet--it was the
dew of evening, gentle tears of love and sorrow shed by one whose night
was calmly and peacefully coming on.
The old man soon returned with the key, and, bearing the lantern, led
the way up a narrow, winding stone staircase, formed in the masonry of a
large buttress, to the little chamber. As soon as they had reached it,
he said, "Before I beg my favour, Mr. Ambrose, I should much like you to
tell me something about this old room. Ever since I was a boy it has
been a sort of lumber-room, but I suppose it was not built for that?"
"Well, Matthew, there is not much here to throw light upon the history
of this particular chamber; but I will tell you what I can about such
places generally. The room is most commonly, but not correctly, called
the _parvise_[28]. The word _parvise_, or _paradise_, properly only
applies to an open court adjoining a church, and surrounded by
cloisters; but in olden times a room in a private house was sometimes
called a paradise[29], and hence, I suppose, the name came to be used
for the porch-room of the church. It was also called the _priest's
chamber_[30]; and such, I think, was the room in which we now are. You
see it is provided with a nice little fire-place[31], and it is a
comfortable little place to live in. Sometimes it was called the
_treasury_[32], or record-room, because the parish records and church
books were kept in it; or the _library_[33], from its being appropriated
for the reception of a church or parochial library. There are many of
these chambers furnished with valuable libraries which have been
bequeathed from time to time for this purpose. It is also evident, from
the remains of an altar and furniture connected with it, that not
infrequently it was built for a _chapel_[34]. Occasionally it has been
used as the _parish school_[35]; and I have heard that in some of the
eastern counties poor people have occasionally, in cases of extreme
distress, claimed sanctuary or refuge, both in the porch and parvise,
and lived there undisturbed for some weeks together. But latterly, in
many places, the parish clerk or sexton has been located in the parvise,
that he may watch the churchyard and protect the church[36]; and I am
inclined to think this is a much more sensible thing to do, than to
give up the room to the owls and bats, as is very often the case now,
but even that is better than to use it as it has sometimes been used--as
a common prison[37]."
"I am glad to hear you say that, sir, for it makes the way for me to ask
my favour. John Daniels wants to give up the place of sexton; and as I
am getting too old now to walk far, and to take care of the sheep as I
used to do, I'm going to make so bold as to ask you to let me be sexton
in his stead, and to live in this little room, if you please, sir. I
could then keep the key of the church, and it would be always at hand
when wanted: I should be near to ring the bell for morning and evening
prayer; I could watch the churchyard, and see that no one breaks the
cross on Lizzie's grave--I shall be able to see it from this window. And
then, sir, if you will have this little window opened again into the
church[38], why I can keep guard over the church too; and that's rather
necessary just now, for several churches about us have been robbed
lately. Besides all this, the room is much more warm and comfortable
than mine in the village, and I shall enjoy the quiet of it so much."
"Most glad, Matthew, shall I be to see the office of sexton in such good
hands. You will not yourself be equal to all the work, but you will
always be able to find a younger hand when you need one. And then, with
regard to your living here, it's just the thing I should like, for,
apart from other reasons, it would enable me to have the church doors
always open to those who would resort thither for prayer or meditation.
It is a sad thing for people to be deprived of such religious
retirement. I almost wish that the church porch could be made without a
church door altogether, as it used to be[39], and then the church would
be always open. But, my friend, have you considered how gloomy, and
lonely, and unprotected this place will be?"
Illustration: Parvise, Westbury-on-Trim
"You mus'n't say _gloomy_, if you please, sir; I trust and believe my
gloomy days are past; and lonely I shall not be: you remember my poor
daughter's little boy that was taken out to Australia by his father
(ah! his name almost _does_ make me gloomy--but, God forgive him!)--he
is coming home next week to live with me. He is now seven years old; I
hear he is a quiet, old-fashioned boy. He will be a nice companion for
me, and I hope you will let him help in the church; but we can speak of
that again. Then for protection, sir, you must let my fond old dog be
with me at nights; the faithful fellow would die of grief were we
altogether parted. Come, sir, it's an old man's wish, I hope you'll
grant it." This last sentence was said as they were returning down the
little winding staircase back to the porch.
"It shall be as you wish; next week the room shall be ready for you. And
as I have granted all the requests you have made, you must grant me one
in return. You must let me furnish the room for you. No, I shall not
listen to any objections; this time _I_ must have _my_ way. Good
night."
_CHAPTER VII_
THE PAVEMENT
"The place whereon thou standest is holy ground."
Exod. iii. 5.
"Mark you the floor? that square and speckled stone,
Which looks so firm and strong,
Is _Patience_;
"And the other black and grave, wherein each one
Is checker'd all along,
_Humility_;
"The gentle rising, which on either hand
Leads to the quire above,
Is _Confidence_;
"But the sweet cement, which in one sure band
Ties the whole frame, is _Love_
And _Charity_."
GEORGE HERBERT.
Illustration: Church of SS. Philip and James, Oxford
THE PAVEMENT
Illustration: Brass of John Bloxham and John Whytton in Merton College,
Oxford
"Why, my dear Constance," said Mr. Acres, as one morning
he found the eldest of his three children sitting gloomy and solitary at
the breakfast-room window, "you look as though all the cares of the
nation were pressing upon you! Come, tell me a few of them; unless,"
added he, laughingly, "my little queen thinks there is danger to the
State in communicating matters of such weighty import."
"Oh, don't make fun of me, dear Papa! I have only one trouble just now,
and you will think that a very little one; but you know you often say
little troubles seem great to little people."
"Then we must have the bright little face back again at once, if, after
all, it is only one small care that troubles it," said he, kissing her
affectionately. "But now, my darling, let me know all about it."
"Well, Papa, I think it's too bad of Mary to go up to the church again
to-day to help Ernest to take more rubbing's of those dull, stupid old
brasses. I don't care any thing about them, and I think it's nonsense
spending so much time over them as they do. I wish Mr. Ambrose would not
let them go into the church any more, and then Mary would not leave me
alone like this."
"That's not a very kind wish, Constance, as they both seem so much
interested in their work; but I dare say this is the last day they will
give to it. Suppose we go this afternoon to look after them: we can then
ask Ernest to bring home all the copies he has taken, and when Mr.
Ambrose comes in by-and-by, perhaps he will tell us something about
them; and who knows but your unconsciously offending enemies may turn
out to be neither dull nor stupid, after all?"
The proposal was gladly accepted, and at four o'clock they were enjoying
their pleasant walk up to St. Catherine's Church.
As they entered the church Mr. Acres heard, to his surprise, the clear
ring of Mary's happy laugh. She was standing in the south aisle, beside
the paper on which she had been vainly attempting to copy a monumental
brass. Seeing her father approach with a serious and somewhat reproving
countenance, she at once guessed the cause, and anticipated the
reprimand he was about to utter. "You must not be angry with me, Papa,"
she said, in a very subdued tone, "for indeed I could not help laughing,
though I know it is very wrong to laugh in church; but, you know, I had
just finished my rubbing of the brass here, and thought I had done it so
well, when all of a sudden the paper slipped, and the consequence was
that my poor knight had two faces instead of one; and he looked so queer
that I could not help laughing at him very much."
"No doubt, my dear child," said her father, "there was something in your
misfortune to provoke a laugh, but I think you must have forgotten for a
moment the sacredness of this place, when you gave vent to the merry
shout I heard just now. You should always remember that in God's house
you are standing on _holy ground_, and though it may be permissible for
us to go there for the purpose of copying those works of art, which in
their richest beauty are rightly dedicated to God and His service, and
these curious monuments which you and Ernest have been tracing, yet we
should ever bear with us a deep sense of the sanctity of the building as
the 'place where His honour dwelleth,' and avoid whatever may give
occasion to levity; or should the feeling force itself upon us, we
ought, by a strong effort, to resist it."
Although the words were spoken in a kind and gentle voice, many tears
had already fallen upon Mary's spoilt tracing, so her father said no
more on the subject; but, taking her hand, led her quietly away to a
chapel at the north-east corner of the church, round which was placed a
beautifully carved open screen. It was the burial-place of the family
that formerly tenanted the Hall, and there were many brass figures and
inscriptions laid in the floor to their memory. Here, attentively
watched by old Matthew the sexton, Ernest was busily engaged tracing the
figure of a knight in armour, represented as standing under a handsome
canopy. He had already completed his copy of the canopy, and of the
inscription round the stone, and was now engaged at the figure. Two
sheets of paper were spread over the stone, and he had guarded against
Mary's accident by placing on the paper several large kneeling hassocks,
which were used by the old people. He was himself half reclining on a
long cushion laid on the pavement, and having before marked out with his
finger on the paper the outlines of the brass underneath it, was now
rubbing away vigorously with his heel-ball[40], and at every stroke a
little bit more of the knight came out upon the paper, till, like a
large black drawing, the complete figure appeared before them. They had
all watched Ernest's labours with the greatest interest, and, this being
the last, they assisted in rolling up the papers, that they might be
taken home for more careful examination in the evening.
"I wish Master Ernest could take a picture of good old Sir John, as we
call him, Mr. Acres," said Matthew; "I mean him as lies in the chancel,
right in front of the altar; but he's cut out in the flat stone, and not
in the metal, so I suppose Master Ernest can't do it. I remember the
time, sir, when people as were sick and diseased used to come for miles
round to lie upon that stone, and they believed it made them much
better[41]; and if they believed it, I dare say it did, sir. And 'tisn't
but a very few years back when it would have been thought very unlucky
indeed if a corpse had not rested over good Sir John all night before
its burial. We still place the coffins just in the same place at the
funerals, but of course nobody any longer believes that good Sir John
can do good or ill to those inside them."
"I must bring some stronger paper than that I use for the brasses, to
copy the stone figure, Matthew," said Ernest; "so that must be done
another day."
All said good-bye to the old sexton, and as he wended his way up the
narrow stone stairs to his little chamber, Mr. Acres and his family
returned to Oakfield Hall.
The dining-room was soon decorated with the trophies of Ernest's four
days' labour, and other rubbing's which he had before taken; and when
Mr. Ambrose arrived he was met by several eager petitioners, praying him
to give some explanation of the strange-looking black and white figures
that hung upon the walls.
"It would take me a whole day to tell you all that might be said about
them," said he; "but I shall be very glad to give you a short
description of each, and I will follow the course which Ernest has
evidently intended me to adopt, for I see he has arranged all the
bishops and priests together, and the knights, the civilians, and the
ladies, each class by itself. But first I must tell you something of the
general history of these brass memorials. There are an immense number of
them in this country--it is supposed about 4000--and they are chiefly to
be found in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent; but indeed there are
comparatively few old churches in England in which you cannot find upon
the pavement some traces of these interesting memorials. Though,
however, so many remain, probably not less than 20,000 have been either
stolen or lost. You will see on the pavement at St. Catherine's, marks
of the force which has been used in tearing many from the stones in
which they had been firmly fixed."
"But who could have been so fearless and wicked as to take them away?"
exclaimed Constance, who already had begun to feel a real interest in
the subject.
"Alas! Constance, that question is easily answered. There was indeed a
time, long ago, when people would not have _dared_ to commit these acts
of sacrilege. You know among the ancient Romans there was a belief that
the manes or spirits of the departed protected their tombs, and so
persons were afraid to rob them; but people since then have been
deterred by no such fear, indeed by no fear at all. Within the period
between 1536 and 1540 somewhere about 900 religious houses were
destroyed, and their chapels were dismantled and robbed of their tombs,
on which were a great number of brasses. And this spirit of sacrilege
extended beyond the monasteries, for at this time, and afterwards, very
many of our parish churches were also despoiled of their monumental
brasses; indeed the evil spread so much that Queen Elizabeth issued a
special proclamation for putting a stop to it. The greatest destruction
of brasses, however, took place a hundred years after this, when
thousands were removed from the cathedrals and churches to satisfy the
rapacity or the fanaticism of the Puritan Dissenters, who were then in
power[42]. In later times, I am sorry to say, large numbers have been
sold by churchwardens, for the just value of the metal, and many have
been removed during the restoration of churches and have not been
restored; of course, those whose special duty it was to protect them
have been greatly to blame for this. Then not a few have become loose,
and been lost through mere carelessness. Some of the most beautiful
brasses in our church I discovered a few years since under a heap of
rubbish in the wood-house of Daniels, the former sexton[43]. So you see
it is no wonder we find so many of those curiously-indented slabs in the
pavement of our churches, which mark the places where brasses have
formerly been.
A few of these memorials are to be found in Wales, Ireland, and
Scotland. Some also exist in France, Germany, Russia, Prussia, Poland,
Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. In these countries, however,
they have never been numerous.
But now I must say a few words about their origin. The oldest memorials
of the dead to be found in our churches are the stone coffin-lids, with
plain or floriated crosses carved upon them. The stone coffins were
buried just below the level of the pavement, so their lids were even
with the floor of the church. Afterwards, similar crosses were graven on
slabs of stone above the coffin; then the faces of the deceased were
represented; and at length whole figures, and many other devices, were
carved on the stone, and around the stone was sometimes an inscription
consisting of letters of _brass_ separately inlaid. Then the figures and
inscriptions were either altogether made of brass, or were partly graven
in stone and partly in brass; specimens of both, I see, Ernest has
provided for us. The earliest of these incised slabs are probably of the
ninth century, but the faces of the deceased were not carved on them
till about 1050. The earliest brass of which we have any account is that
of Simon de Beauchamp, 1208; and the most ancient brass figure now
remaining is that of Sir John Daubernoun, 1277.
"The form of the brass has evidently been often suggested by the stone
and marble effigies we see on altar-tombs. For we find that not only the
costume and position of the figures are closely copied, but also the
canopies above them, the cushions or helmets on which their heads rest,
and the lions, dogs, or other animals on which the feet are placed. I
have something more to say on the subject generally, before I come to
speak particularly about Ernest's copies; so after the general interval
of ten minutes I will resume the subject.
_CHAPTER VIII_
THE PAVEMENT
"They bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement,
and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His
mercy endureth for ever."
2 Chron. vii. 3.
"This is the abode where God doth dwell,
This is the gate of Heaven,
The shrine of the Invisible,
The Priest, the Victim given.