City more easily than Gillmore bombarded Charleston during our own civil war, and would do more injury in six months than could be repaired in years. The work now in progress on our navy is a mere drop in the bucket in comparison with that constantly in progress in the dock-yards of every respectable naval power in the world. But this neglect of duty and common prudence on the part of a great nation is hardly greater as a crime than is its folly in turning a deaf ear to its own monitors, the older and wiser officers of its army and its navy,- those who know best what are the dangers of the situation,- and in plodding on after the mighty dollar while risking national life. R. H. Thurston. SIBLEY COLLEge, Cornell University. "The Place Called Calvary.' IT has come to my knowledge that surprise has been expressed in some quarters that Mr. Fisher Howe did not know what the German author Otto Thenius had once said concerning the place of our Lord's crucifixion. I suppose my own words, in the article "Where was 'the Place called Calvary'?" published in THE CENTURY for November, 1888, may have given such an intimation. I said that Mr. Howe "did not know that any one had ever spoken even casually about such a thing." This occurs in the midst of my reference to the conversation between Dr. Rufus Anderson and Dr. Eli Smith. A part of this conversation as I quoted it was necessarily left out in the article, and so the point of my remark was lost. On page 34 of Mr. Howe's "True Site of Calvary " he has given a long paragraph concerning Thenius's testimony to the correctness of the theory which he was advocating. His language is: "While preparing this paper, we have been much interested in finding that a German author, Otto Thenius, arrived, several years ago, at the same conclusion in regard to the place of crucifixion which we are aiming to establish." Thence he hastens to couple with this the indorsement of Ritter, whose volume was evidently before him at the moment. Ritter's language is: "Thenius has endeavored to show, and has displayed great learning and acuteness in the effort, that the situation of Golgotha was separated some distance from the burialplace, and that it was in front of the Damascus Gate upon the skull-shaped hill alluded to in which the Cave of Jeremiah is found." Mr. Howe was apparently delighted to discover a hint of corroboration anywhere, for his heart was in the work he was trying then to accomplish; because he soon remarks, as if in disappointment at not finding some valuable help, "It is to be regretted that the views expressed by Thenius on this interesting topic have not been reproduced by Ritter, or his translator." It is plain that Mr. Howe had constructed his entire argument, and was already putting it into readiness for printing, with no aid from anything which Ritter had thought it worth while to quote. Charles S. Robinson. BRIC-À-BRAC. A Villanelle. (With a copy of Jean Passerat's [EAN PASSERAT, thy tourterelle, Does not with any mortal dwell: And with it went the villanelle The art is, like thy dove, "perdu!" Jean Passerat, thy tourterelle Eludes the modern poet's spell; To reproduce thy ring-dove's coo Does not with any mortal dwell. Once from the skies a clear note fell, It was not, though it mocked thee well- And since thyself went “après elle ”— Charles Henry Webb. Reflections. STILTS are no better in conversation than in a foot race. FOLLY must hold its tongue while wearing the wig of wisdom. IT is the foolish aim of the atheist to scan infinitude with a microscope. WHEN poverty comes in at the cottage door, true love goes at it with an ax. A VEIN of humor should be made visible without the help of a reduction mill. THE reformer becomes a fanatic when he begins to use his emotions as a substitute for his reasoning faculty. MANY an object in life must be attained by flank movements; it is the zigzag road that leads to the mountain-top. ALL the paths of life lead to the grave, and the utmost that we can do is to avoid the short cuts. THE office should seek the man, but it should inspect him thoroughly before taking him. HUMILITY is most serviceable as an undergarment, and should never be worn as an overcoat. THE Good Samaritan helps the unfortunate way. farer without asking how he intends to vote. J. A. Macon. YOUR name is Helen: are you dark or fair? I fain would know, fair neighbor, if your song So may I ask if you are deeply blue A l'Empire. ROSINA, they say, is but just seventeen, It is cut in the picturesque fashion of old, Are garlands of roses enchantingly traced. They have faded, perhaps, since the wonderful night When Grandmamma danced at the Emperor's ball A dimpled young beauty who laughed with delight To hear herself whispered the fairest of all, And fingered her pink-flowered frock as she stepped There's a tiny spot still on the ancient brocade, With scorn on the dandies who sigh at your feet R. T. W. Duke, Jr. THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK, George Birdseye. THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. No. 3. VOL. XXXVIII. JULY, 1889. W WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL. INCHESTER Cathedral is the longest medieval church in Europe now that old St. Paul's of London has perished, yet no other makes so poor a showing in the English landscape. As depressed and monotonous in outline as Peterborough, it lacks that splendor of façade which gives Peterborough grandeur from a western point of view; nor has it an equal stretch of open square and verdant close about it. Seen from the neighboring hills its enormous bulk is of course imposing, but on lower ground the eye cannot often isolate it from the encircling houses. Especially is this true of the place whence strangers see it first. It stands near the railroad, yet the traveler may easily fail to realize that he is approaching one of the mightiest, most famous, and most interesting of English cathedrals. He must carefully make the circuit of its walls to appreciate their extent, and must enter its portals to comprehend its majesty and charm. I. to be the capital of united England; and, though London gradually usurped its place, the imagination still looks back to it as back to Canterbury. Winchester politically and Canterbury spiritually are the mother cities of the English-speaking race. Christianity came late among the fierce West-Saxons. Only in the year 633 did Birinus, a bishop sent from Rome, convert King Kynegils and his people, helped in the work by Oswald, king of Northumbria, friend of St. Cuthbert, hero of Durham, who had come southward to seek the hand of a West-Saxon princess. Although Winchester was the royal seat, Dorchester (now Abingdon) was the first center of the new diocese. But a great church at once replaced the old one that Dagon had desecrated, and hither, after various other changes, the bishop's chair was removed about the year 700, in the reign of the famous King Ina. Winchester's importance steadily grew with the growth of West-Saxon supremacy. Here reigned Egbert, the first king of all England, and his successors until just before the Norman conquest. After its desolation by the AT Winchester, as at Lincoln and at York, Danes, Alfred the Great restored the town we have a town that the Romans knew. They to prosperity and peace, and, that harried called it Venta Belgarum, but its still earlier Wessex might no longer deserve the reproach British name is more often recollected - Caer of being the most ignorant province in EngGwent, familiar to the lovers of Arthurian land, founded, close to the cathedral or Old legend. Tradition says that British-Roman Minster, a New Minster as a home for Christians worshiped here in a church of scholars. Swithun, who had been his tutor, unparalleled size and beauty, which, after the was bishop just before his time. When EthelWest-Saxon conquest, was turned into a "tem- wold filled the chair a century later he reple of Dagon." But the real importance of paired, or probably rebuilt, the Old Minster. the city dates from this conquest. When Cer- The towers of his church, says an ancient dic was crowned Caer Gwent lay in ruins; chronicler in rhyme, "have lofty peaks capped but restored with an Anglicized name, Wint- with pointed roofs, and are adorned with variCeaster, it grew beneath the rule of his offspring ous and sinuous vaults curved with well-skilled Copyright, 1889, by THE CENTURY Co. All rights reserved. |
