He preached by St. Anthony, and manifested in his life. died in the year of Our Lord 356, at the advanced age of one hundred and five years. He bequeathed his tunic to the holy St. Athanasius, to whose pen we are indebted for a life of St. Anthony. THE CHURCH is beautifully situated near the banks of the St. Mawe's River, and is surrounded by noble trees. By its side, and connected with it on the north, stands Place House. Here in former days was a cheerful welcome, and a safe home for the traveller and his horse, if, perchance, one passed that lonely way on a bleak winter's night. But these things have passed away; nothing now remains but the remembrance thereof; and the old building with its fair chapel, shadows only of that which was once a stern reality. For all these things were swept away to fill the coffers of the most wicked king that ever swayed the sceptre of this land: all this property had been taken away from the Church of Christ; property which had been consecrated to him with the most awful denunciations and anathemas on those who should dare to meddle with it. And have not these denunciations been fulfilled, yea, to the very letter. Look at the first Norman King of England, William the Conquerer, who to indulge his tastes and his love of sport scrupled not to destroy churches after churches. His sons rose up against him in his latter years, and himself died an unnatural death. Look at his successor, William the Second, that wicked tyrant over the church; he, sporting where churches once stood, was shot, borne away in a common cart-truly buried "with the burial of an ass.' Since the Reformation, too, many noble families who have been possessors of church property, have degenerated and become extinct. And does not all this answer to the curse pronounced by GoD's Bishops, when these things were dedicated unto Him: "Cursed shall he be in the city, and cursed shall he be in the field; cursed in his basket, and in his store; cursed in the fruit of his body, and the fruit of his land; cursed in his going out and in his coming in!"—"Amen!" "WHEN sentence is given upon him, let him be condemned, and let his prayer be turned into sin!"-" Amen !" "LET his days be few, and let another take his office!""Amen!" "LET his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow !""Amen!" "LET his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation let his name be clean put out!"-" Amen !" "LET the wickedness of his father be had in remembrance, and let not the sin of his mother be done away !"—" Amen!" "LET him be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written among the righteous!”—“ Amen !” "His delight is in cursing." "And it shall happen unto him!" "He loved not blessing;" "Therefore shall it be far far from him!" "O my God, let them be as a wheel, and as the stubble before the wind!" AND HOW often around ruined abbeys see we "miry places which cannot be healed:" and remember the curse :-" A fruitful land maketh He barreu, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein !" AT ST. ANTHONY in Roseland was an Augustine Priory, which existed here till the awfully sacrilegious dissolution in the reign of the wicked King Henry the Eighth. The parish church was the chapel of this priory. The nave is Norman Romanesque, the chancel and transepts first pointed. The central tower is now surmounted by a spire: some years ago the tower fell and destroyed the chancel. It is supported upon four beautiful first-pointed arches. The south doorway is a magnificent Norman one. This church is now being restored under the direction of the Rev. C. W. Carlyon, of St. Just, at the expence of Sir Samuel T. Spry, Truro. The chancel has been rebuilt, and the windows filled with stained glass. An ancient coffin lies in the churchyard. On St. Anthony's point stands a noble light-house with a revolving light. There was formerly a chapel in this parish, dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. THE WALK from Gerrans to St. Just is beautiful; the view of Falmouth and St. Just seen from the windmill on the top of the hill is very fine. The church is beautfully situated near the water's edge, admidst groups of magnificent trees. The church is of late date, but has been considerably improved by the polychromatic decorations of the Rev. C. W. Carlyon. It is said that there was formerly a chapel and burial ground at Rosecassa, and that human bones have been dug up there. In this parish is the fishing town of St. Mawe's. The holy hermit, St. Mawe, came hither from Ireland, and built himself a cell, beside a spring of water. Here he lived many years, and made himself a chair, on which he sate; the well still reremaineth, and some think that they can trace the chair likewise. He was the cousin of St. Sampson of Dol, (or Dole,) to whom the Church of South Hill is dedicated, and another near Fowey. He was also called Maudit. And this Saint went away into Britanny, after St. Sampson, for they fled before the face of persecution. PASSING OVER St., Veryan, (for I do not know to whom the church is dedicated,) we come to St. Michael Carhages. I have not seen the church, and cannot therefore give any description of it: it is dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, and is the mother church of St. Dennis and St. Stephen, in Brannel. Carhages Castle is in this parish, the seat of the Arundell family; it was built by the architect of Buckingham Palace in the room of an older structure. THE NEXT parish is Gorran, or Saint Gorran, as it is more properly called. I have not seen this church, but I have been told that it has a very lofty tower, and I have seen an 'engraving of a fine old Norman Font, still preserved there. The manor of Bodrigan stretches to the extremity of the Deadman Headland, and belonged once to a noble family of that name. The following curious story is connected with this place :-" Ín the year 1330, the male line of the Bodrigan family became extinct, but was continued by a member of the Trenowith family who married the heiress of the estates. Sir Henry Bodrigan, in the reign of Richard III., was the last of his race; and it is of him that I am going to tell you. He was accused of treason by King Henry VII., and to avoid the King's vengeance fled into Cornwall and took refuge in his estate in St. Gorran. The king's messengers went thither, and when he heard of their arrival, he escaped through a back door. He fled, closely pursued, till he reached a barren spot of ground still called "the Woeful Moore." Tradition reports that here, when he saw that resistance was useless, he precipitated himself down a cliff, one hundred feet high, called to this day "Bodrigan's Leap," and alighting on some sand and grass received no injury; but got into a boat which was lying nigh, and escaped to France. Before he left, he turned towards the shore and cursed from the boat Trevanion and Edgecumbe, his former friends, who had turned againt him, in order (it is supposed) to obtain some of his property; and the country people will tell you that that curse was not unfulfilled. The next parish to St. Veryan, is Ruan Langhorne. It is dedicated to St. Rumon, of whom it behoves me to give some account; but as I have already, I fear, written too long a chapter, I must defer my notice of him till next month. F. C. H. 1 Van Voorst's Baptismal Fonts; London, THE SONG OF PALMERSTON. COMPOSED ON THE RECALL OF THE FRENCH AMBASSA DOR. FOUR and thirty years of peace would weary a saint! The Lion of England doth slumber so long That men say: "Rule Brittannia" is only a song. We've paid that the Poles might be flogged by the bear, We've abandoned Jamaica, the coffers to fill While the French hold Algeria and rule the South Sea ! And we sluggards of Britain have not cared a pin Nor have we chastised the piratical crew, Which make Mexico's heights and her valleys look blue! Then Britons arise from your slumber at last! See Prussia and Russia and Austria unite, While traitors at home squeak "you'll ruin our trade!" |