View allAll Photos Tagged Exhort
" A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ As well as this, there were many other things he said to exhort the people and to announce the Good News to them."
– Luke 3:14-18, which is part of today's Gospel at Mass.
Stained glass window from the Dartmouth College chapel.
Arriba: Formación Siemens O&K a la espera de ser abordada en la estación Venezuela de la Línea H. La misma línea, hoy, estuvo interrumpida por varias horas por "problemas técnicos".
"No es posible que cada afiliado o cada dirigente de segunda o tercera línea que está en desacuerdo con su organización gremial quiera hacer un sindicato aparte", dijo el titular de la Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) y añadió que "esto sería una anarquía, sin sentido" porque "debilitaría a la organización y a los trabajadores".
Foto: Propia (cualquier copia o reproducción requiere del previo permiso y/o consulta al autor).
Si querés la foto, primero consultame por correo a nicofoxfiles@hotmail.com
Texto: Telam.
Moyano se refirió así al conflicto que mantienen la Unión Tranviarios Automotor (UTA) y los delegados del subte quienes anunciaron un nuevo paro, esta vez de 24 horas, para hoy martes.
El jueves pasado y hasta el viernes a la madrugada, los trabajadores paralizaron todas la líneas de subtes y premetro para reclamar al Ministerio de Trabajo el otorgamiento de la personería gremial que les permitiría escindirse de la UTA, además del no descuento en sus salarios en concepto de la cuota sindical.
"En todas las organizaciones gremiales hay opositores, como debe haber en la mía", aseguró Moyano en declaraciones a Radio Nacional, al tiempo que exhortó a aquellos dirigentes que "estén en desacuerdo con su sindicato" a "que se discuta, que se peleé dentro de la organización" gremial y a que "presenten una lista", ya que "si ellos tienen tanta razón seguramente los afiliados los van a votar".
"Pero no creando otra organización -continuó el dirigente- porque eso debilita al sindicato y a los trabajadores".
Además subrayó que los sueldos de los empleados de subterráneos son "de los más importantes que tienen el conjunto de los trabajadores", y la jornada de seis horas, "se los consiguió la UTA".
"Entonces, no entiendo cómo intentan debilitar una organización que tiene más de 90 años de vida como la UTA, pretendiendo hacer una sindicato aparte, porque ahora la cuestiona un sector", que "no es la totalidad de los trabajadores del subte".
=========================================================================
Para comentar aquí debes agregarme como contacto y luego cuando me conecte agregarte (si te preguntas porque hago esto consultame por privado)
Si sos nuevo en Flickr y te haces una cuenta para agregarme y así poder comentar, indicame quien sos o a que grupo u organización perteneces por Flickrcorreo porque no agrego a los no identificados o anónimos que no tengan fotos en su haber.
________________________________________________________________________
To comment here you must add me as a contact
Oil on canvas over cardboard; 41 x 32.7 cm.
Source: Oxford University Press
Russian painter and printmaker, active in Germany. When he was ten, his family moved to Moscow. Following family tradition, he was originally educated for a military career, attending cadet school, and, later, the Alexander Military School in Moscow. However, while still a cadet, he became interested in painting. At the age of 16, he visited the Moscow World Exposition, which had a profound influence on him. He subsequently spent all of his leisure time at the Tret’yakov State Gallery, Moscow. In 1884 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Samogita Infantry–Grenadier’s Regiment, based in Moscow. In 1889 he transferred to a regiment in St Petersburg, and later enrolled in the Academy of Art (1889–96), where he was a student of Il’ya Repin. Indeed his works of this period reflected some of the conventions of Realism (e.g. W. W. Mathé Working, 1892; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Seeking to escape the limitations on expression exhorted by the Russian art establishment, in 1896 Jawlensky and his colleagues Igor Grabar, Dmitry Kardovsky and marianne Werefkin moved to Munich to study with Anton Ažbe. Here he made the acquaintance of another expatriate Russian artist, Vasily Kandinsky. In Munich Jawlensky began his lasting experimentation in the combination of colour, line, and form to express his innermost self (e.g. Hyacinth, c. 1902; Munich, Lenbachhaus).
In the early years of the 20th century, backed by the considerable wealth of his companion Werefkin, Jawlensky spent his summers travelling throughout Europe, including France, where his works were exhibited in Paris with the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne of 1905. Travelling exposed him to a diverse range of artists, techniques, and artistic theories during a formative stage in his own career as a painter. His work, initially characterized by simplified forms, flat areas of colour and heavy black outlines, was in many ways a synthesis of the myriad influences to which he was exposed. As well as the influence of Russian icons and folk art, Ažbe imparted a sense of the importance of line and colour. In Paris, Jawlensky became familiar with the works of Vincent van Gogh, and some of his paintings reflect elements of van Gogh’s technique and approach to his subject-matter (e.g. Village in Bayern (Wasserburg), 1907; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In particular his symbolic and expressive use of bright colour was more characteristic of van Gogh and Paul Gauguin than of the German Expressionists, with whom he had the greatest contact. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Sérusier. Together, Verkade and Sérusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. The Theosophy and mysticism of the Nabis, with their emphasis on the importance of the soul, struck a responsive chord in Jawlensky, who sought in his art to mirror his own inner being. The combination of technique and spirituality characteristic of these movements, when linked to Jawlensky’s own experience and emerging style, resulted in a period of enormous creativity and productivity.
Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion Gabriele Münter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings (e.g. Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau, 1908–9; Munich, Lenbachhaus), they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. In 1909 they helped to found the Neue künstlervereinigung münchen (NKVM). After a break-away group formed the Blaue Reiter in 1911, Jawlensky remained in the NKVM until 1912, when works by him were shown at the Blaue Reiter exhibitions. During this period he made a vital contribution to the development of Expressionism. In addition to his landscapes of this period, Jawlensky also produced many portraits. Like all of his work, his treatment of the human face and figure varied over time. In the years preceding World War I, for example, Jawlensky produced portraits of figures dressed colourfully (e.g. Schokko with a Wide-brimmed Hat, 1910) or even exotically (e.g. Barbarian Princess, 1912; Hagen, Osthaus Mus.). However, following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits. He often stripped from his art the distraction of brightly coloured apparel to emphasize the individual depicted and the artist’s own underlying state of mind (e.g. Head of a Woman, 1912; Berlin, Alte N.G.).
This dynamic period in Jawlensky’s life and art was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Expelled from Germany in 1914, he moved to Switzerland. Here he began Variations, a cycle of landscape paintings of the view from his window at isolated St Prex on Lake Geneva. The works in this series became increasingly abstract and were continued long after he had left St Prex (e.g. Variation, 1916; and Variation No. 84, 1921; both Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In ill-health he spent the end of the war in Ascona. While in St Prex, Jawlensky had first met Galka Scheyer, a young art student who was captivated by his works. Scheyer’s expressions of admiration and support reinvigorated Jawlensky’s art and (with less success) his finances, first by embracing his theoretical and stylistic tenets, and later by promoting his work in Europe and the USA.
After a hiatus in experimentation with the human form, Jawlensky produced perhaps his best-known series, the Mystical Heads (1917–19), and the Saviour’s Faces (1918–20), which are reminiscent of the traditional Russian Orthodox icons of his childhood. In these works he attempted to further reduce conventional portraiture to abstract line, form and, especially, colour (e.g. Head of a Girl, 1918; Ascona, Mus. Com. A. Mod.; and Christ, 1920; Long Beach, CA, Mus. A.). In 1921 he began another cycle in the same vein, his Abstract (sometimes called Constructivist) Heads (1921–35), for example Abstract Head: Red Light (1930; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). His graphic art also included highly simplified, almost geometric heads, such as the lithograph Head II (1921–2; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden).
In 1922, after marrying Werefkin’s former maid Hélène Nesnakomoff, the mother of his only son, Andreas, born before their marriage, Jawlensky took up residence in Wiesbaden. In 1924 he organized the Blue four, whose works, thanks to Scheyer’s tireless promotion, were jointly exhibited in Germany and the USA. From 1929 Jawlensky suffered from a crippling arthritis that severely limited his creative activity. During this final period of his life he endured not only poor health and near poverty but the threat of official persecution as well. In 1933 the Nazis forbade the display of his ‘degenerate’ works. Nevertheless he continued his series of increasingly abstract faces, producing more than 1000 works in the Meditations series (1934–7), which included examples of abstract landscapes and still-lifes, as well as portraits. These series represented further variations on the face broken down into its component parts, using geometric shapes, line and colour to convey the mood of the painting and, hence, that of the painter himself. Jawlensky’s state of mind is vividly reflected in these works, as he adopted an increasingly dark, brooding palette (e.g. Large Meditation III, No. 16, 1937; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). By 1937, when his physical condition forced him to cease painting altogether, these faces had been deconstructed to their most basic form: a cross forming the expressive brow, nose and mouth of the subject, on a richly coloured background (e.g. Meditation, 1937; Zurich, Ksthaus). No longer able to use art as a means of conveying his innermost self, Jawlensky began to dictate his memoirs in 1938.
Edward Kasinec, From Grove Art Online
Abraxas or Abrasax (Gnostic, from Greek Αβραξας) From the Theosophical Glossary: "A mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents in the Greek alphabet. Since 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they argued that Abraxas mystically contained the total number of families of entities making up a hierarchy. Illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration that govern their existence, Abraxas is therefore the supreme cosmic soul, Brahma, the Creator or Third Logos. The Basilidian Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created noûs (mind). Abraxas was also identified with the Hebrew Adonai, the Egyptian Horus and the Hindu Prajapati. The Gnostic amulets known as the Abraxas gems described the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a rooster, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clad in armor evoking a guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a flail, emblem of authority; on his left arm, a shield decorated with a word of power. This pantheos invariably bears its proper name, IAO, and its epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and is often accompanied by invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun (The Gnostics and Their Remnants 246), whom Blavatsky equates with the "central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2: 214). Although written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably of Semitic origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hidden, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Therefore, in combination, the phrase can be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax".
gnosticpublishing.org/apprendre/glossaire/glossaire-a/abr...
C. G. Jung possessed an intense and sympathetic interest in the early alternative Christian tradition now known as Gnosticism. Both in his published writings and in his private reminiscences one finds frequent and insightful comments about Gnostic tradition, although during much of Jung’s life the subject of Gnosticism was virtually unknown to all but a few scholars of religion.
One of the key documents bearing early testimony to Jung’s vital Gnostic interest was his finely designed book, Septem Sermones ad Mortuos—“Seven Sermons to the Dead.” Jung had the work privately printed in 1916 and over subsequent decades gave copies of it to a select number of friends and associates. With Jung’s approval, H. G. Baynes translated the text of the Sermons into English and this edition was privately printed in 1925. Again, Jung distributed the English edition only to persons whom he felt to be properly prepared for its message.
What remained generally unknown was that around 1917 Jung also transcribed a much-expanded version of the Septem Sermones into the third and final portion of his draft manuscript of Liber Novus, the section entitled “Scrutinies.” There the Sermons appear as the summary revelation of Liber Novus. Jung never publicly revealed the existence of this longer form of the Sermons, and until the publication in 2009 of Liber Novus: The Red Book this version of the Sermons remained entirely inaccessible.
Those who were fortunate enough to become acquainted with Septem Sermones ad Mortuos usually found it intriguing, but they were often somewhat puzzled by its contents. Authorship of the book was attributed not to Jung, but to a historical Gnostic teacher named Basilides. And its place of composition was stated to be “Alexandria, the city where East and West meet.” Over ensuing years, those who had read the book sometimes referred to it as Jung’s Gnostic revelation. But of course, during Jung’s life few people knew much about Gnosticism, nor understood what really made this little book “Gnostic.” Nonetheless, following the publication of Liber Novus, it has become evident that the Sermons are indeed the revelation of C. G. Jung’s Gnostic myth. The Sermons might even be seen as the heart of his New Book—The Red Book: Liber Novus.
Since Jung’s death in 1961, a great deal more information regarding Gnosticism has become available, and it has become a subject of wide popular and academic interest. A major impetus to this awakened attention was the publication in 1977 of the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic scriptures, the most extensive collection of original writings of the ancient Gnostics discovered thus far. The Nag Hammadi texts have shed new light on many details of the Gnostic mythos that were previously obscure. They also help place Jung’s Gnostic tract into a broader context.
The Septem Sermones ad Mortuos has proved over past years to be a difficult book to categorize. Some writers have termed it a “cosmology,” but that remains an inadequate formulation. The document might perhaps more accurately be termed a “psycho-cosmology.” Since Gnostic scriptures typically approached their psycho-spiritual themes in the form of myths, one might propose that the Septem Sermones exemplify the contemporary formulation of a Gnostic myth. Though Jung's text is not identical with any pre-existing Gnostic myth, it is nonetheless related in form to many ancient Gnostic texts that have come to light over the last century.
The Gnostic themes in the Septem Sermones are further amplified by another document created by Jung during the period in which he recorded the Sermons. In early 1916 Jung constructed a detailed and artistically impressive image—or mandala—that diagrammatically represented many of the elements discussed subsequently in the Sermons. He titled it Systema Munditotius, “the system of the entire world.” Jung did not include this image among the many illustrations within his Red Book. Much later in life he did, however, allow it to be published—it appeared in a 1955 issue of the German periodical Du that was dedicated to the Eranos conferences (Jung did not, however, allow his name to be given explicitly as the image’s creator). The illustration was subsequently included as a full-page plate in C. G. Jung: Word and Image. The Systema Munditotius is now reproduced beautifully in The Red Book: Liber Novus, where it appears in Appendix A. The amplified text of the Sermons present in Liber Novus and the diagram of Systema Munditotius together provide a foundation for the following discussion.
Statements substantiating Jung’s affinity with Gnostic tradition run throughout his published writings. Jung held the view that during much of the history of Western culture the reality of the psyche and its role in the transformation of the human being had received scant recognition. In contrast, the Gnostics of old and their later covert progeny—which in Jung’s view included the alchemists and other alternative spiritual movements—affirmed the revelatory importance of the psyche. Jung plainly stated: “For the Gnostics—and this is their real secret—the psyche existed as a source of knowledge.” In response to the recurrent question of whether or not Jung was a Gnostic, one must reply: “Certainly he was, for ‘Gnostic’ means ‘knower,’ and by his own statements Jung was one who knew.” The visions, myths, and metaphors of the Gnostics confirmed Jung’s own experiences recorded in Liber Novus, and this circumstance created a bond that joined him with Gnostics of all ages and places.
Myth of the Demiurge
The myth of the demiurge originated with Plato. In his Timaeus, Plato postulated the existence of a creator deity or “demiurge” who fashioned the material universe. The term demiurge is derived from the Greek word meaning “craftsman.” Although a craftsman and fashioner, it must be understood that the demiurge was not identical with the monotheistic creator figure; the demiurge and the material from which the demiurge fashioned the universe were both secondary consequences of another primary factor. The demiurge is thus an intermediate architect, not a supreme source.
In ancient times, Plato was regarded as the paragon of all wisdom, and his model of a demiurge or cosmic fashioner was further elaborated and adapted within many subsequent schools of thought, including in the myths of the Gnostics. Gnostics envisioned the demiurge as a subordinate supernatural power that was not identical with the true, ultimate, and transcendent godhead. The presence of a myth about this demiurge became a signal characteristic of Gnostic systems. Taking note of the sometimes distasteful character and conduct of the Old Testament deity, Gnostics frequently identified the latter as the demiurge—a being that was not evil, but still of questionable moral stature and limited wisdom.
It has long been apparent to some students of Jung that in Answer to Job he characterized the divine tyrant who tormented Job as a classic Gnostic demiurge. This divinity, as described by Jung, was a being who lacked wisdom due to having lost or forgotten his feminine side—his Sophia (“wisdom”). Notwithstanding this and other evidence, some readers of Jung previously argued that his mythos in the Septem Sermones did not include the controversial Gnostic figure of the demiurge, and therefore it should not be properly called Gnostic. Publication of the Red Book: Liber Novus now makes it abundantly clear that the demiurge is present in Jung’s myth. Indeed, Answer to Job is unmistakably a reformulation of the Gnostic myth disclosed to Jung in Liber Novus and within the Septem Sermones.
Prior to the availability of the expanded version of the Sermons found in Liber Novus, the figure of Abraxas—as portrayed in the published 1916 edition of the Sermons—remained ambiguous. In my book, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, first published in 1982, I offered an initial commentary on the locus of Abraxas in Jung’s myth. With the long-sequestered text of Liber Novus finally available, I now wish to amend and expand those prior comments composed nearly four decades ago. Based on documentation in Liber Novus, the figure Jung identified as “Abraxas” has finally and indisputably been divulged as a classic Gnostic demiurge.
The mysterious being called “Abraxas” first appears in Septem Sermones in the latter part of the Second Sermon; passages describing him continue throughout the Third Sermon and into the Fourth Sermon. Initially, he is there characterized as “a god about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him.” This statement can certainly be taken to apply to an intermediate deity, as is ubiquitous in a large number of Gnostic scriptures.
For some two thousand years Western and Middle Eastern cultures have been dominated by the monotheistic god-image familiar to us today. Prior to the first several centuries of the current era, however, many Mediterranean cultures accommodated religions of a pluralistic nature wherein the image of an ultimate, impersonal divine reality coexisted with a number of lesser or intermediate deities. In such ancient pluralistic systems, the image of a materially powerful but morally and spiritually impaired demiurge often played an important role.
Scholars now widely affirm that the incipient Christian religion harbored various alternative forms; those movements in early Christianity that included a myth of the demiurge are usually categorized collectively as “Gnostic.” While the name Abraxas does occur in a few ancient Gnostic texts (where he is usually identified as a great archon), no evidence exists that the demiurge of classical Gnosticism was specifically called Abraxas. Jung’s assignation of the ancient name Abraxas to the demiurge was thus his own imaginative appropriation.
Abraxas and the Demiurge
So, was Abraxas the demiurge in Jung’s myth? Jung’s Black Book journal entry dated January 16, 1916, and reproduced as Appendix C in Liber Novus, removes all question about this issue: Abraxas was the demiurge in Jung’s myth. As Dr. Lance Owens has previously noted, this journal entry—written around the same time Jung sketched the Systema Munidtotius, and about two weeks before he scribed his initial journal version of the Septem Sermones—records the following words spoken to Jung by the Soul, who assumed the voice of the Gnostic Sophia. Her address to Jung is inarguably a rendition of the primal Gnostic myth of the demiurge, here named Abraxas:
You should worship only one God. The other Gods are unimportant. Abraxas is to be feared. Therefore it was a deliverance when he separated himself from me.
Note that the separation of the demiurge from Sophia—“when he separated himself from me”—is a key element of the classic Gnostic myth of Sophia and the Demiurge. She then exhorts,
You do not need to seek him. He will find you, just like Eros. He is the God of the cosmos, extremely powerful and fearful. He is the creative drive, he is form and formation, just as much as matter and force, therefore he is above all the light and dark Gods. He tears away souls and casts them into procreation. He is the creative and created. He is the God who always renews himself in days, in months, in years, in human life, in ages, in peoples, in the living, in heavenly bodies. He compels, he is unsparing. If you worship him, you increase his power over you. Thereby it becomes unbearable. You will have dreadful trouble getting clear of him. … So remember him, do not worship him, but also do not imagine that you can flee him since he is all around you. You must be in the middle of life, surrounded by death on all sides. Stretched out, like one crucified, you hang in him, the fearful, the overpowering.
This journal entry unambiguously identifies the figure of Abraxas, who a few weeks thereafter appeared in Jung’s initial journal version of the Sermons, as the demiurge of classical Gnostic mythology. The identification of Abraxas with the demiurge is further established in the draft manuscript of Liber Novus, where in several passages Jung substituted the term “ruler of this world” for the name “Abraxas” that was originally recorded in his Black Book journal.
At its beginning, Jung’s Gnostic theogony in the Sermons describes an ultimate, utterly transcendental source called the Pleroma, and then a number of intermediate deities, including God-the-Sun, the Devil, Eros, and The Tree of Life. In addition to these figures, the entire Third Sermon is devoted to introducing the demiurgic figure of Abraxas. In the Fourth Sermon Jung summarizes:
Immeasurable, like the host of stars, is the number of gods and devils. Every star is a god, and every space occupied by a star is a devil. And the emptiness of the whole is the Pleroma. The activity of the whole is Abraxas; only the unreal opposes him.
The version of the Sermons included in Liber Novus contains several crucially important additions to the original text that was printed in 1916. In this expanded 1917 manuscript version, Philemon is identified as the speaker presenting the Sermons to the dead (Basilides was the speaker of the Sermons in the printed version). The text incorporates questions that Jung asks Philemon about each sermon, along with Philemon’s answers. Philemon also adds extended homiletic commentary upon the content of his sermons. All of this additional material enriches and further explicates the meaning of the Sermons.
After the First Sermon, Jung’s initial question addressed to Philemon voices concern that the teachings in the Sermons might be regarded as “reprehensible heresy.” (This query bears the characteristic of a rhetorical question.) Philemon replies that the audience to whom the Sermons are addressed—“the dead”—are Christians whose now-abandoned faith long ago declared these teachings to be heresies. This commentary might be interpreted to further imply that a large number of people in our culture are now abandoning their traditional religion and are thus prepared to listen to ancient heresies, wherein they may find answers to their own portentous questions. Philemon’s statement is clear and to the point:
Why do I impart this teaching of the ancients? I teach in this way because their Christian faith once discarded and persecuted precisely this teaching. But they repudiated Christian belief and hence were rejected by that faith. They do not know this and therefore I must teach them…
Philemon’s words are eminently applicable to the problem of religion in contemporary Western culture. Religion in much of Europe has reached an unprecedented low point in its history, and allegiance to the Christian tradition in the U.S.A. appears to be diminishing. Jung frequently pointed out that the god image in a religion and culture is of crucial importance to the well-being of the collective psyche, and therefore also to the well-being of the individual. A major factor inducing the decline of the Christian religion in the West is unquestionably the disappointment people have come to feel with the traditional monotheistic god.
Prophecy of a New Age and a New God Image
Jung’s epochal Liber Novus is, in the consensus view of informed readers, a book of prophecy. On the initial folio of Liber Novus Jung presents an image of a complex landscape surmounted by a zodiac and showing forth the aeonial passage of the sun from the sign of Pisces into that of Aquarius. This image points forward to his title, The Way of What is to Come. The reader then encounters several prophetic quotations from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, and from the prologue to the Gospel of John. Jung’s Liber Novus thus sets the stage for disclosure of its new prophecy.
Throughout both Liber Primus and Liber Secundus of Liber Novus we find recurring references to the coming of the new age of Aquarius. In an impressive section that Jung titled “The Three Prophecies,” his Soul reveals to him three periods in the forthcoming age: War, Magic, and Religion. In commentary on this vision, Jung wrote,
These three mean the unleashing of chaos and its power, just as they also mean the binding of chaos. War is obvious and everybody sees it. Magic is dark and no one sees it. Religion is still to come, but it will become evident. … I felt the burden of the most terrible work of the times ahead. I saw where and how, but no word can grasp it, no will can conquer it. … But I saw it and my memory will not leave me alone.
Examining the numerous prophetic passages in Liber Novus, it becomes clear that at the heart of Jung’s experience there abides a vision of the formation of a new god image. But what indications did Jung give regarding the nature of this new god image and, moreover, how may contemporary persons facilitate the arising of a new god image in their own natures and in the new religion that is to come?
Liber Novus offers several statements that refer to the coming god image. The tone is set in the early part of Liber Primus; Jung there recounts several visions that he experienced which foretold of the time when “the great war broke out between the peoples of Europe.” He then declares,
Within us is the way, the truth, and the life. … The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you?
It is clear from the beginning of Jung’s mysterious prophetic book that the future god image is none other than the divine essential Selfhood indwelling in the human soul. Here, again, we must turn to the expanded version of the Sermons for a clarifying commentary. At the conclusion of the First Sermon, Philemon instructs his audience to strive for what he calls their essences. He continues,
At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely the striving for one's own essence. If you had this striving, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and yet you would attain the right goal by virtue of your own essence. Since, however, thought alienates us from our essence, I must teach you that knowledge with which you can bridle your thoughts.
Many Gnostic writings explicitly state that the essence of the human is the fragment of the ultimate reality residing at the center of its being. When it is possible for the human to gain access to this essence, all other religious or spiritual endeavors are redundant. It is largely the fault of the demiurge—or so Jung’s old friends, the Gnostics, believed—that this access is so fraught with difficulty. In the Sermons, Jung’s spirit mentor Philemon offers advice regarding the judicious way in which humans may free themselves from the yoke of the demiurge. Unlike some of the more radical Gnostics of old, Philemon advises us to neither flee from the demiurge Abraxas, nor to seek him. In one passage in the Sermons, Philemon says about Abraxas, “to resist him not is liberation.”
The Gnostic demiurge, by whatever name he may be called, is omnipresent in the outer world. While humans are in terrestrial embodiment they must both accept the demiurge’s presence, and equally endeavor to counterbalance his influence by contacting their own indwelling essence. This indwelling essence is described in the Seventh Sermon as the “solitary star” in the heavens. This statement is supplemented by the revelation Jung recorded in his Black Book journal on January 16, 1916, wherein his Soul admonished him:
You have in you the one God, the wonderfully beautiful and kind, the solitary, starlike, unmoving, he who is older and wiser than the father, he who has a safe hand, who leads you among all the darknesses and death scares of dreadful Abraxas. He gives joy and peace, since he is beyond death and beyond what is subject to change. He is no servant and no friend of Abraxas.
What then is the principal deficiency in the god of the old Aeon, the god who is to be overcome? Employing the nomenclature of the Sermons and other statements by Jung, we might say that the god of the monotheistic religions is a compound in which the ultimate god (called the Pleroma in the Septem Sermones) is unconsciously combined with the demiurge, named by Jung as Abraxas.
Based on the numerous paradoxical and even downright evil deeds and utterances of the Old Testament deity, and the fact that this deity was carried forward into orthodox Christianity, one is tempted to conclude (as Jung did in Answer to Job) that the Judeo-Christian god is at best a being who embodies both arrogance and unconsciousness. It seems quite impossible to believe that this god is both almighty and good—for his goodness would thus have to be combined with impotence, or alternatively, his omnipotence would be joined to his absence of goodness. A considerable portion of humanity has thus reached the point where it can no longer endure the unconscious tension embodied by a blind belief in an utterly enigmatic and derisory god image. This circumstance is causing an unprecedented upsurge of atheism and secularism in Western culture.
Throughout the twentieth century humanity has experienced a multitude of terrible events; these have undermined many people’s ability to have faith in a benevolent god. The medieval brutality of modern-day terrorists motivated by commitment to a monotheistic god has only reinforced the rejection of such traditional god images in secular society. Our age cries out for a new understanding of divinity, and a new god image. This was Jung’s prophesy in Liber Novus. As he also noted, this development may take centuries. Until a new god image constellates, we will pass through an epoch of chaos and violence.
When Christendom cast out the salvific myth of Gnosis in favor of an unimaginative literalism, it became spiritually impoverished. Our impoverishment has now reached its terminus. We await the formation of our new myth—a myth that rediscovers the primordial images and myth of Gnosis. As Jung declared,
I hope the reader will not be offended if my exposition sounds like a Gnostic myth. We are moving in those psychological regions where, as a matter of fact, Gnosis is rooted. The message of the Christian symbol is Gnosis, and the [response to it] by the unconscious is Gnosis in even higher degree. Myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythical imagery. Such processes are concerned with the primordial images, and these are best and most succinctly reproduced by figurative language.
The Self, the Demiurge, and the New God Image
The issue of the coming god image has captured the attention of several of Jung's students in recent decades. Edward Edinger made perhaps the most complete statement concerning Jung’s declaration in his pioneering book, The New God-Image. As Edinger noted, Jung avowed an ancient and esoteric image of a deific consciousness dwelling in the soul. This affirmation is present in Liber Novus, and is restated in various ways throughout all of Jung’s subsequent writings. In Liber Novus Jung offered a startling prophecy: the long neglected indwelling god image would eventually become the orienting god image of the future. On the first page of Liber Novus he made it plain that this prediction was coordinated with the synchronous passing of the world from the astrological age of Pisces into that of Aquarius.
It is now evident that the essential foundation of Jung’s science and psychological language reposed in his long-concealed Liber Novus. A key revelation present within Liber Novus that later emerged as a core affirmation in his psychology—and as a spiritual and archetypal declaration—was the assertion of the presence within the human psyche of a central archetype, around which other archetypes constellate. He called this central principle or archetype the “Self.” In Psychology and Alchemy—published in 1944, and based on lectures given in 1935—Jung stated:
I have found myself obliged to give [this] archetype the psychological name of the “self”—a term on the one hand definite enough to convey the essence of human wholeness and on the other hand indefinite enough to express the indescribable and indeterminable nature of this wholeness. … Hence in its scientific usage the term “self” refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self. This mode of expression is an intellectual necessity in scientific psychology and in no sense denotes a transcendental prejudice. On the contrary … this objective attitude enables one man to decide in favour of the determinant Christ, another in favour of the Buddha, and so on.
While the existence of a divine image internal to the psyche, termed by Jung the “Self,” is widely accepted among followers of Jung, the opposing archetype of the demiurge is far less known. Jung claimed that at the heart of early Christianity there existed the insight of Gnosis; he himself had met this Gnosis in the experiences recorded in his Black Book journals, and thence in Liber Novus and in the Septem Sermones. An essential part of the archetypal mythos of Gnosis is the presence of a duality both inwardly in the soul, and outwardly in the cosmos. This duality is composed of a divine spark within the deepest recesses of the soul, and of an outer demiurgic power. Self and Demiurge stand in opposition.
This symbolic opposition is illustrated clearly in Jung’s 1916 mandala, Systema Munditotius. At the lowest point of the circular mandala, seated on the exterior circle, is a being with the lower body of a large serpent, surmounted by a light-colored torso, and topped by the golden head of a lion crowned with a ten-rayed golden halo. On the opposite pole of the mandala, at the apex of the design, we find a winged egg within which stands the figure of the child-god Phanes. The serpent-lion is described as abraxas dominus mundi (Abraxas, Lord of the World). This powerful demiurge dominates the lower creation, while the child-god Phanes above is about to attain to his full stature. The undifferentiated, primitive god-image is about to be replaced by the still developing child-god of promise.
The Systema Munditotius is further populated by images of archetypal beings that arrange themselves in pairs of opposites on the poles of the mandala. These include deus sol (god the sun) and deus luna satanus (god the moon, Satan). We also find paired a winged rodent identified as scientia (science), and a winged worm named ars (art). Despite the abundance of these symbolic images—many of which later appear as figures in the text of the Septem Sermones—the two principal focal points of the diagram are clearly Abraxas and Phanes.
A picture compensates for many words and Jung’s images here illuminate the nature and role of the archetypes depicted, particularly of the primordial demiurge Abraxas, and of Phanes, the new god-image awaiting birth. Of course, in conjunction with this image, the verbal descriptions of Abraxas in the Septem Sermones are also instructive:
Abraxas is the god whom it is difficult to know. His power is the very greatest, because man does not perceive it at all. He is magnificent even as the lion at the very moment when he strikes his prey down. His beauty is like the beauty of a spring morn.
To see him means blindness; To know him is sickness; To worship him is death; To fear him is wisdom; Not to resist him means liberation … Such is the terrible Abraxas … He is both the radiance and the dark shadow of man. He is deceitful reality.
As Jung noted in the Second Sermon, people know nothing about the demiurge because they have forgotten him. This forgetting was aided by the self-declared architects of the early Christian centuries: the heresiologist Church Fathers of orthodoxy. The very thought of a demiurge thereafter became a heretical abomination to orthodox Christendom. Jung’s insights recorded in the Liber Novus, and particularly in the Sermons, declared that in order to move toward greater wholeness we must look to the coming new god image. But to do this, we need also recognize the forgotten demiurge, the god whom Jung declared “difficult to know.”
Present-day humanity is gradually becoming aware of an inner psychic reality, a centering fact Jung identified as the salvific archetype of the Self. In Liber Novus he prophetically proclaimed that a new god image is developing in humanity—and perhaps a new god image has already awakened in some individuals of our age, as it did in Jung. This incipient aeonial development demands further conscious awareness and a conscious union of the opposites. Using the language of Liber Novus and the Systema Munditotius, we might proclaim that Phanes is now stirring and is about to break out of the egg. For this to happen, however, human beings must also consciously recognize the reality of his opposite entity, the demiurge Abraxas.
Western culture has suffered too long from a ruinous one-sidedness. A powerful element in this one-sided perspective is a militant unwillingness to acknowledge the effective reality of the demiurge. With singular symbolic insight, the ancient Gnostics noted how the human spirit is confined on earth by a prison constructed of perplexing opposites. A demiurgic reality has placed us behind these prison bars, which alternatingly assume form in the inexorable struggle of light and dark, good and evil, or wise and unwise components. Denying the reality of this fact merely continues our confinement.
Our extraverted immersion in the world, both in its natural and cultural aspects, perpetuates servitude to the forgotten Abraxas. His fiery, mesmerizing, and infinitely creative powers enthrall us. We worship the terrible Abraxas in the baleful political ideologies of our epoch. Ever increasingly, he holds us captive in the magically scintillating web of modern technology. Only an increase of psychological awareness, leading to the individuation of our psyches, offers a path to liberation from the domination of the internal complexes and external fascinations that are the essence of Abraxas. It is incumbent upon us to accept the reality of this archetypal force, for in the words of the Sermons, “to worship him is death; to fear him is wisdom, not to resist him means liberation.”
The time has come when we must incorporate Jung’s epochal insights into our lives. The teachings of Liber Novus must be met as a form of spiritual discipline. A few months before his death in 1960, Jung wrote to an acquaintance,
I was unable to make the people see what I am after. I am practically alone. There are a few who understand this and that, but almost nobody sees the whole... I have failed in my foremost task: to open people’s eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state.
Today, after the publication of his monumental spiritual classic, Liber Novus, we may be able to finally reply to Jung that he has not failed at all; that inspired now by his visionary message, we too are ready “to give birth to the ancient in a new time.” In some mysterious archetypal locale, the sage Dr. C. G. Jung awaits such a response to his great work.
gnosis.org/gnostic-jung/Abraxas-Jungs-Demiurge.html
Abraxas by Samael Aun Weor
Abraxasor Abrasax (Gnostic, from the Greek Αβραξας) From The Theosophical Glossary: "Mystical term used by the Gnostics to indicate the supreme entity of our cosmic hierarchy or its manifestation in the human being which they called the Christos. Abraxas has the value of 365, based on numerical equivalents of the Greek alphabet. Because 365 represents the cycle of one revolution of our planet around the sun, they held that in Abraxas were mystically contained the full number of families of entities composing a hierarchy. These entities received from their supreme illuminator, Abraxas, the streams of life and inspiration governing their existence. Thus in a sense Abraxas is the cosmic Oversoul, the creative or Third Logos, Brahma. The Basilidean Gnostics [see: Basilides] taught that from this supreme God was created nous (mind). Abraxas also was identified with the Hebrew 'Adonai, the Egyptian Horus, and the Hindu Prajapati. Gnostic amulets known as Abraxas gems depicted the god as a pantheos (all-god), with the head of a cock, herald of the sun, representing foresight and vigilance; a human body clothed in armor, suggestive of guardian power; legs in the form of sacred asps. In his right hand is a scourge, emblem of authority; on his left arm a shield emblazoned with a word of power. This pantheos is invariably inscribed with his proper name IAO and his epithets Abraxas and Sabaoth, and often accompanied with invocations such as SEMES EILAM, the eternal sun ( Gnostics and Their Remains 246), which Blavatsky equates with "the central spiritual sun" of the Qabbalists (SD 2:214). Though written in Greek characters, the words SEMES EILAM ABRASAX are probably Semitic in origin: shemesh sun; `olam secret, occult, hid, eternity, world; Abrasax Abraxas. Hence in combination the phrase may be rendered "the eternal sun Abraxax." "Remember, beloved devotee, the double tail of the serpent that forms the legs of the solar rooster of Abraxas. The entire process of the Great Work consists of releasing oneself from the enchanted rings of the tempting serpent..." - Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
We are offspring of warriors;
In days of darkness and despair
we are the future they could not see.
We are the destiny they hoped for.
The generations yet unborn
for which they fought and died.
The inheritance for which many waded
through blood and survived
to live a life imprisoned in bodies
maimed and mangled
by the inhumanity of war.
We are the offspring of warriors:
Men and women who remain
bloodied but unbowed.
Perfect in spirit and brotherhood.
See their path before you.
They have left a road much travelled.
The Road to Valour.
The Path of Truth.
Each paved with integrity, with bravery,
with blood, sweat, and tears.
May the tracks we leave behind
for our future generations
be as worthy of the journey
as the ones we now follow.
Do not tread upon their footsteps.
Walk beside them, learn from them
and leave your own mark
for others to pursue.
We are the offspring of warriors:
Their voices echo down the years
exhorting us to stay strong,
to be vigilant in our own battles,
to recognise our true enemies.
They cry in horror as we so easily
give up the freedoms for which they laid down their lives.
Their lives demand that we too
make our word our bond,
that we too stand up for what we believe in
That we too represent our truth
with integrity, with perseverance.
That we too may leave a legacy
and not just a memory.
We are the offspring of warriors:
With clear hearts and eyes
we all march down a path in history.
Whether, in the telling of our journeys,
we weave a tapestry of greatness or of loss,
that story will be told to our generations.
Make it a tale worth the telling,
for we are the offspring of warriors.
© Magz Macleod
Gateway Camp Verse
(Pin1) Ging1 Mahn4
Isaiah 62:10
What Dale instructed about going out of our way to treat the Mainland Chinese well resonated within me. To be sure, just as the Koreans have gone out of their way to bless me so I must step out to bless and to love my Mainland brethren.
After the first meeting, Ed and I wandered off campus and found inside a shopping mall a cha chaan teng where we had a late-night snack. And hardly had we tucked into our meals when in walked several dozen volunteers, all locals, who were overcome, it seemed, by the same munchies that infected Ed and me. It’s surprising how such a primal urge, at such a time, drives everyone to no less than the same, impossibly far location.
I thus far have met so many people that, had I not brought along my iPod, I would have already lost track of the multitudinous names flying around like fireflies at night, sparkling luminously one moment and then disappearing the next. And this is only the beginning: more and more people will arrive both today and tomorrow so I had better stay awake, alert, and writing.
I am working with a partner who really challenges me, and indeed that is why I chose to work with him. From the first words that came streaming out of his mouth, I knew he would be a special one, and as if to conifrm my conjecture, indeed, the more he spoke, the more confused I became. The challenge, I have realized after much ruminating, isn’t so much the pace of his speech as his choice of words, which fall outside a normal lexical range; that is, at least with me, when he talks, he doesn’t use familiar collocations to communicate; besides, he has an uncanny Tin Shui Wai accent; those, along with his amazing resistance to Chinglish, which impresses me, by the way, have made our communication tedious, since I am bombarded by peculiar lexical constructions that I generally never encounter in Cantonese conversation and must therefore stop our flow to clarify his speech. It’s too bad that he doesn’t speak English as I would love to hear how he structures ideas in my native language to determine whether or not this strange lexis has spilled over into his other modes of communication.
Regardless, in being with him, I have learned to be patient, and if I am truly to walk away from resentment, I must continue rather to engage him than to keep him at arm’s length. It helps us, then, that he is a congenial fellow, prone more to expressing love, much in the same way that I do by warmly grabbing a forearm or a shoulder, than to venting his frustration, which with me could certainly be great. He is verily a good guy, and so long as the Lord keeps him — I am sure Daddy will — Tin Shui Wai, that small patch of concrete moon colony, is in capable, faithful human hands.
Sau2 muhn6 je2
Mihng6 dihng6
Kyuhn4 lihk6
Lihk6 leuhng6
Chong3 yi3 adjective
Chong3 jouh6 verb
Romans 5:3-5
Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
I cried this morning when I read these words, because they are true, and comfort my soul as water to a dry, parched land. However many times I’ve lamented this place and its people, I am still inextricably tied to this rock, per God’s will for my life; and God really is faithful in providing a way out not from this place but from these spiritual hindrances. These past few days, what with communication failures and fatigue setting in, I could have more easily give into my rationality, in defense of my weaknesses, than resisted this bait of satan. Thank God, hence, for the words which are like fuel for the refiner’s fire that burns up all my expectations, my pride and my flesh. I can survive, nay, rejoice, indeed, because of God, who, in me, day by day teaches me to suffer long with a smile.
This is what the gateway is all about, I believe: jumping head-first out of my comfort zone to confront the nations, for my brothers and sisters and I must face each other if we are to raise the banners together. Battling through enemy strongholds of mistrust ad resentment, we demolish carnal thoughts and dig deep in the Spirit for the unity that shall overcome as much language as culture; God, after all, is bigger, even, than the battlefield. In these ways can my brethren and I love each other as ourselves, as we shall be one in the Father, with audacious power and boldness laying hands on His kingdom which advances, in this kairos moment, over all of China, including, no doubt, Hong Kong. No longer will there be curses thrown upon the nations; but rather the river of life will flow through the city, and the leaves of the tree on each side of the river will be for the healing of the nations.
1) Welcoming the Father
2) Unifying the body
3) Partnering with the Chinese
4) Serving the city
5) Supporting the Chinese
Isaac and I have worked quite hard this morning, putting up signs all over campus, and as if to reward me for my assiduity, he offered to buy me a drink, an offer which I took up. Indeed, this man’s care and concern for others, genuine, doubtlessly, fills me with joy, for, to be sure, the joy of the lord is his strength. My friend is indefatigable, always encouraging and never slighting, no matter the circumstances, rain (that has happened a lot today) or shine. Praise God!
Much like my relationship with Isaac, my relationships with my other team members have improved considerably since, even, this morning’s briefing during which, the code-switching, happening too fast and too furiously for my comfort, vexed me so terribly that if Isaac had not put a generous arm around my shoulder immediately afterwards, I surely would have blown my top in frustration at the perplexing language option. Thankfully, my team and I settled our language arrangements: Isaac, Dorcas and I will intractably speak Cantonese to each other whereas my other group mates and I will use English with as little code-switching as possible; and I, along with Ed, no doubt, am satisfied. It’s best to avoid misunderstandings.
Lihng4 Mahn4 (soul)
Sihng4 jeung2
Muhng6 Seung2 (dreams)
The Lord’s mercies are new everyday. Just now, during the morning rally, by His Spirit, hundreds of brothers and sisters received a new anointing, to be spiritual mothers and fathers of a new generation so as to minister to the next. This outpouring of the Spirit was sudden, and so captivated me that when the call came to reap, I rushed to the front to ask my father for this anointing, and naturally, my life was transformed. In the same way, the pastor called up a new generation of spiritual children to receive the love, care and support of these new parents; and likewise, so many young men and women heeded this call that verily, the pit in front of the stage was soon awash in hugs and tears between generations that, once lost, were now found. Indeed, no sooner did these people embrace their father than Dad immediately swept them up in his strong arms and showered them with audacious encouragement and support. Praise God!
An Outburst
I was angry this morning during our team time. I temporarily lost my ability to be merciful and to live in God’s grace. When my team leader began to address me in English, yet again, I couldn’t help but berate him for doing so when Cantonese, I argued, would be a more economical medium of delivery. And then I compounded this already incendiary situation by ranting about the hypocrisy of Hong Kong being a gateway to China but not a gateway into its own neighborhoods teeming with Chinese people, 97% of whom, according to one of the pastors at this camp, do not know the Lord Jesus. Cantonese will matter, I posit, if anyone dares to take on the onerous mission in this vexing place.
To be sure, even my brother announced that language was a prohibitive barrier to closer relationships with these local people, and therefore, since he neither speaks Cantonese nor is going to give learning the language a go, he is relegated to the outer walls of the gates into Hong Kong.
In hindsight, I thought I cared enough about God’s purposes for me in Hong Kong, but I realize now that I still care a lot about myself, and resentment. Though I have prayed and declared boldly that God is bigger than language and culture, I know I don’t believe it; and that’s upsetting. For the time being, I don’t verily believe in my heart that I can have deeper, closer relationships with Chinese people without the benefit of language and culture, patterns of action.
OK. This is actually an opportune start for my spiritual parentship, for now I have an opportunity to put aside my very compelling arguments for the necessity of language and culture in deep and close relationships, these conclusions born out of my reason, and to step out in faith, to trust in the Lord who, I pray, will show me deep and close relationships sans language and culture, and with whom my deep and close relationship shall obviously be the key to this victory.
I’m thinking about events at this camp that heretofore demonstrated loving relationships without language and culture, and I recalled two acts: the first happened yesterday when I spontaneously joined a line of ushers to high-five and to cheer the audience as they flooded out of the auditorium, the morning rally having scarcely finished; and the second, this was my meeting Yao, a man from the Ivory Coast, whom I befriended in those first, fleeting, if not frantic moments before the opening rally on Friday evening. That encounter was immediate and sudden, neither words nor habits needed; Yao and I simply high-fived, hugged and sat beside each other; and wow, that was terrific companionship — praise God!
Finally, however hard my diatribe may have struck my team members’ hearts, my merciful group mates still forgave me, not only on an personal level, but also, as I had sought forgiveness on behalf of all foreigners who have ever cursed locals or stood passively outside the gateway, on a corporate level, thereby releasing countless non-Chinese people into the freedom of these Hong Kong people’s forgiveness; just as brothers and sisters had so recently been reconciled to each other in my church, so local and non-local people have received the others’ freedom of forgiveness; more than a homecoming, that, indeed, is a breakthrough.
In listening to this morning’s sermon, I hear such verses as I know God is speaking to me through His word. 2Corinthians 4:16-18, this scripture in particular carries a buoyant, hopeful currency in my heart. My spirit soaks in this divine revelation as a sponge soaks in water and thus becomes malleable, able to be formed and shaped according to its holder’s will: Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Disagreeable
I don’t know why my brother and I undermine each others’ comments; why we no more know consensus than the deaf music. Our interactions have been especially abrasive recently since we have spent so much time together without the benefit of our other brother to act as a natural, vociferous buffer; and as a result we argue like pieces of sand paper being rubbed against flesh, which inevitably leads to significant soreness. I feel sore now.
I think back to my outburst this morning and can appreciate my role in this evening’s embarrassing outcome; I am certainly not without fault, for I choose these days not only to venture my opinions but to do so passionately, if not emotionally. People consequently who otherwise are phlegmatic at best are put in a discomfiting position by my impassioned pleas. Besides, I recall Interrupting my brother prolifically, which understandably would not make him a happy camper; just as a hyperactive child doesn’t know when to stop pestering his sibling, so I don’t know nowadays when to hold my tongue. Indeed, I would rather not respond at all to my brother, even after he has fired off his rejoinder, than to strike him down in mid-speech.
In view of this latest incident, I have resolved to take the former course of action. To be sure, I simply stopped our petty dispute about a stupid basketball game by, awkward as it was, taking out my book and perusing it as fixedly as my tattered mind would allow. I will try my best to stay away from my brother for a spell, to create physical and spiritual space between us, so hopefully, in this way at least one of us will be able to come to his senses about this matter; better yet, now would be an opportune time for our father in his mercy to reveal to us the fault lines in our flesh so that we could surrender these tremulous spots in our soul, crucifying them to the father for our healing and the redemption of our relationship. I will pray about this.
…Praise God. If I had not separated myself from my brother’s presence, I wouldn’t have been sitting at that bench at the exact moment when Isaac came over to me in a plaintive mood. Obviously upset, he had been so recently wronged, he lamented on the verge of tears. And at that, mercy swept over my countenance, for my brother felt as aggrieved as I did earlier; and this appointment, per God’s unfailing, obstinate love, had at last come for me, convicting me to be very, very agreeable, sympathetic and kind to my fellow long-suffering brother. In this instance, thank God, language did not matter so much as empathy, carrying each others’ burdens and thus fulfilling the rule of Christ. We prayed and blessed each other in Jesus’ name, and then boldly went forward into the rally.
I suspect the enemy has infiltrated our team what with my outbursts and Isaac’s failing out as evidence. My group mates and I must be more vigilant in prayer and in digging deep into the Father’s word if we are to overcome the spies in our camp that have planted incendiary devices in our mouths and in our hearts. We certainly need such encouragement as the Lord provides for the edification and encouragement of each other, even more so, in fact, in the face of adversity, despite our fatigue and other physical ills that befall us like a hail of arrows. In faith, I’m sure, faith will see us through; and per what the pastors exhorted at the rally, we will become as if the smooth stone in David’s sling, ready to fly into the air to crush the Goliath in this world.
Sihng4 jauh6 achievement
Ngwuih misunderstanding
Nggaai2 to misunderstand
Yuhn4 leuhng6 forgive
Gaan2syun2 chosen
The Security Guard
At the morning rally, a security guard left an indelible impression on my heart what with her showing of unconditional support and her proffering of words of encouragement, which like a waterfall fell in force and power over my friends and me. To my amazement, I first saw her out of the corner of my eye stepping out of her role as a security guard to pray as a spiritual parent to two spiritual children during the morning rally’s prayer time; there she was, clad in her blue uniform, laying hands on those weeping kids; finally, I had witnessed someone courageous enough to step out of that rule of law, her boundary in Hong Kong, to be bound to that which is ethereal, the rule of Christ to carry each others’ burdens. Later, as the audience passed through the exit, I had time to confirm her love for the Lord and at that, we broke into a torrent of encouragement and followed this with a flurry of picture-taking. Indeed, never have I stumbled upon such good will from a dragon security guard in HK so I am hopeful, therefore, that this is but the the start of a greater movement within that particular demon-worshipping core, that at this time, God is opening up the heavenly armory and placing his prayer warriors inside that particular stronghold in Hong Kong to demolish every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and placing in its stead a profusion of love, gentleness and kindness. I look forward to the day when wisdom, and not languid stares, shall emanate from all the people who man the facilities in these universities.
Reconciliation
This is special. No sooner had Isaac and I stepped into the auditorium than we heard the plaintive cry of the mainland Chinese on the stage forgiving the Hong Kong people for their trespasses against their brethren from the north. A flurry of hugs, replete with a few tears, ensued. That was, as Dale announced from the stage, a delicious moment. Jesus must have been breaking out the good champagne in heaven for a rousing celebration in view of this victory.
Sex Talk – Part One
The kids finally received the sex talk this morning; a fiery pastor delivered the message which was as much shocking as informative; and gasps and wincing abounded in the audience.
While I have recently heard the sex talk at the men’s retreat, and have furthermore by God’s grace been inoculated against this particular area of struggle, it was nonetheless refreshing to hear the news, as shocking and as sensational as it was. I am willing, in addition, to believe that some of the atrocious acts that the pastor referenced, such as gruesome abortions and bizarre sexual acts, are more prevalent than my reason will believe, because my scope is limited by experience, but as the Father witnesses everything, if the Spirit has convicted this man and has told him that the world is heading closer and closer into the mouth of Jezebel in this way, I accept this. In fact, believing this is important if I am to be a good spiritual parent who will not only protect but educate the new generation from the prowling enemy that lurks these days, even, in our computers.
Prayer
The Holy Spirit fell over me this morning during my group’s team time. He convicted me to pray in Cantonese for the first time, and so I did without fear, those Chinese words pouring out of me as if perfume from an alabaster jar. Praise God: he is good; and this was the moment I have been waiting for.
I think about what happened, and am amazed at the Father’s favor; despite my critiques against this culture, and in spite of my recent lamentations, the Lord, ever faithfully, provided a way out under which I could stand and by which I could be protected from the bait of Satan. Little did I know that the escape route would, in fact, ironically, direct me to the very thing that heretofore has stood as an obstruction, a spiritual roadblock, in my mind.
A missionary on the stage just spoke into my life when she said about her experience learning Putonghua in China: the difficult part was not learning the language but learning to love those people as Jesus loves them. This will always be my mission, no matter where I am.
Keuhng4 jong3
Lai1 hei2 (pull up)
In the afternoon, my team had a reconciliation meeting during which, in small groups, each team member at last was given an opportunity to share alternately their joys and struggles. At that time, though having staved off an open rebuke for several days, I could no longer hold back this challenge to my small group: to step out in faith to be a gateway to the nations; and second, per the morning’s message, to on their guard against the sexually explicit, insidious media. I laid out my argument with much cogency, and such a response as I saw fit knocked my group mates into a stupor, because they certainly didn’t have much to say afterwards.
Oscillate between…and…
Vacillate…
Equivocated
Prevaricate
Sex Talk – Part Two
1) Jesus came to show us the Father; John1:18
2) Grace First, Truth Second; John 1:24:25; 16-18
Pahn4 mohng6 (hope)
Do you believe that Jesus can heal you? Then lay hands.
Dale and I are men who have shared similar struggles. His testimony is riveting.
Suddenly, I realized that this rally is, in fact, a continuation of yesterday morning’s sex talk, because we ended the previous rally praying more against the shame of abortion than against personal sexual immorality. Notionally, what is being discussed will enable people to really experience the love of the Father such that to change permanently our behavior. So when we are tempted:
1) Call for help; Romans 10:13
2) Escape Plan; 1Corinthians 10:13
Remember not to stand and rebuke the enemy with your own strength; move physically from the situation.
3) Run Away; 2Timothy 2:22
4) Into the Father’s Arms; Hebrews 4:14
I like this talk. This might be the first time that these young people get straight sex talk from their leaders; and there is no better time than now for these young people to break through in this particular area of struggle, just as the young men of SP broke through these obstinate barriers during our men’s retreat.
5) Confess and be Healed; James 5:16
I hope these young people find faithful accountability brothers and sisters in this service.
6) Walk in Transparent Accountable Relationships; 1John 1:7
7) Resist the Enemy; James 4:7
"My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I beg pardon for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.”
Today, 13 October 2017, is the 100th anniversary of the 6th apparition of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima. On this day in 1917, Mary exhorted us to pray the Rosary every day, to repent of our sins and make amends for our sins which offend God, and there took place the 'Miracle of the Sun' seen by some 70,000 people.
In London's Rosary Shrine church, we prayed the Rosary, said the prayers taught to the children at Fatima, and sang in praise of Jesus and Mary.
Oil on board; 32.8 x 40.8 cm.
Russian painter and printmaker, active in Germany. When he was ten, his family moved to Moscow. Following family tradition, he was originally educated for a military career, attending cadet school, and, later, the Alexander Military School in Moscow. However, while still a cadet, he became interested in painting. At the age of 16, he visited the Moscow World Exposition, which had a profound influence on him. He subsequently spent all of his leisure time at the Tret’yakov State Gallery, Moscow. In 1884 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Samogita Infantry–Grenadier’s Regiment, based in Moscow. In 1889 he transferred to a regiment in St Petersburg, and later enrolled in the Academy of Art (1889–96), where he was a student of Il’ya Repin. Indeed his works of this period reflected some of the conventions of Realism (e.g. W. W. Mathé Working, 1892; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Seeking to escape the limitations on expression exhorted by the Russian art establishment, in 1896 Jawlensky and his colleagues Igor Grabar, Dmitry Kardovsky and marianne Werefkin moved to Munich to study with Anton Ažbe. Here he made the acquaintance of another expatriate Russian artist, Vasily Kandinsky. In Munich Jawlensky began his lasting experimentation in the combination of colour, line, and form to express his innermost self (e.g. Hyacinth, c. 1902; Munich, Lenbachhaus).
In the early years of the 20th century, backed by the considerable wealth of his companion Werefkin, Jawlensky spent his summers travelling throughout Europe, including France, where his works were exhibited in Paris with the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne of 1905. Travelling exposed him to a diverse range of artists, techniques, and artistic theories during a formative stage in his own career as a painter. His work, initially characterized by simplified forms, flat areas of colour and heavy black outlines, was in many ways a synthesis of the myriad influences to which he was exposed. As well as the influence of Russian icons and folk art, Ažbe imparted a sense of the importance of line and colour. In Paris, Jawlensky became familiar with the works of Vincent van Gogh, and some of his paintings reflect elements of van Gogh’s technique and approach to his subject-matter (e.g. Village in Bayern (Wasserburg), 1907; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In particular his symbolic and expressive use of bright colour was more characteristic of van Gogh and Paul Gauguin than of the German Expressionists, with whom he had the greatest contact. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Sérusier. Together, Verkade and Sérusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. The Theosophy and mysticism of the Nabis, with their emphasis on the importance of the soul, struck a responsive chord in Jawlensky, who sought in his art to mirror his own inner being. The combination of technique and spirituality characteristic of these movements, when linked to Jawlensky’s own experience and emerging style, resulted in a period of enormous creativity and productivity.
Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion Gabriele Münter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings (e.g. Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau, 1908–9; Munich, Lenbachhaus), they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. In 1909 they helped to found the Neue künstlervereinigung münchen (NKVM). After a break-away group formed the Blaue Reiter in 1911, Jawlensky remained in the NKVM until 1912, when works by him were shown at the Blaue Reiter exhibitions. During this period he made a vital contribution to the development of Expressionism. In addition to his landscapes of this period, Jawlensky also produced many portraits. Like all of his work, his treatment of the human face and figure varied over time. In the years preceding World War I, for example, Jawlensky produced portraits of figures dressed colourfully (e.g. Schokko with a Wide-brimmed Hat, 1910) or even exotically (e.g. Barbarian Princess, 1912; Hagen, Osthaus Mus.). However, following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits. He often stripped from his art the distraction of brightly coloured apparel to emphasize the individual depicted and the artist’s own underlying state of mind (e.g. Head of a Woman, 1912; Berlin, Alte N.G.).
This dynamic period in Jawlensky’s life and art was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Expelled from Germany in 1914, he moved to Switzerland. Here he began Variations, a cycle of landscape paintings of the view from his window at isolated St Prex on Lake Geneva. The works in this series became increasingly abstract and were continued long after he had left St Prex (e.g. Variation, 1916; and Variation No. 84, 1921; both Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In ill-health he spent the end of the war in Ascona. While in St Prex, Jawlensky had first met Galka Scheyer, a young art student who was captivated by his works. Scheyer’s expressions of admiration and support reinvigorated Jawlensky’s art and (with less success) his finances, first by embracing his theoretical and stylistic tenets, and later by promoting his work in Europe and the USA.
After a hiatus in experimentation with the human form, Jawlensky produced perhaps his best-known series, the Mystical Heads (1917–19), and the Saviour’s Faces (1918–20), which are reminiscent of the traditional Russian Orthodox icons of his childhood. In these works he attempted to further reduce conventional portraiture to abstract line, form and, especially, colour (e.g. Head of a Girl, 1918; Ascona, Mus. Com. A. Mod.; and Christ, 1920; Long Beach, CA, Mus. A.). In 1921 he began another cycle in the same vein, his Abstract (sometimes called Constructivist) Heads (1921–35), for example Abstract Head: Red Light (1930; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). His graphic art also included highly simplified, almost geometric heads, such as the lithograph Head II (1921–2; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden).
In 1922, after marrying Werefkin’s former maid Hélène Nesnakomoff, the mother of his only son, Andreas, born before their marriage, Jawlensky took up residence in Wiesbaden. In 1924 he organized the Blue four, whose works, thanks to Scheyer’s tireless promotion, were jointly exhibited in Germany and the USA. From 1929 Jawlensky suffered from a crippling arthritis that severely limited his creative activity. During this final period of his life he endured not only poor health and near poverty but the threat of official persecution as well. In 1933 the Nazis forbade the display of his ‘degenerate’ works. Nevertheless he continued his series of increasingly abstract faces, producing more than 1000 works in the Meditations series (1934–7), which included examples of abstract landscapes and still-lifes, as well as portraits. These series represented further variations on the face broken down into its component parts, using geometric shapes, line and colour to convey the mood of the painting and, hence, that of the painter himself. Jawlensky’s state of mind is vividly reflected in these works, as he adopted an increasingly dark, brooding palette (e.g. Large Meditation III, No. 16, 1937; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). By 1937, when his physical condition forced him to cease painting altogether, these faces had been deconstructed to their most basic form: a cross forming the expressive brow, nose and mouth of the subject, on a richly coloured background (e.g. Meditation, 1937; Zurich, Ksthaus). No longer able to use art as a means of conveying his innermost self, Jawlensky began to dictate his memoirs in 1938.
Edward Kasinec, From Grove Art Online
Someone takes a rest in Greenwich Park on the last day of a long summer heat wave. You'll notice how the ground has been savaged by weeks of extreme heat and drought.
Greenwich Park is just a short bus ride from where I live in London. It was not just the bleached grass that was shocking - many of the trees were already losing their leaves and younger trees looked seriously stressed. London and much of Europe have seen many weeks of extreme heat and drought.
The mainstream media reprimands individuals for wasting water, justifiably exhorting us to limit our showers, but all the while ignoring the highly profitable water companies which fail to invest in infrastructure, reservoirs or leakage prevention. The media also overlooks the devastating impact of large scale agribusiness, particularly livestock farming, which places an increasingly unsustainable demand on the planet's scarce water resources, as well as further inflating emissions and driving deforestation.
Meanwhile, corporate greed is accelerating the consumption of fossil fuels and water and turbocharging climate change. We need rain. We need more regulation. More action. We need to get to net zero asap and water management should not be in private hands. Water companies are siphoning off enormous profits from a vital public utility and failing to invest anything like what is needed.
The head of Thames Water (the same company which dumped raw sewage into rivers over 5000 times in 2021) is set to pocket £3 million as a 'golden hello' for signing on as CEO ,while in total the UK's water companies have handed an average of around £2 billion every year to their shareholders in dividends since they were privatised. If they were nationalised, those profits could instead have been invested to upgrade the infrastructure and mitigate the impact of climate change and have even provided extra funds to promote sustainable alternative energy sources.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/20/thames-water-...
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-priva...
As Caroline Lucas writes in the Guardian (12.08.22) - ' (Drought) is a consequence of years of inaction on the climate emergency. This is producing a perfect storm of energy insecurity, food supply chaos and extreme weather that is wreaking havoc on society.'
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/12/drought-uk-...
Catalogue reference: INF 3/404
POSTERS: Women for Industry: 'Come on, women - man the factories.....' (Woman worker exhorting at factory bench)
This image is part of the collection from the Ministry of Information held at The National Archives.
For high quality reproductions of any item from our collection please contact our image library
Achilles and Ajax playing a board game in the presence of Athena.
- The Berliner Amphora
The two warriors sit on stools and bend over a block-like gaming table. The player on the left, with his open right hand, seems to be inviting his opponent to move; the player on the right, bending his index finger, stretches one hand out towards the game table, and, hesitantly, holds his hand over the game. Both have put down their Boeotian shields decorated with a satyr mask; their helmets are placed within reach. They wear a metal breastplate and greaves, and have sword and two lances with them. Both have a myrtle wreath, the one on the left with flowers, the one on the right with berries. The two players exhibit red incised beards and mustaches.
Athena is standing in front of the gaming table between the players, raising her left hand and holding a spear in her right one. She turns her head to the player on the left. The aegis is hidden by her cloak hanging down from her shoulders. The goddess’ skin is white; incised crosses decorate her peplos and aegis; the cloak is rendered with vertical strips. A high crested helmet decorated by white dots covers Athena’s head.
- The Context
According to the detailed surveys, there are more than 150 vases depicting the well-known image of Ajax and Achilles playing a board. These vases have been dated to the sixth and fifth centuries BC. In some cases the two warriors are explicitly identified as Ajax and Achilles on the basis of inscriptions. Sometimes even the number of their throws on the game board is also labeled. Furthermore, many of the pieces of pottery adorned with this motif show the presence of the goddess Athena. The goddess is depicted facing the viewer standing between the players, holding her spear in one hand, while making a gesture as if speaking with the other one, and looking rather sternly at Achilles. Exekias, see his Vatican black-figured amphora, is assumed to be the first artist who depicted the motif of playing a board game.
These scenes cannot be understood as detached from a tradition of narrative in an epic context. The recurrent element in all these vases is the board game, which, in the mythical tradition, was an invention of Palamedes, a hero absent from the Homeric poems but important in the epic cycle, especially in the Cypria, if not in a Palamedia. In the resume of the Cypria made by Proclus, the death of Palamedes is immediately followed by the rage of Achilles and his decision not to fight any more in the war against the Trojan. Because of its brevity, the shorthand offered by Proclus does not draw any link between Palamedes’ death and the rage of Achilles apart from the juxtaposition of the two facts, there being no reference to the cause of Achilles’ rage in any way.
The tragic poets and sophists describe Palamides as a sage among the Greeks, and as a poet; he is said to have invented light-houses, measures, scales, discus, dice, the alphabet, and the art of regulating sentinels. Palamides’ genius and skill created envy and jealousies among the other Greek heroes, and, according to the survived literary fonts, they were the main cause of his death. In particular, Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus, envious of his fame, caused a captive Phrygian to write to Palamedes a letter in the name of Priam, and then induced by bribes a servant of Palamedes to conceal the letter under his master's bed. Hereupon they accused Palamedes of treachery; they searched his tent, and as they found the letter which they themselves had dictated, they caused him to be stoned to death. According to some traditions, it was Odysseus alone who hated and persecuted Palamedes. The manner of Palamedes' death is likewise related differently: some say that Odysseus and Diomedes induced him to descend into a well, where they pretended they had discovered a treasure, and, as he was below, they cast stones upon him, and killed him (Diet. Cret. II. 15) ; others state that he was drowned by them whilst fishing (Paus. X. 31. § 1); according to Dares Phrygius (28) he was killed by Paris with an arrow. The story of Palamedes, which is not mentioned by Homer, seems to have been first related in the Cypria, and was afterwards developed by the tragic poets, especially Euripides, and lastly by the sophists, who liked to look upon Palamedes as their model.
The causal bond between Achilles and Ajax is actually made explicit by Philostratus in his “Heroicus”, where an authorized informant of the Trojan events states that not only Achilles but also Ajax reacted angrily against Palamedes’ death by breaking up with the Achaeans and refusing to continue fighting. Philostratus’ remarks about the cause of Achilles’ (and Ajax’s) rage seem to echo the versions of epic, tragedy and the early sophists. If both Ajax and Achilles cut off their participation in the war because of their close friendship with Palamedes and as a protest against his death, the image of both heroes leaning over the board game invented by Palamedes, while their comrades-in-arms keep on fighting against the Trojans, would then be an appealing reference to these popular heroes and to their well-known myth.
The vascular painters depict Athena never looking at Ajax but at Achilles, in what seems to be a rather furious or exhortative gesture to prevent Achilles from allying with a victim of his patroness’s ploys and to make him join in the war against her most hated enemies, the Trojans.
Source: Romero Mariscal L., “Ajax and Anchilles playing a board game: revisited from the literary tradition”
CAV / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Attic black-figure amphora
H. 59,0 cm.; Dm. 37.3 cm.; foot Dm. 21.0 cm.
Attributed to “Chiusi Painter” by Beazley
520 – 510 BC
Berlin, Altes Museum, Inv. No. 1962.28
once again today, my human has decided that it is time for us to go home. I wish to ignore all thoughts of this home of which she speaks. I wish to slowly walk about the park with my nose on the ground sniffing, and to stop every 5 steps to make sure that other dogs know I have noticed their passage. My human torments me by exhorting me to walk. I am walking. I wish to ignore her and continue sniffing the delicious scents of wet earth and other luscious stenches. If only she would slow down and smell the roses, and what my nose tells me has been here before, she too would stop every 5 steps and we could simply grow old together, here in the park.
To my non-doggy friends, thanks for stopping by, commenting and faving! Also, I am sorry but I have been very offline for the last week or so, so I need to catch up with everyone's photos!
In the Second World War on the Home Front in the United Kingdom, there was a killer that took a toll on the civilian population - but it wasn't bombing.
It was the blackout, which caused more deaths and injuries than enemy action as people were involved in accidents caused by the very difficult driving conditions. Road vehicles were made to carry heavily-masked lights to conceal them from aircraft flying above, but the resulting effect was that it was virtually impossible to see in the dark and accidents were all too frequent.
There were frequent road safety promotional campaigns all over the country including in Manchester, where we can see tram number 1029 promoting a safety exhibition covering civilian safety at home, at work and not least on the roads. 1026 would have toured the city's tram routes, and it looks as though the 'tannoy' upstairs would have been used to exhort passers-by to be safe and to visit the exhibition at Manchester Central Library. No doubt the tone of the announcements was somewhere between 'irritating' and 'patronising'!
We are not sure exactly when the photo was taken but we're going to guess at 1942, as that would make 15 May a Friday and 24 May a Sunday.
If you'd like to know more about the Museum of Transport Greater Manchester and its collection of vintage buses, go to www.gmts.co.uk.
© Greater Manchester Transport Society. All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction is strictly prohibited and may result in action being taken to protect the intellectual property interests of the Society.
Osiris Toe Tip and Nail End Freshly Fallen from Isis’s Collection in Glasgow on a trip to a Parking Meter and Back NEVER ask please without recourse to an endless Stellar Shimmering Summer Night from Dusk to Dawn and Some Startling Stark Hours of Winter Solstice Celebration of Dawn to Dusk in a Cromlech, please unless as stipulated it is less traumatic to never ask.
There is an overdose of 11 pictures presented here. Few will see them all and fewer still read this description humbly exhorting you to see some pictures from each of the differing sections as detailed thusly,
2 Distinct Groupings distinctly discovery finely found to be 11 in Total.
5 Toe Pix, 1 in Much Millennia#d Mould-O-visioN.
6 Prettier Pix for your Perceptive Peepers Relief after Toe Trauma.
Of which 6 there being 4 Flowering Formations above The Toe and 2 Perfumery Pictorial Pix revealing the tiny magical elixir that may have triggered The Toe interaction so acting as below images in timeline and in causely effect.
These are not my usual sort of out spurting, well I think not and then I remember that there is some yes to answer along with the no and so also I state that these feature nicely in with some of my edited extravagances.
This both a normal day and as well at the same time not the normal that seems a life away til it returns.
© PHH Sykes 2025
phhsykes@gmail.com
From 1900 till 1947, for almost half a century the famous Bradlaugh Hall of Lahore situated on the Rettigan road, remained a symbol of Revolution for the entire British India. Charles Bradlaugh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Ajeet Singh, Bhagat Singh, and Jawaharlal Nehru all towering figures of their times have been associated with this hall. What should have been preserved as the museum of political revolution in Lahore lies in shambles near the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences today. There is a huge lock on the entrance of the hall placed there by The Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB). The gloomier aspect is that not many people of the city today are aware of the political, cultural and social significance of the Bradlaugh Hall. There are a few people who are actually aware of its existence.
Rettigan road in the late 19th century was occupied by massive British bungalows. This was the elite section of the town. Charles Bradlaugh, an English Parliamentarian, advocate of Indian freedom from the British yoke, bought a piece of land here. Bradlaugh unlike his fellow British conservatives belonged to a different school of thought. He was one of the most famous atheists of his time who refused to take the oath on Bible when elected in the Parliament. He was also one of those Parliamentarians who advocated that the Indian people should be allowed to choose their own fate; in the Parliament. His resolution was accepted.
In Lahore, he had earlier purchased this vast tract of land; however no hall had been constructed so far. The British Government could not appreciate his sympathy for the Indians so they initially took the contract of laying down railway tracks from him and then ordered him to leave Indian land immediately. He bought a boat, stocked food and anchored the boat on the bank of Ravi. His contestation was that since he was not on Indian ‘land’ therefore he was not disobeying the State. He was later forced to leave. In England he gathered together members of the civil society and the labor class to advocate for the cause of Indian freedom.
Surinder Nath Banarjee in 1900 after the departure of Charles Bradlaugh inaugurated this hall. He was a member of the Indian National Association which was incorporated into Congress later. From 1898-1905 he remained the President of the Indian National Congress.
Perhaps the greatest contribution to this hall came from Lala Lajpat Rai. He was born on the 28th of January 1865 in Ferozpur to Ghulab Devi. Ghulab Devi Hospital on the Ferozpur road is named after her. He joined the Government College Lahore in 1880 from where he got a degree in Law. As part of Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement he founded the National College inside this Hall to impart quality education to Indians, who did not want to join British institutions. In 1928 when the Nationalists boycotted the Simon Commission there were speeches organized here against it hosted by Lala Lajpat Rai, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, and Syed Atta ullah Shah Bukhari. The National College takes us directly to Bhagat Singh and his comrades. In 1922 he joined this college where he met Sukhdev and Yashpal his future compatriots. He remained here till 1926 and his political bearings were marked by his stay here. During that juncture and even after that many plays and other cultural activists were organized here with the focus on freedom of India. Another comrade of the Naujawan Bharat Swabha Bhagat Singh’s party Shareef Mateen, an inhabitant of Lahore remained in refuge here during the case against Bhagat Singh. He was present here with party members, the parents and brother of Bhagat Singh. During the trial his parents used to sit outside the hall on a charpoy and people passing by used to acknowledge them. The British Government established a Police check-post nearby to monitor the activities of the refuge.
Bhagat Singh was brought to this college by his Uncle Ajeet Singh a prominent figure of the Gaddar Movement. In the first half of the 20th Century political activists from the Gaddar Movement, Kissan Tehrikh and Pagadi Sambhal Jutta found refuge here. In the 1920 the famous Mohan Roy founder of the All India Communist Party and member of the International Communist Manifesto gave a memorable speech here, exhorting people to stand up for their rights and fight the British Imperialism. Inder Kumar Gujral a freedom fighter and former Prime Minister of India mentions of this hall in the most reminiscing tone. He says that this is where his political journey began from, where they formed their first Student Union. They heard the revolutionary speeches of Jawaharlal Nehru and poetry of Josh Miliabadi here for the first time. They also heard here Haran Mukherjee, Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Mian Ifthikharuddin and Dr. Saifuddin Kachlo.
When the first film studio in Lahore was setup in 1933 it was organized in fields next to the Bradlaugh Hall property of the Hall.
It is a pity that a Hall, which remained so close to the Independence of British India and a center of cultural activity for half a century, saw a complete turn of fate after the creation of Pakistan. For a little time after 1947 it was used to store food stuff after which till 1980s, it served as a steel mill. It reopened as a technical education centre, the Milli Technical Education Institute however because of a dispute between the Directors; one of them took possession of the Hall and rented it out to private academies. Finally the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) took possession of the Hall claiming to be the legal owners of the property and since 2009 it has been closed. Now it is a sanctuary for criminal activities.
It is high time that the government realizes the political and cultural significance of the Bradlaugh Hall and conserves it as a museum of Revolution. Portraits or sculptors of the various important personalities who have been related to the Hall can be put up and a short history of the movements that have sprang up from here or that have remained in focus here can be put on the walls with pictures from the movement. The Hall can be open to general public. If steps are taken in this direction the significance of this Hall would be reestablished and the waning interest of our people in the history and culture of our land can be
The one and only, like everybody should be!
I’m always so surprised by standardization …that I see everywhere… the lack of style…
So I wanna exhort you, style!
That could sound a bit dandy… but: burn fashion magazines!
The real fashion is the oneness...
Of course I do not talk about shots, luckily here I find a lot of fantasy…
No rules in a shot where there’s our pov…so let’s put it everywhere...
Do I sound like a preacher?
Maybe a I could say a mass!!
LOL!
Have a precious day!
www.meucat.com/maps/mapa_satelite.php?COD=roma&NOME=P...
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Following, a text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or "Fountain of the Four Rivers" is a fountain in Rome, Italy, located in the Piazza Navona. Designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini, it is emblematic of the dynamic and dramatic effects sought by High Baroque artists. It was erected in 1651 in front of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, and yards from the Pamphilj Palace belonging to this fountain's patron, Innocent X (1644-1655).
The four gods on the corners of the fountain represent the four major rivers of the world known at the time: the Nile, Danube, Ganges, and Plate. The design of each god figure has symbolic importance.
Design
Bernini's design was selected in competition. The circumstances of his victory are described as follows:
So strong was the sinister influence of the rivals of Bernini on the mind of Innocent that when he planned to set up in Piazza Navona the great obelisk brought to Rome by the Emperor Caracalla, which had been buried for a long time at Capo di Bove for the adornment of a magnificent fountain, the Pope had designs made by the leading architects of Rome without an order for one to Bernini. Prince Niccolò Ludovisi, whose wife was niece to the pope, persuaded Bernini to prepare a model, and arrange for it to be secretly installed in a room in the Palazzo Pamphili that the Pope had to pass. When the meal was finished, seeing such a noble creation, he stopped almost in ecstasy. Being prince of the keenest judgment and the loftiest ideas, after admiring it, said: “This is a trick … It will be necessary to employ Bernini in spite of those who do not wish it, for he who desires not to use Bernini’s designs, must take care not to see them.”
Paraphrase from Filippo Baldinucci, The life of Cavaliere Bernini (1682)
Public fountains in Rome served multiple purposes: first, they were highly needed sources of water for neighbors in the centuries prior to home plumbing. Second, they were monuments to the papal patrons. Earlier Bernini fountains had been the Fountain of the Triton in Piazza Barberini, the fountain of the Moor in the southern end of Piazza Navona erected during the Barberini papacy, and the Neptune and Triton for Villa Montalto, whose statuary now resides at Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Each has animals and plants that further carry forth the identification, and each carries a certain number of allegories and metaphors with it. The Ganges carries a long oar, representing the river's navigability. The Nile's head is draped with a loose piece of cloth, meaning that no one at that time knew exactly where the Nile's source was. The Danube touches the Papal coat of arms, since it is the large river closest to Rome. And the Río de la Plata is sitting on a pile of coins, a symbol of the riches America could offer to Europe (the word plata means silver in Spanish). Also, the Río de la Plata looks scared by a snake, showing rich men's fear that their money could be stolen. Each is a river god, semi-prostrate, in awe of the central tower, epitomized by the slender Egyptian obelisk (built for the Roman Serapeum in AD 81), symbolizing by Papal power surmounted by the Pamphili symbol (dove). In addition, the fountain is a theater in the round, a spectacle of action, that can be strolled around. Water flows and splashes from a jagged and pierced mountainous disorder of travertine marble. A legend, common with tour-guides, is that Bernini positioned the cowering Rio de la Plata River as if the sculpture was fearing the facade of the church of Sant'Agnese by his rival Borromini could crumble against him; in fact, the fountain was completed several years before Borromini began work on the church.
The dynamic fusion of architecture and sculpture made this fountain revolutionary when compared to prior Roman projects, such as the stilted designs Acqua Felice and Paola by Fontana in Piazza San Bernardo (1585-87) or the customary embellished geometric floral-shaped basin below a jet of water such as the Fontanina in Piazza Campitelli (1589) by Giacomo della Porta.
Unveiling
he Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was unveiled to the populace of Rome on 12 June 1651. According to a report from the time, an event was organised to draw people to the Piazza Navona. Beforehand, wooden scaffolding, overlaid with curtains, had hidden the fountain, though probably not the obelisk, which would have given people an idea that something was being built, but the precise details were unknown. Once unveiled, the full majesty of the fountain would be apparent, which the celebrations were designed to advertise. The festival was paid for by the Pamphili family, to be specific, Innocent X, who had sponsored the erection of the fountain. The most conspicuous item on the Pamphili crest, an olive branch, was brandished by the performers who took part in the event.
The author of the report, Antonio Bernal, takes his readers through the hours leading up to the unveiling. The celebrations were announced by a woman, dressed as the allegorical character of Fame, being paraded around the streets of Rome on a carriage or float. She was sumptuously dressed, with wings attached to her back and a long trumpet in her hand. Bernal notes that "she went gracefully through all the streets and all the districts that are found among the seven hills of Rome, often blowing the round bronze [the trumpet], and urging everyone to make their way to that famous Piazza." A second carriage followed her; this time another woman was dressed as the allegorical figure of Curiosity. According to the report, she continued exhorting the people to go towards the piazza. Bernal describes the clamour and noise of the people as they discussed the upcoming event.
The report is actually less detailed about the process of publicly unveiling the fountain. However, it does give ample descriptions of the responses of the spectators who had gathered in the Piazza. Once there, Bernal notes, the citizens of the city were overwhelmed by the massive fountain, with its huge life-like figures. The report mentions the "enraptured souls" of the population, the fountain, which "gushes out a wealth of silvery treasures" causing "no little wonder" in the onlookers. Bernal then continues to describe the fountain, making continuous reference to the seeming naturalism of the figures and its astonishing effect on those in the piazza.
The making of the fountain was met by opposition by the people of Rome for several reasons. First, Innocent X had the fountain built at public expense during the intense famine of 1646-48. Throughout the construction of the fountain, the city murmurred and talk of riot was in the air. Pasquinade writers protested the construction of the fountain in September 1648 by attaching hand-written invectives on the stone blocks used to make the obelisk. These pasquinades read, "We do not want Obelisks and Fountains, It is bread that we want. Bread, Bread, Bread!" Innocent quickly had the authors arrested, and disguised spies patrol the Pasquino statue and Piazza Navona
The streetvendors of the market also opposed the construction of the fountain, as Innocent X expelled them from the piazza. The Pamphilij pope believed they detracted from the magnificence of the square. The vendors refused to move, and the papal police had to chase them from the piazza. Roman Jews, in particular, lamented the closing of the Navona, since they were allowed to sell used articles of clothing there at the Wednesday market.
Navona Square (Piazza Navona).
Following, a text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in first century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium.[1] The ancient Romans came there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as 'Circus Agonalis' (competition arena). It is believed that over time the name changed to 'in agone' to 'navone' and eventually to 'navona'.
Defined as a public space in the last years of 15th century, when the city market was transferred to it from the Campidoglio, the Piazza Navona is a significant example of Baroque Roman architecture and art. It features sculptural and architectural creations: in the center stands the famous Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone by Francesco Borromini and Girolamo Rainaldi; and the Pamphilj palace also by Rainaldi and which features the gallery frescoed by Pietro da Cortona.
The Piazza Navona has two additional fountains: at the southern end is the Fontana del Moro with a basin and four Tritons sculpted by Giacomo della Porta (1575) to which, in 1673, Bernini added a statue of a Moor, or African, wrestling with a dolphin, and at the northern end is the Fountain of Neptune (1574) created by Giacomo della Porta. The statue of Neptune in the northern fountain, the work of Antonio Della Bitta, was added in 1878 to make that fountain more symmetrical with La Fontana del Moro in the south.
At the southwest end of the piazza is the ancient 'speaking' statue of Pasquino. Erected in 1501, Romans could leave lampoons or derogatory social commentary attached to the statue.
During its history, the piazza has hosted theatrical events and other ephemeral activities. From 1652 until 1866, when the festival was suppressed, it was flooded on every Saturday and Sunday in August in elaborate celebrations of the Pamphilj family. The pavement level was raised in the 19th century and the market was moved again in 1869 to the nearby Campo de' Fiori. A Christmas market is held in the piazza.
Other monuments on the Piazza Navona are:
Stabilimenti Spagnoli
Palazzo de Cupis
Palazzo Torres Massimo Lancellotti
Church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore
Palazzo Braschi (Museo di Roma)
Sant'Agnese in Agone
Literature and films
The piazza is featured in Dan Brown's 2000 thriller Angels and Demons, in which the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi "The Fountain of the four rivers"(the Danube, the Gange, the Nile and the River Plate) is listed as one of the Altars of Science. During June 2008, Ron Howard directed several scenes of the film adaptation of Angels and Demons on the southern section of the Piazza Navona, featuring Tom Hanks.
The piazza is featured in several scenes of director Mike Nichols' 1970 adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22.
The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was used in the 1990 film Coins in the Fountain. The characters threw coins into the fountain as they made wishes. The Trevi Fountain was used in the 1954 version of the film.
A Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi, é maior das três fontes, localizada no centro da praça. Na fonte dos rios, Bernini projetou quatro estátuas representando os rios dos quatro continentes: o Nilo, o Danúbio, o rio da Prata e o Ganges. As estátuas estão montadas sobre um obelisco egípcio, sendo circundadas por leões e outros animais fantásticos, tendo no cume uma pomba em bronze, símbolo da paz no mundo e da família Pamphili. Para realçar a rivalidade entre Bernini e Borromini, que fez a igreja de Santa Agnese, os romanos criaram uma lenda em torno da fonte dos rios, que fica em frente a esta igreja. Segundo os romanos, as estátuas duvidam da solidez do projeto de Borromini. A que retrata o rio da Prata, tem a mão erguida, a proteger o corpo do desabamento da igreja; a que retrata o Nilo, traz a cabeça coberta por um véu, a recusar a ver a obra de Borromini.
A seguir um texto, em português, da Wikipédia a Enciclopédia Livre:
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fonte dos Quatro Rios), foi esculpida por Gian Lorenzo Bernini entre 1648 e 1651, artista do barroco italiano, foi concebida por uma ordem do Papa Inocencio X o Papa da familia Pamphili, cujo tinha sua casa nesta praça.
Esta localizada na Praça de Navona, em Roma. Ela representa os quatro principais continentes do mundo cortados por seus principais rios: Rio Nilo, na África; Rio Ganges, na Ásia, Rio da Prata, na América e o Rio Danúbio, na Europa.
A seguir, texto em português do site Wiki lingue:
A escultura da Fonte dos Quatro Rios, encontra-se na Piazza Navona de Roma (Itália) e foi criada e talhada pelo escultor e pintor Gian Lorenzo Bernini em 1651 baixo o papado de Inocencio X, em plena época barroca, durante o período mais prolífico do genial artista e cerca da que em outro tempo fué a Chiesa dei San Giacomo de gli Spagnoli
A fonte compõe-se de uma base formada de uma grande piscina elíptica, coroada em seu centro de uma grande mole de mármol, sobre a qual se eleva um obelisco egípcio de época romana, o obelisco de Domiciano .
As estátuas que compõem a fonte, têm umas dimensões maiores que na realidade e são alegorias dos quatro rios principais da Terra (Nilo, Ganges, Danubio, Rio da Prata), a cada um deles em um dos continentes conhecidos na época. Na fonte a cada um destes rios está representado por um gigante de mármol .
As árvores e as plantas que emergem da água e que se encontram entre as rochas, também estão em uma escala maior que na realidade. Os animais e vegetales, gerados de uma natureza boa e útil, pertencem a espécies grandes e potentes (como o leão, cavalo, cocodrilo, serpente, dragão, etc.). O espectador, girando em torno da fonte, descobre novas formas que dantes estavam escondidas ou cobertas pela massa rocosa. Com esta obra, Bernini quer suscitar admiração em quem olha-a, criando um pequeno universo em movimento a imitação do espaço da realidade natural.
A fonte foi submetida a restauração, um trabalho que se deu por concluído em dezembro de 2008. Constitui um dos palcos finque da novela e o filme Anjos e Demónios, à qual é arrojado um dos cardeais sequestrados, e Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) se lança à água para lhe salvar.
Os animais da fonte
A fonte apresenta figuras de sete animais, além de uma pequena pomba e o emblema dos Pamphili. Para poder observá-las basta com dar uma volta ao redor da fonte. As figuras são: um cavalo, uma serpente de terra (na parte mais alta, cerca do obelisco), uma serpente de mar, um delfín (que funciona também como desagüe), um cocodrilo, um leão e um dragão. Notar também a vegetación esculpida que parece real.
Praça Navona.
A seguir, um texto em português, da Wikipédia a Enciclopédia livre:
A Praça Navona (em italiano: Piazza Navona) é uma das mais célebres praças de Roma. A sua forma assemelha-se à dos antigos estádios da Roma Antiga, seguindo a planificação do Estádio de Domiciano (também denominado entre os italianos de Campomarzio, em virtude da natureza rude e esforçada dos exercícios - manejo de armas - e desportos atléticos que aí se realizavam). Albergaria até 20 mil espectadores sentados nas bancadas. A origem do nome deve-se ao nome pomposo que lhe foi dado ao tempo do Imperador Domiciano (imperador entre 81-96 d.c.): "Circo Agonístico" (do étimo grego Agonia, que significa precisamente - exercício, luta, combate). Actualmente o nome corresponde à corruptela da forma posterior in agone, depois nagone e finalmente navone, que por mero acaso significa também "grande navio" na língua italiana.
As casas que entretanto e com o passar dos anos foram sendo construídas sobre as bancadas, delimitariam e circunscreveriam até à actualidade o tão afamado Circo Agonístico.
A Navona passou de fato a caracterizar-se como praça nos últimos anos do século XV, quando o mercado da cidade foi transferido do Capitólio para aí. Foi remodelada para um estilo monumental por vontade do Papa Inocêncio X, da família Pamphili e é motivo de orgulho da cidade de Roma durante o período barroco. Sofreu intervenções de Gian Lorenzo Bernini (a famosa Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fonte dos Quatro Rios, 1651) ao centro); de Francesco Borromini e Girolamo Gainaldi (a igreja de Sant'Agnese in Agone); e de Pietro de Cortona, que pintou a galeria no Palácio Pamphilj, sede da embaixada do Brasil na Itália desde 1920.
O mercado tradicional voltou a ser transferido em 1869 para o Campo de' Fiori, embora a praça mantenha também um papel fundamental em servir de palco para espectáculos de teatro e corridas de cavalos. A partir de 1652, em todos os Sábados e Domingos de Agosto, a praça tornava-se num lago para celebrar a própria família Pamphili.
A praça dispõe ainda duas outras fontes esculpidas por Giacomo della Porta - a Fontana di Nettuno (1574), na área norte da praça, e a Fontana del Moro (1576), na área sul.
Na extremidade norte da praça, por debaixo dos edifícios, foram postas a descoberto ruínas antiquíssimas, a uma cota muito abaixo da actual, comprovando a primeva utilização daquele imenso terreiro. Outros monumentos com entrada para a praça:
Stabilimenti Spagnoli
Palazzo de Cupis
Palazzo Torres Massimo Lancellotti
Church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore
Curiosidades
Na Piazza Navona, está localizado o Palazzo Pamphilj, propriedade da República Federativa do Brasil, sede da Embaixada Brasileira e da Missão Diplomática do Brasil para a Itália.
En la sacristía de la Seo se encuentra la custodia procesional, que realizó el orfebre Pedro Lamaison (con base en un dibujo de Damián Forment) entre 1537 y 1541 con 218 kilos de plata. El gasto fue pagado por don Hernando de Aragón. En 1623 se añadió un último cuerpo, obra realizada por Claudio Yenequi en 1623, y el basamento y una imagen de Santo Tomás, realizada por Juan Dargallo en 1735, sufragado por el arzobispo Tomás Crespo de Agüero. El conjunto se enmarca dentro del estilo plateresco.
Esta fiesta conmemora la Institución de la Sagrada Eucaristía el Jueves Santo con el fin de tributarle culto público y solemne de adoración, amor y gratitud.
Fue el Papa Urbano IV, quien publicó la bula "Transiturus" el 8 de septiembre de 1264, en la que, una vez ensalzado el amor de nuestro Salvador en la Eucaristía, ordenó que se celebrara la Solemnidad del "Corpus Christie" en el día jueves después del domingo de la Santísima Trinidad, a la vez que otorgaba indulgencias a todos los fieles que asistían.
A la muerte del Papa Urbano IV (2 de octubre de 1264), poco después de la publicación del decreto se difundió la fiesta por el Papa Clemente V, que tomó el asunto en sus manos y en el concilio general de Viena (1311), ordenó una vez más la adopción de esta fiesta. Publicó un nuevo decreto incorporando el de Urbano IV. Juan XXII, sucesor de Clemente V, instó su observancia.
Ninguno de los decretos habla de la procesión con el Santísimo como un aspecto de la celebración. Sin embargo estas procesiones fueron dotadas de indulgencias por los Papas Martín V y Eugenio IV y se hicieron bastante comunes en a partir del siglo XIV.
El Concilio de Trento declara que muy piadosa y religiosamente fue introducida en la Iglesia de Dios la costumbre, que todos los años, determinado día festivo, se celebre esta singular veneración y solemnidad, y reverente y honoríficamente sea llevado en procesión por las calles y lugares públicos, por el que se hace nuevamente presente la victoria y triunfo de la muerte y resurrección de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. Juan Pablo II también exhortó a que se renueve la costumbre de honrar a Jesús en este día llevándolo en solemnes procesiones.
Last night there came again before my soul everything that I had so often seen as a child concerning the life of the ancestors of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I saw it all in a series of pictures just as I did then. If only I could tell it all as I know it and have it before my eyes, it would certainly give great joy to the Pilgrim In my miserable state I was greatly revived by contemplating these pictures. As a child I was so certain of all I saw that if anyone told me any of the stories differently, I would say straight out: ‘No, this is how it is.’ And, indeed, I would have let myself be killed rather than deny that it was thus and not otherwise. Later on, life in the world confused me, and I kept silence. The inner certainty has, however, always remained with me, and last night I once more saw everything even to the smallest details.
When I was a child, my thoughts were always taken up with the Crib and the Child Jesus and with the Mother of God, and I often wondered very much why people told me nothing about the family of the Blessed Virgin. I could not understand at all why so little had been written down about her ancestors and relations. In the great longing which I had, I then received a multitude of visions of the Blessed Virgin’s ancestors. I must have seen them back to the fourth or fifth generation. I saw them always as wonderfully pious and simple people inspired by a quite extraordinary secret longing for the coming of the promised Messiah. I saw them always living amongst other men who, compared to them, seemed to me rough and barbarous. They themselves, I saw, were so quiet, gentle and kindly, that I often said to myself in great anxiety about them: ‘O where can these good people find a refuge, how are they to escape from those rough, wicked men? I will seek them out and will be their servant, I will fly with them into a wood where they can hide themselves; I am sure I shall still be able to find them!’ So clearly did I see them and believe in them, that I was always afraid and full of anxiety about them.
I always saw these people leading a life of great self-denial. I often saw that those among them who were married bound themselves mutually to observe continence for a time; and this gave me much joy, though why this was I could not clearly say. They practiced these separations chiefly when they were occupied with all kinds of religious ceremonies, accompanied by incense and prayers.
From these I perceived that there were priests among them. I often saw them moving from one place to another, leaving large homesteads and retiring to smaller ones, in order to lead their lives undisturbed by wicked people.
They were so devout and so full of longing towards God that I often saw them alone in the field by day, and by night, too, running about and crying to God with such intense desire that, in the hunger of their hearts, they tore open their garments at their breasts, as if God were about to burn Himself into their hearts with the hot rays of the sun, or to quench with the moonlight and starlight their thirst for the fulfillment of the Promise.
I remember pictures like these came to me when, as a child or as a young girl, I was kneeling and praying to God, alone with the flock in the pastures, or at night on the high fields above our farm; or when, in Advent, I walked through the snow at midnight to the Rorate 33 Mass of the Fourth Sunday in Advent. devotions in St. James’s Church at Coesfeld, three-quarters of an hour away from our cottage at Flamske. The evening before, and in the night, too, I prayed much for the poor souls in purgatory. I thought that in their lives they had perhaps not been eager enough for grace; perhaps they had given way to other desires for the creatures and goods of the world, had fallen into many faults, and were now yearning to be released. So I offered up my prayer and my longing to God our Savior for them, trying as it were to pay their debt for them. I got a little benefit, too, for myself, for I knew that the kind Holy Souls, in gratitude to me and because of their constant desire for help by prayers, would wake me at the right time and would not let me oversleep. And so they did; they floated round my bed like little flames, little dim, quiet flames, and woke me just in time for me to be able to offer up my morning prayer for them. Then I sprinkled myself and them with holy water, put on my clothes, and started on my way. I saw the poor little lights accompanying me in a regular procession; and on the way I sang with true heart’s desire: ‘Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.’ And as I sang, I saw here and there, in the wilderness and in the fields, the beloved ancestors of Our Blessed Lady running about and crying for the Messiah; and I did as they did, and came to Coesfeld always in time for the Rorate 44 Mass of the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Mass, even when the Holy Souls led me, as they sometimes did, a very long way round past all the Stations of the Cross.
Now, in my visions of these beloved ancestors of the Blessed Virgin praying so hard in their hunger for God, they seemed to me strange indeed in their dress and in their way of living, and yet so near and so clear to me, that I still know and have before my eyes all their features and figures. And I kept asking myself: ‘What manner of people are these? Everything is different from nowadays, yet there these people are, and all that I see has really happened!’ And so I always used to hope that I might go to them.
In all they did and in all they said and in their religious services, these good people were very decided and exact; and they made no lamentations except over the sufferings of their neighbors.
THE ANCESTORS OF ST. ANNE -ESSENES
I had a detailed vision of the ancestors of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. They lived at Mara in the region of Mount Horeb, and were connected spiritually with a kind of very devout Israelites of whom I have seen a great deal. I will relate as much as I can recall about them. I was with these people almost the whole of yesterday, and if I had not been oppressed by so many visits, I should not have forgotten nearly all of what I saw.
These devout Israelites who were connected with the ancestors of St. Anne were called Essenes or Essaees. They have, however, changed their name three times, for they were first called Eskarenes, then Chasidaees, and finally Essenes. Their first name, Eskarenes, came from the word Eskara or Azkara, which is the name for the part of the sacrifice belonging to God
and also for the sweet-smelling incense at the offering of wheaten flour.The second name, Chasidaees, means merciful. 77 Hasid (pl. Hasidim), originally meaning ‘merciful’ (of God), came to mean ‘devout’ of men, and was later in Maccabean times used to designate a specific group of devout and observant Jews who joined the Maccabean party in their fight for freedom ( I Macc.2.42). These Hasideans (Gk. Asidaioi), as they were then called, are generally believed to be the forerunners of the Pharisees (cf. Lagrange, Le Judaisme avant Jesus-Christ, 1931, pp. 56, 272), and probably of the Essenes (Bonsirven, Le Judaisme Palestinien, 1935, I, pp. 43, 64), both sects being mentioned by Josephus in Maccabean times ( Ant., XIII, v, 9) . (SB) I cannot remember what the name Essenes comes from. 88 They were called Essenoi by Josephus, Esseni by Pliny, and Essaioi by Philo (and six times by Josephus). The origin of the name is uncertain (cf. Lagrange, op. cit. , p. 320). Their way of life, as described by AC, is for the most part fully attested by the contemporary historian Josephus ( BJ , II, viii. 2-13), as well as by Philo (Quod omnis probus liber sit , 75-88). Pliny’s remarks ( Hist. Nat. , V, 17) attribute to the Essenes an antiquity of ‘thousands of years’. There is no other evidence of an antiquity beyond Maccabean times. (Most texts in Lagrange, op. cit. , pp. 307-17.) Passing references by Josephus are in Ant., XIII, v, 9 and XVIII, i, 5. (SB) The way of life of these devout people is an inheritance from the time of Moses and Aaron and in particular from the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant; but it was not until the period between Isaiah and Jeremiah that their way of life was regularly established. At the beginning there were not many of them; later on, however, their settlements in the Promised Land occupied a space twenty-four hours’ journey long and thirty-six hours’ journey broad. They did not come to the region of the Jordan until later; they lived mostly on the slopes of Mount Horeb and Mount Carmel, the home of Elijah.
In the lifetime of St. Anne’s grandparents, the Essenes had a spiritual head who lived on Mount Horeb. He was an aged prophet called Archos or Arkas.
Their organization was very like that of a religious order. All who wished to enter it had to undergo a year’s tests, and the length of time for which they were accepted was decided by prophetic inspirations from above. The real members of the Order, who lived in a community, did not marry but lived in chastity; but there were others (who had formerly been in the Order or were attached to it) who married and carried out in their families, and with their children and household, something similar in many ways to the traditional discipline of the real Essenes. Their relation ship with these was like that between the lay members of a Catholic Third Order, or Tertiaries, and the professed priests of the Order. In all important matters, especially as to the marriages of their relations, these married Essenes always sought instruction and counsel from the aged prophet on Mount Horeb. St. Anne’s grandparents belonged to this kind of married Essenes.
Later there arose a third kind of Essenes who exaggerated everything and fell into great errors, and I saw that the others would have no dealings with them.
The real Essenes were specially concerned with prophetic matters, and their head on Mount Horeb was often vouchsafed divine revelations in the cave of Elijah respecting the coming of the Messiah. He had knowledge of the family from which the mother of the Messiah was to come, and at the time that he gave prophetic advice to the grandparents of St. Anne in matters of marriage, he saw that the day of the Lord was approaching. He did not, however, know how long the birth of the Savior’s mother might still be prevented or delayed by sin, and so he was always preaching penance, mortification, prayer, and inner sacrifice for this intention—pious exercises of which all Essenes had ever given the example.
Until Isaiah assembled these people together and gave them a more regular organization, they were scattered about the land of Israel, leading lives of piety and intent on mortification They wore their clothes without mending them till they fell off their bodies. They fought particularly against sexual immorality, and often by mutual consent lived in continence for long periods, living in huts far removed from their wives. When they lived together as husband and wife, it was only with the intention of producing a holy offspring which might bring nearer the coming of the Savior. I saw them eating apart from their wives; the wife came to take her meal after the husband had left the table. There were ancestors of St. Anne and of other holy people among these early Essenes.
Jeremiah too was connected with them, and the men called ‘Sons of the Prophet’ came from them. They often lived in the desert and round Mount Horeb and Carmel, and later I saw many of them in Egypt. I also saw that for a time they were driven away from Mount Horeb by war and were reassembled by new leaders. The Maccabees also belonged to them. They had a great devotion to Moses, and possessed a sacred piece of his clothing given by him to Aaron, from whom it had come down to them. This was their most precious relic, and I had a vision of some fifteen of them being killed in defending it. Their prophet leaders had knowledge of the secret mysteries of the Ark of the Covenant.
The real Essenes who lived in chastity were indescribably pure and devout. They adopted children and brought them up to lead a very holy life. To be accepted as a member of the regular Order, a boy had to have reached the age of fourteen. Those who had been already tested had to undergo a year’s novitiate, others two years. They did not carry on any form of trade, but exchanged the produce of their agriculture for whatever else they needed. If one of them had committed a grave sin, he was expelled from among them and excommunicated by their head. This excommunication had the force of that pronounced by Peter against Ananias, who was struck dead by it. Their head knew by prophetic inspiration who had committed sin. I also saw some Essenes undergoing penitential punishment; they were obliged to stand in a stiff robe with their arms extended immovably in sleeves lined with thorns.
Mount Horeb was full of little caves, which formed the cells where they lived. An assembly hall of light wattlework had been built onto the mouth of one of the large caves. Here they came together at eleven o’clock in the morning and ate. Each had a small loaf of bread in front of him with a goblet. The head went from place to place and blessed each one’s bread. After the meal they returned to their separate cells. In this assembly hall there was an altar on which stood little blessed loaves covered up; they were in some way sacred, and were, I think, distributed among the poor.
The Essenes had a great number of doves, which were tame and ate out of their hands. They ate doves, but also used them in their ritual ceremonies. They said something over them and let them fly away. I saw, too, that they released lambs in the desert after saying something over them, as if they were to take their sins on them.
I saw them go three times a year to the Temple in Jerusalem. They had also priests among them whose special duty was the care of the sacred vestments; they cleaned them, contributed money for them, and also made new ones. I saw them engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture, but specially in gardening. Mount Horeb was full of gardens and fruit trees in the spaces between their huts. I saw many of them weaving and plaiting, and also embroidering priests’ vestments. I did not see them producing silk; that came in bundles to be sold to them, and they exchanged other produce for it.
In Jerusalem they had a quarter of their own to live in and a separate place in the Temple as well. The other Jews rather disliked them because of their austerity. I saw, too, that they sent presents to the Temple; for example, great bunches of grapes, carried by two people on a pole. They also sent lambs, but not to be slaughtered; I think they just let them run into a garden. I did not see the real Essenes offering bloody sacrifices in these later times. I saw that before they journeyed to the Temple they made a very rigorous preparation by prayer, fasting, and penance, including even scourgings. If one laden with sins went to the Temple and to the Holy of Holies without having made atonement by penance, he usually died on the spot. If on their journey, or in Jerusalem itself, they found anyone who was ill or in any way helpless, they did not go to the Temple until they had given him all the aid in their power.
I saw that, in general, they employed themselves in healing. They gathered herbs and prepared potions. I saw also that those holy people whom I had seen some time before laying sick folk down on a bed of healing plants were Essenes.I saw, too, that the Essenes healed the sick by the laying on of hands, or by stretching themselves on them with arms extended. I saw them also healing at a distance in a wonderful way, for the sick who could not come themselves sent a representative to whom everything was done as it would have been to the sick person. The time was noted, and the distant sick person was cured at that very hour.
I saw that the Essenes on Horeb had in their caves recesses in the walls where bones, carefully wrapped in cotton and silk, were kept as sacred relics behind gratings. They were bones of prophets who had lived here, and also of the children of Israel who had died near here. There were little pots of green plants standing beside them. The Essenes used to light lamps and pray before the bones in veneration of them.
All the unmarried Essenes who lived together in communities on Mount Horeb and elsewhere observed the greatest cleanliness. They wore long white robes. The head of the Essenes on Horeb wore wonderful priestly vestments during solemn religious services, after the manner of the high priest in Jerusalem, only shorter and not so magnificent. When he prayed and prophesied in the cave of Elijah on Mount Horeb, he always wore these sacred vestments, which consisted of about eight pieces. Amongst them was a very sacred relic, a sort of dalmatic or scapular, covering the breast and shoulders, which Moses had worn next to his body and had given to Aaron, from whom it had later descended to the Essenes. The prophet Archos, their head on Mount Horeb, always wore this dalmatic next his body when he was clothed in all his vestments and was praying for prophetic enlightenment. The lower part of his body was wrapped in a loincloth, while breast and shoulders were covered with this sacred garment, which I will describe as exactly as I can remember.
The Essenes were very austere and frugal in their way of living. They generally ate only fruit, which they often cultivated in their gardens. I saw that Archos usually ate a bitter yellow fruit. About 200 years before Christ’s birth I saw near Jericho a very devout Essene called Chariot.
Archos or Arkas, the old prophet on Mount Horeb, ruled over the Essenes for ninety years. I saw how St. Anne’s grandmother questioned him about her own marriage. It is remarkable that it was always about female children that these prophets made predictions, and that Anna’s ancestors and Anna herself had mostly daughters. It was as if the object of all their devotion and prayers was to obtain from God a blessing on pious mothers from whose descendants the Blessed Virgin, the mother of the Savior Himself, should spring, as well as the families of His precursor and of His servants and disciples.
The place where the head of the Essenes on Mount Horeb prayed and prophesied was the cave where Elijah had dwelt. Many steps led to it up the mountain-side, and one entered the cave through a small cramped opening and down a few steps. The prophet Archos went in alone. For the Essenes this was as if the high priest in the Temple went into the Sanctissimum, for here was their Holy of Holies. Within there were several mysterious holy things, difficult to describe. I will tell what I can remember of them. I saw Anna’s grandmother seeking counsel from the prophet Archos.
Anna’s grandmother came from Mara in the desert, where her family, which belonged to the married Essenes, owned property. Her name sounded to me like Moruni or Emorun. It was
told me that this means something like ‘good mother’ or ‘noble mother’When the time came for her to be married, she had several suitors, and I saw her go to the prophet Archos on Horeb for him to decide whom she was to accept. She went into a separate part of the large assembly hall and spoke to Archos, who was in the hall, through a grating, as if she were making her confession to him. It was Only in this way that women approached the place. I then saw Archos put on his ceremonial vestments, and ascend thus arrayed the many steps to the top of Mount Horeb, where he entered the cave of Elijah by the little door and down the steps. He shut the little door of the cave behind him, and opened a hole in the vaulting dimly illuminating the cave, the interior of which had been carefully hollowed out. Against the wall I saw a little altar carved out of the rock, and noticed, though not quite clearly, several sacred objects on it. On the altar were several pots with low-growing bushes of herbs. They were the herbs which grow as high as the hem of Jesus’ garment know this herb; it grows with us but less vigorously. The plants gave Archos some sort of indication in his prophetic knowledge according to whether they faded or flourished. In the middle between these little bushes of herbs I saw something like a little tree, taller than them, with leaves that looked yellowish and were twisted like snail shells. There seemed to me to be little figures on this tree. I cannot now say for certain whether this tree was living or was artificial, like the Tree of Jesse. [On the next day she said:] On this little tree with the twisted leaves could be seen, as on a tree of Jesse or genealogical table, how soon the coming of the Blessed Virgin was to be expected. It looked to me as if it were living and yet it seemed also to be a receptacle, for I saw that a blossoming branch was kept inside it. I think it was Aaron’s rod, which had once been in the Ark of the Covenant. When Archos prayed in the cave of Elijah for a revelation on the occasion of a marriage among the Blessed Virgin’s ancestors, he took this rod of Aaron into his hand. If the marriage was destined to take its place in the Blessed Virgin’s ancestry, the rod put forth a bud which produced one or more flowers, among which single flowers were sometimes marked with the sign of the elect. Certain buds represented particular ancestors of Anna, and when these came to be married, Archos observed the buds in question and uttered his prophecies according to the manner in which they unfolded.
The Essenes of Mount Horeb had, however, another holy relic in the cave of Elijah; nothing less than a part of the most holy mystery of the Ark of the Covenant which came into their possession when the Ark fell into the hands of enemies. [She spoke here uncertainly of a quarrel and of a schism among the Levites.] This holy thing, concealed in the Ark of the Covenant in the fear of God, was known only to the holiest of the high priests and to a few prophets, but I think that I learnt that it is in some way mentioned in the little-known secret books of the old Jewish thinkers.
It was no longer complete in the new Ark of the Covenant in the Temple as restored by Herod. It was no work of man’s hands, it was a mystery, a most holy secret of the divine blessing on the coming of the Blessed Virgin full of grace, in whom by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost the Word became Flesh and God became Man. Before the Babylonian captivity this holy thing had been whole in the Ark of the Covenant; I now saw part of it here in the possession of the Essenes. It was kept in a chalice of shining brown, which seemed to me to be made of a precious stone. They prophesied, too, with the help of this holy thing, which seemed sometimes to put forth as it were little buds.
Archos, after entering the cave of Elijah, shut the door and knelt down in prayer. He looked up to the opening in the vaulting and threw himself face downwards on the ground. I then saw the prophetic knowledge that was given to him. He saw that from under the heart of Emorun, who was seeking his counsel, there grew as it were a rose tree with three branches, with a rose on each of them. The rose on the second branch was marked with a letter, I think an M. He saw still more. An angel wrote letters on the wall; I saw Archos rise up as if awaking and read these letters. I forget the details. He then went down from the cave, and announced to the maiden who was awaiting his answer that she was to marry and that her sixth suitor was to be her husband. She would bear a child, marked with a sign, who was chosen out as a vessel of election in preparation for the coming of the Savior.
Hereupon Emorun married her sixth suitor, an Essene called Stolanus; he did not come from Mara, and as a result of his marriage and of his wife’s possessions he was given another
name, which I can no longer remember distinctly; it was pronounced in different ways and sounded like Garescha or Sarziri.Stolanus and Emorun had three daughters, called, I remember, Ismeria and Emerentia, and a younger one whose name, I think, was Enue. They did not remain long at Mara, but moved later to Ephron. I saw that their daughters Ismeria and Emerentia both married in accordance with the prophetic counsels of the prophet on Horeb. (I can never understand why I have so often heard that Emerentia was the mother of Anna, for I always saw that it was Ismeria.) I will tell in God’s name what I still have in my mind about these daughters of Stolanus and Emorun. 1616 It is certainly true that the writers who follow tradition generally give Emerentia as the mother of St. Anne; but they give the wife of Stolanus as Emerentia, whereas Catherine Emmerich calls her Emorun. According to tradition, Emerentia, the wife of Stolanus, bore Ismeria, the mother of Elizabeth, and Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin. Yet according to Catherine Emmerich’s account, Anna is the granddaughter, not the daughter, of Stolanus. If this is a mistake of hers, the reason for it may be that the humble visionary has confused her own visions with the account which she had heard from her childhood of the traditional descent of St. Anne. The name Emerentia is perhaps nothing more than the Latinized form of the name (heard by her) of Emorun. But being either ignorant or forgetful of this, and having always heard of the names Emerentia and Ismeria as being traditionally in close association with Stolanus as the nearest relations of Anna before her marriage, she may have described them as daughters of Stolanus. At the same time it was very noticeable that she never confused any of the countless names which came to her ears except in extreme illness and distress. We are, however, inclined to suppose that there must be some error here, for tradition in general mentions St. Elizabeth as being a niece of St. Anne’s, whereas according to Catherine Emmerich’s account Elizabeth is the niece of Anna’s mother, which would seem to make Elizabeth almost older than Anna, who is called a late-born child. Since the writer cannot explain the error which may possibly have crept in, he begs the kind reader to accept it with patience and thus make amends for the writer’s lack of that Christian virtue in his difficult and often interrupted task of compiling an account of these visions. (CB) Emerentia married one Aphras or Ophras, a Levite. Of this marriage was born Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. A second daughter was named Enue like her mother’s sister. At the time of Mary’s birth she was already a widow. There was a third daughter, Rhoda, one of whose daughters was Mara, whom I saw present at the death of the Blessed Virgin.
Ismeria married Eliud. They lived after the manner of the married Essenes in the region of Nazareth. They had inherited from their parents the tradition of discipline and continence in married life. Anna was one of their children. The firstborn of Ismeria and Eliud was a daughter called Sobe. Because this child did not bear the sign of the promise, they were much distressed and again went to the prophet on Mount Horeb to seek counsel. Archos exhorted them to betake themselves to prayer and sacrifice, and promised them consolation. After Sobe’s birth, Ismeria remained barren for some eighteen years. When she again became pregnant by God’s blessing, I saw that Ismeria was given a revelation at night. She saw an angel beside her bed writing a letter on the wall. It seems to me that it was again that letter M. Ismeria told her husband of it; he also had seen it in his sleep, but now, while awake, they both saw the sign on the wall. After three months Ismeria gave birth to St. Anne, who came into the world with that sign upon her body.
In her fifth year Anna was, like the Blessed Virgin, taken to the school in the Temple, where she remained twelve years. She was brought home again in her seventeenth year, to find two children there—her little sister Maraha, who had been born while she was away, and a little son of her elder sister Sobe called Eliud. A year after this Ismeria fell mortally ill. As she lay dying she spoke to all her relations and presented Anna to them as the future mistress of the house. Then she spoke once more with Anna alone, telling her that she was a chosen vessel of grace, that she must marry, and must seek counsel from the prophet on Mount Horeb. Then she died.
Sobe, Anna’s elder sister, was married to Salomo. Besides her son Eliud she had a daughter, Mary Salome, who married Zebedee and was the mother of the apostles James and John. Sobe had a second daughter who was an aunt of the bridegroom of Cana and the mother of three disciples. Eliud, the son of Sobe and Salomo, was the second husband of the widow Maroni of Naim and the father of the boy raised by Jesus from the dead.
Maraha, Anna’s younger sister, was given the homestead in Sephoris when her father Eliud moved to the valley of Zabulon. She married and had a daughter and two sons, Arastaria and Cocharia, who became disciples. Anna had yet a third sister who was very poor and was the wife of a shepherd on Anna’s pastures. She was often in Anna’s house.
Enue, the third daughter of Stolanus, married and lived between Bethlehem and Jericho. One of her descendants was with Jesus.
Anna’s great grandfather was a prophet. Eliud, her father, was of the tribe of Levi; her mother Ismeria was of the tribe of Benjamin. Anna was born at Bethlehem, but afterwards her parents moved to Sephoris, four hours from Nazareth, where they had a house and land. They also owned land in the beautiful valley of Zabulon, one and a half hours from Sephoris and three hours from Nazareth. In the fine season of the year Anna’s father was often with his family in the valley of Zabulon and after his wife’s death he moved there altogether. This led to the connection with the parents of Joachim, whom Anna married. Joachim’s father was called Matthat and was the stepbrother of Jacob (father of St. Joseph) and of Joses. Matthat had settled in the valley of Zabulon.
I saw Anna’s ancestors helping to carry the Ark of the Covenant with great devotion and piety, and I saw also that they received from the holy thing therein rays of light which extended to their descendants, to Anna and the Blessed Virgin. Anna’s parents were rich. This was clear to me because of their possessions; they had many oxen; but they kept nothing for themselves alone, they gave everything to the poor. I saw Anna as a child; she was not particularly beautiful, but yet more so than others. She was far less beautiful than Mary, but remarkably simple and childlike in her piety; I have always seen her like that, whether as girl, mother, or old, old woman. Indeed, whenever I saw a real childlike old peasant woman, it always made me think ‘she is like Anna’. She had several other brothers and sisters, all married, but she did not wish to marry. She was particularly fond of her parents, and though she had at least six suitors, she rejected them all. After taking counsel, like her ancestors with the Essenes, she was directed to marry Joachim, whom she did not yet know, but who sought her in marriage when her father Eliud moved to the valley of Zabulon, the home of Joachim’s father Matthat.
The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepher appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 1 Peter 5:1-4
"Je t'exhorte à ouvrir les yeux.
Es-tu entrainé à ouvrir les yeux?
Les ouvres-tu souvent, toujours bien?
Qu'est-ce que tu regardes quand tu marches dans la ville?"
Le Corbusier
Maison de l'Homme (1963 - 1967)
Centre Le Corbusier
Heidi Weber Museum
Zurich
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent F10 them which are asleep. 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18 Wherefore comfort F11 one another with these words.
FOOTNOTES:
F10: prevent: or, come before, or, anticipate, or, precede
F11: comfort: or, exhort
from the Libellus of Blessed Jordan of Saxony:
"Meanwhile, at Bologna, Master Dominic's pilgrimage on this earth was drawing to a close and he became seriously ill. On his deathbed he summoned twelve of the more prudent brethren and, after exhorting them to be zealous in promoting the Order and persevering in holiness, he warned them against any questionable association with women, especially the young, whose attractions can be a snare for souls not solidly rooted in purity. "Behold," he said, "up to this hour the grace of God has kept my flesh unsullied; yet I confess to not escaping the fault that talks with young women affected my heart more than conversations with those who were older."
What he had he left them as a legacy. "My very dear brothers," he said, "this is what I leave to you as a possession to be held by right of inheritance by you, my children. Have charity, preserve humility, and possess voluntary poverty." . . .
Before his death he also assured his brethren that he would be of more benefit to them after death than in life, for he knew the one to whom he had entrusted the treasure of his labors and fruitful life. As for the rest, he was certain that there was laid up for him a crown of justice which would increase his power to obtain requests the more firmly it rooted him in the Lord's power.
As a result of fever and dysentery, he grew weaker and weaker, until, at last, that pious soul departed from its body and returned to the Lord, Who had given it. In return for a mournful dwelling, he received the eternal consolation of a home in heaven.
He died in the Lord on the sixth day of August in the year of Our Lord, 1221."
This retable painting of the death of St Dominic is in St Dominic's, London, the Rosary Shrine of the Archdiocese.
Russian painter and printmaker, active in Germany. When he was ten, his family moved to Moscow. Following family tradition, he was originally educated for a military career, attending cadet school, and, later, the Alexander Military School in Moscow. However, while still a cadet, he became interested in painting. At the age of 16, he visited the Moscow World Exposition, which had a profound influence on him. He subsequently spent all of his leisure time at the Tret’yakov State Gallery, Moscow. In 1884 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Samogita Infantry–Grenadier’s Regiment, based in Moscow. In 1889 he transferred to a regiment in St Petersburg, and later enrolled in the Academy of Art (1889–96), where he was a student of Il’ya Repin. Indeed his works of this period reflected some of the conventions of Realism (e.g. W. W. Mathé Working, 1892; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Seeking to escape the limitations on expression exhorted by the Russian art establishment, in 1896 Jawlensky and his colleagues Igor Grabar, Dmitry Kardovsky and marianne Werefkin moved to Munich to study with Anton Ažbe. Here he made the acquaintance of another expatriate Russian artist, Vasily Kandinsky. In Munich Jawlensky began his lasting experimentation in the combination of colour, line, and form to express his innermost self (e.g. Hyacinth, c. 1902; Munich, Lenbachhaus).
In the early years of the 20th century, backed by the considerable wealth of his companion Werefkin, Jawlensky spent his summers travelling throughout Europe, including France, where his works were exhibited in Paris with the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne of 1905. Travelling exposed him to a diverse range of artists, techniques, and artistic theories during a formative stage in his own career as a painter. His work, initially characterized by simplified forms, flat areas of colour and heavy black outlines, was in many ways a synthesis of the myriad influences to which he was exposed. As well as the influence of Russian icons and folk art, Ažbe imparted a sense of the importance of line and colour. In Paris, Jawlensky became familiar with the works of Vincent van Gogh, and some of his paintings reflect elements of van Gogh’s technique and approach to his subject-matter (e.g. Village in Bayern (Wasserburg), 1907; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In particular his symbolic and expressive use of bright colour was more characteristic of van Gogh and Paul Gauguin than of the German Expressionists, with whom he had the greatest contact. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Sérusier. Together, Verkade and Sérusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. The Theosophy and mysticism of the Nabis, with their emphasis on the importance of the soul, struck a responsive chord in Jawlensky, who sought in his art to mirror his own inner being. The combination of technique and spirituality characteristic of these movements, when linked to Jawlensky’s own experience and emerging style, resulted in a period of enormous creativity and productivity.
Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion Gabriele Münter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings (e.g. Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau, 1908–9; Munich, Lenbachhaus), they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. In 1909 they helped to found the Neue künstlervereinigung münchen (NKVM). After a break-away group formed the Blaue Reiter in 1911, Jawlensky remained in the NKVM until 1912, when works by him were shown at the Blaue Reiter exhibitions. During this period he made a vital contribution to the development of Expressionism. In addition to his landscapes of this period, Jawlensky also produced many portraits. Like all of his work, his treatment of the human face and figure varied over time. In the years preceding World War I, for example, Jawlensky produced portraits of figures dressed colourfully (e.g. Schokko with a Wide-brimmed Hat, 1910) or even exotically (e.g. Barbarian Princess, 1912; Hagen, Osthaus Mus.). However, following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits. He often stripped from his art the distraction of brightly coloured apparel to emphasize the individual depicted and the artist’s own underlying state of mind (e.g. Head of a Woman, 1912; Berlin, Alte N.G.).
This dynamic period in Jawlensky’s life and art was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Expelled from Germany in 1914, he moved to Switzerland. Here he began Variations, a cycle of landscape paintings of the view from his window at isolated St Prex on Lake Geneva. The works in this series became increasingly abstract and were continued long after he had left St Prex (e.g. Variation, 1916; and Variation No. 84, 1921; both Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In ill-health he spent the end of the war in Ascona. While in St Prex, Jawlensky had first met Galka Scheyer, a young art student who was captivated by his works. Scheyer’s expressions of admiration and support reinvigorated Jawlensky’s art and (with less success) his finances, first by embracing his theoretical and stylistic tenets, and later by promoting his work in Europe and the USA.
After a hiatus in experimentation with the human form, Jawlensky produced perhaps his best-known series, the Mystical Heads (1917–19), and the Saviour’s Faces (1918–20), which are reminiscent of the traditional Russian Orthodox icons of his childhood. In these works he attempted to further reduce conventional portraiture to abstract line, form and, especially, colour (e.g. Head of a Girl, 1918; Ascona, Mus. Com. A. Mod.; and Christ, 1920; Long Beach, CA, Mus. A.). In 1921 he began another cycle in the same vein, his Abstract (sometimes called Constructivist) Heads (1921–35), for example Abstract Head: Red Light (1930; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). His graphic art also included highly simplified, almost geometric heads, such as the lithograph Head II (1921–2; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden).
In 1922, after marrying Werefkin’s former maid Hélène Nesnakomoff, the mother of his only son, Andreas, born before their marriage, Jawlensky took up residence in Wiesbaden. In 1924 he organized the Blue four, whose works, thanks to Scheyer’s tireless promotion, were jointly exhibited in Germany and the USA. From 1929 Jawlensky suffered from a crippling arthritis that severely limited his creative activity. During this final period of his life he endured not only poor health and near poverty but the threat of official persecution as well. In 1933 the Nazis forbade the display of his ‘degenerate’ works. Nevertheless he continued his series of increasingly abstract faces, producing more than 1000 works in the Meditations series (1934–7), which included examples of abstract landscapes and still-lifes, as well as portraits. These series represented further variations on the face broken down into its component parts, using geometric shapes, line and colour to convey the mood of the painting and, hence, that of the painter himself. Jawlensky’s state of mind is vividly reflected in these works, as he adopted an increasingly dark, brooding palette (e.g. Large Meditation III, No. 16, 1937; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). By 1937, when his physical condition forced him to cease painting altogether, these faces had been deconstructed to their most basic form: a cross forming the expressive brow, nose and mouth of the subject, on a richly coloured background (e.g. Meditation, 1937; Zurich, Ksthaus). No longer able to use art as a means of conveying his innermost self, Jawlensky began to dictate his memoirs in 1938.
Edward Kasinec, From Grove Art Online
"Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re" (Bengali: যদি তোর ডাক শুনে কেউ না আসে তবে একলা চলো রে, Jodi tor đak shune keu na ashe tôbe êkla chôlo re, "If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone", commonly known as Ekla Chalo Re, is a Bengali patriotic song written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905.
Originally titled as "Eka", the song was first published in the September 1905 issue of Bhandar magazine.[1] It was influenced by Harinaam Diye Jagat Matale Amar Ekla Nitai Re, a popular Bengali Kirtan song of Dhapkirtan or Manoharshahi gharana praising Nityananda, disciple of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.[1] Ekla Chalo Re was incorporated in the "Swadesh" (Homeland) section of Tagore’s lyrical anthology Gitabitan.
The song exhorts the listener to continue his or her journey, despite abandonment or lack of support from others. The song is often quoted in the context of political or social change movements. Mahatma Gandhi, who was deeply influenced by this song, cited it as one his favorite songs.
--Wikipedia
The Rabbis taught: Four [Sages] entered the Pardes [literally "the orchard."]. Rashi explains that they ascended to heaven by utilizing the [Divine] Name [i.e., they achieved a spiritual elevation through intense meditation on G‑d's Name] (Tosafot, ad loc). They were Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher [Elisha ben Avuya, called Acher— the other one — because of what happened to him after he entered the Pardes] and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva said to them [prior to their ascension]: "When you come to the place of pure marble stones, do not say, 'Water! Water!' for it is said, 'He who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes' (Psalms 101:7)." Ben Azzai gazed [at the Divine Presence - Rashi] and died. Regarding him the verse states, "Precious in the eyes of G‑d is the death of His pious ones" (Psalms 116:15). Ben Zoma gazed and was harmed [he lost his sanity — Rashi]. Regarding him the verse states, "Did you find honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be overfilled and vomit it up" (Proverbs 25:16). Acher cut down the plantings [he became a heretic]. Rabbi Akiva entered in peace and left in peace. Ramak now cites the Tikunei Zohar which adds some details not mentioned in the Talmud. The ancient Saba [an old man] stood up and said [to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai], "Rabbi, Rabbi! What is the meaning of what Rabbi Akiva said to his students, "When you come to the place of pure marble stones, do not say, 'Water! Water!' lest you place yourselves in danger, for it is said, 'He who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes.' But it is written, "There shall be a firmament between the waters and it shall separate between water [above the firmament] and water [below the firmament]" (Genesis 1:6). Since the Torah describes the division of the waters in to upper and lower, why should it be problematic to mention this division? Furthermore, since there are [in fact] upper and lower waters, why did Rabbi Akiva warn them, "do not say, 'Water! Water!'"
The Holy Lamp [a title accorded to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai] replied, "Saba, it is proper that you reveal this secret that the chevraya [Rabbi Shimon's circle of disciples] have not grasped clearly." The ancient Saba answered, "Rabbi, Rabbi, Holy Lamp. Surely the pure marble stones are the letter yud — one the upper yud of the letter aleph, and one the lower yud of the letter aleph [an aleph in script is formed by an upright yud at the top to the right, and an upside-down yud at the bottom to the left, joined by a vav, the diagonal line between them]. Here there is no spiritual impurity; only pure marble stones, and so there is no separation between one water and the other; they form a single unity from the aspect of the Tree of Life, which is the vav in the midst of the letter aleph. In this regard it states, "[lest he put forth his hand] and if he take of the Tree of Life [and eat and live forever]…(Gen. 3:22) Ramak now begins to analyze these passages. The meaning of Rabbi Akiva's exhortation is that the Sages should not declare that there are two types of water. Since there are not [two types of water] one would be causing a separation. This is the meaning of "do not say, 'water, water'" — do not say that there are two types of water, lest you endanger yourself because of the sin of separation. For this reason the old man asked two questions, both of which are real questions: "There shall be a firmament between the waters and it shall separate…" (Genesis 1:6). Thus there are two types of water and a separation between them. In this case, does it not appear to be permissible to refer to two types of water? Even more problematic is that the Torah itself states, "It shall separate between water and water" — the water above the firmament and the water below the firmament. This is a complete separation. The marble stones represent the letter yud. The old man asked a second question — the waters are in fact of two types: water of the firmament and water below the firmament [in rivers, lakes and seas]. Why then did Rabbi Akiva exhort them not to say "water, water, lest they endanger themselves?" On the contrary; it should be permitted to mention two types of water, for this is no worse than the language used by the Torah, and this is also the situation in fact! Now Rabbi Shimon did not wish to explain this matter himself; he wanted his disciples to hear it from the old man. The old man explained that each of the marble stones represents the letter yud. As we have explained elsewhere this means a yud at the beginning, and a yud at the end, according to the mystical explanation of "I am first and I am last" (Isaiah 44:6). The first yud represents chochma, and the second yud represents malchut, which is also chochma according to the mystical explanation of the light that returns from below to above (called or chozer). The upper yud is the yud of the Tetragrammaton (Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei) while the lower yud is the yud of the Name Alef-Dalet-Nun-Yud. The latter is the concept of "female waters" (Mayin Nukvin), and the former the concept of "male waters" (Mayin Dechurin). They are called "female waters" because they receive from below, from the performance of the commandments, and through them a person has the ability to affect the higher worlds so that the light will shine forth and become clothed in them, as in a palace. Thus the light that is elicited [by the performance of the commandments is like] a king in his palace. These are also the keys to the inner and outer aspects. The inner aspect is the light of the Tetragrammaton, which undoubtedly descends as or yashar from above to below. The outer aspect is that which returns according to the mystical explanation of or chozer. This is the meaning of the statement in regard to the sefirot "from below to above, and from above to below," as explained elsewhere. This is signified by the top and the bottom yuds of the aleph. This is also the secret of the intertwining (shiluv) of the two Names --Yud-Alef-Hei-Dalet-Vov-Nun-Hei-Yud — with the upper yud at the beginning and the lower yud at the end. These two yuds are referred to in the passage "pure marble stones." Each of the yuds is a stone because its shape is round like a stone. It is called "marble" because marble is generally white, which is indicative of the attribute of Mercy (in Hebrew rachamim). In this sense it is also similar to water [which represents kindness]. Now since these two yuds are the aspect of compassion, just like water, which is called "waters of kindness," they are therefore referred to as "marble," as we just explained. We can also explain this by way of [the science of] tzeiruf (letter combinations and permutations): The sefira of chochma is called yesh — "being" [since it is the first immanent sefira], spelled Yud-Shin in Hebrew. The lower chochma [i.e., malchut] is called shai [Shin-Yud — the identical letters, but in reverse order]. When both words are combined they form the word shayish — Shin-Yud-Shin ("marble"). The yud is chochma, the source, and the shin is the emanation of its branches [i.e., the branching out into sefirot according to the mystical explanation of or yashar]…Malchut is called shai according to the mystical explanation of the light that reverses (or chozer). When these two words, signifying these two types of light, are combined to form the word shayish (the two yuds combine into one). They are the letter yud...the upper and lower yuds of the aleph are joined by a diagonal vav
They are called "pure," for there are a number of different types of water [mentioned in the Torah]; one of these is mei nida — literally waters of impurity [because they are used to purify a person after he became contaminated by contact with the dead. Water from a living spring is mixed with the ashes of the red heifer and is then sprinkled upon the impure person]. Separation and division is mentioned in regard to this type of water, as will be explained. These waters [of the pure] marble stones are completely pure and pertain to Atzilut.
"They are the letter yud — one the upper yud of the letter aleph…" We already explained above that the Name Yud-Alef-Hei-Dalet-Vav-Nun-Hei-Yud has the upper and lower aspects of chochma [represented by the two yuds] and six letters in between, alluding to the letter vav [which has a numerical value of 6. Note that the upper and lower yuds of the aleph are joined by a diagonal vav. This is the way a scribe traditionally writes the letter א]. This symbolizes tiferet, which branches out into six extremities [tiferet is the central sefira of the six sefirot of Zeir Anpin]. The vav is situated between the yuds in order to join them. That is to say, through tiferet the daughter [malchut] is able to ascend "to her father's house as in her youth."
It is for this reason that Rabbi Akiva warned them not to say that those two marble stones were separated from one another, G‑d forbid, for this is not true. On the contrary, the firmament between them, which is tiferet, actually unites them and through it they are joined together. There is no separation other than in a place of spiritual impurity, as it is written, "to separate between the impure and the pure" (Leviticus 11:47). But in a place of purity — pure marble stones — "do not say, 'water, water." This is what the old man was explaining, "Here there is no spiritual impurity… they are from the aspect of the Tree of Life…" These waters are in Atzilut and therefore there is no separation between them… on the contrary, the firmament unites them….
The tree of life. It is arguably one of the most popular symbols in the Bible. It’s too bad that so many people read Genesis, discover the tree of life, and think it’s literal. To do so robs the mind of this ancient symbol’s true beauty and essence! Sometimes called the cosmic or world tree, the tree of life did not originate with the authors of Genesis. For thousands of years it has been used in sacred literature to describe man’s connection with the divine. Although different cultures have known this tree by different names, the essence of this tree’s significance is essentially the same; it represents both divine and natural man, the spiritual and natural world. And just as the tree of life symbolically spans all the worlds of existence, so does man. I know the above sounds super spiritual, so what does it really mean for all of us down here on earth? Simply put, the tree of life is about the evolution of subjective consciousness from the lower planes to the higher planes—the world of physical matter to the world of energetic spirit. And consciousness is the center of it all! Consider the Buddha. He was enlightened under the great Bodhi tree. Is it really just a coincidence that Odin gained supernatural abilities (enlightenment) under the branches of Yggdrasil, the mythological tree of the ancient Scandinavians? How about the fact that ancient Mayan kings, including Pakal Votan, were portrayed on stone monuments with the world tree emerging from their headdress (more enlightenment imagery)? I apologize in advance to the fundamentalist that believes the concept behind the tree of life is unique to Biblical literature, but I don’t think all this imagery is coincidental. In fact, we can easily connect enlightenment with the Biblical tree of life. Consider the scripture from Revelations: “…To him that overcometh [achieves enlightenment] will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7). The seven seals being opened throughout the course of the Book of Revelations corresponds to the opening of the seven chakras, the cause of enlightenment, and eating from the tree of life is symbolic of the fruit one gains after traversing the many planes of consciousness. They key to understanding the above statement must include a knowledge of both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. ,Let’s review the scripture from genesis that references both trees. Unveiling it will reveal some heavy esoteric knowledge . “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). Why do you think the Genesis author implies that both trees are in the midst of the garden? It is because together they represent different aspects of ONE tree! The world tree is comprised of both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In the realm of duality you cannot have one tree without the other. The experience of man includes both trees, from limited individual consciousness to the liberation gained through cosmic consciousness. When consciousness (spirit) incarnated on the physical plane, man began living out his existence among hardship and pain. This is part of the growing process, and there is going to be some wounds to lick. But to he who overcomes by continuing to grow consciously will be given to eat of the tree of life.
The key is in the fruit! Within the experience of duality lies consciousness evolution and moving up the tree of life to partake of its fruit. Again, we can prove all this with scripture. Review Genesis 2:9 again. God said the trees in the garden were for food. This has nothing to do with physical food. It’s a about spiritual food. Let’s compare the fruit of each tree from Gaskell’s Dictionary of Scripture and myth. Fruit of the tree of life: “Symbolic of the higher emotions and faculties of the buddhic [Christ] nature laid up for the soul when perfected.” In Revelations Jesus states that the tree of life on either side of the river bears twelve fruits that provide healing. What causes us to express the higher emotions and mental faculties of the Christ? It is through the acquisition of wisdom, which brings healing. “She [wisdom] is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her…” (Proverbs 3:18). How does anyone gain wisdom? It starts with obedience to God on the physical plane. It ends when one truly learns the lessons (on the soul level) that experience in duality provides. Now consider the other side of this coin: Fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil: “A symbol of the experience acquired through the activities of the lower nature and the development of the moral nature.” How does the Bible explain how man acquired experience and learned to develop the moral nature? By being kicked out of the garden (spiritual existence) to live life among “thorns” and “thistles” (duality). This is the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil! Sometimes the tree of life is inverted in Kabbalah. The inverted tree of life has its roots firmly established in heaven (spiritual planes) and the rest of the tree emanates into the physical world. Likewise, man originated in the Eden, a spiritual plane, and ended up in the physical world, earth. The inverted tree depicts this process. Now it is up to us to climb back up the spiritual worlds. I like to picture the inverted tree as the tree of life and the right-side up tree as the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It makes sense for me to picture the two in this way because remember that the true world tree contains both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Picturing one tree as inverted and the other right-side up helps me to get a clear picture for the functions of both trees. Tree of LifeThe tree of life then is the ultimate motif of the evolution of consciousness. Its branches reach into heaven, the spiritual planes. The trunk resides on the material plane, and the roots grow into the earth, or underworld, which represents many subconscious aspects of our soul.
The consciousness of man then can be likened unto a tree itself. The ultimate goal is to become complete and whole, which is the true meaning of Biblical perfection. This is accomplished through following and understanding the deeper esoteric meanings of God’s commands.
“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf [true ideals] shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper” (Psalm 1:3).
Returning to the tree of life is to gain enlightenment. It is guarded by Cherubim because we must go through the planes of existence and experience duality in order to raise consciousness before we can gain access. It’s that simple.
Every day that you wake up, consider it your day to experience something that brings you one step closer to again gaining access to the tree of life, or enlightenment! And it’s all Biblical! I especially want Christians who are questioning orthodox interpretation to know this, so I’ll say it again. It’s all Biblical! Don’t fret the fact that the Bible is truly a book with eastern concepts woven throughout. Doing so only limits the truths provided through this great book. It certainly isn’t of isolation.
Did the Tree of Life mentioned in the book of Genesis, have power to impart immortality to mortal man, as might be deduced from Genesis 3:22?’
The Tree of Life stood in the centre of the Garden of Eden which elsewhere is called ‘The Garden of the LORD’.1 It was a real tree, to be sure, but let me suggest that it was also symbolic of the fact that God was, and is, the source of eternal life and blessing. Adam and Eve were to have their life centred in Him, even as the Tree was in the centre of His Garden. Other parts of the Bible also mention The Tree of Life. In Ezekiel 47:12 (NASB) we read of trees whose ‘fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing’. This image is taken up also in Revelation 22:2. It is clear particularly in Proverbs where a number of things are referred to as ‘a tree of life’ (wisdom (3:15), the fruit of the righteous (11:30), desire fulfilled (13:12), and a soothing tongue (15:4)) that the Tree of Life in these references symbolises that which brings joy and healing to people. This, I suspect, was what the original, the real Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden symbolised. It was material, yet it stood for the blessing of eternal life which God would give to Adam and Eve, and their descendants, if they were to pass the test of obedience. They were permitted to eat of any tree in the Garden except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on pain of death.2 Now, use a little lateral thinking. What else in the Bible is real and material, yet at the same time symbolises the life which is in Christ and points us repeatedly to Him? Something in which Christians share, and which reminds them that Jesus’ death brings us life? It is the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
IF ADAM PASSED THE TEST OF OBEDIENCE, IT WOULD BE THE MEANS OF GOD’S IMPARTING ETERNAL LIFE TO HIM. Now, let us return to the Garden of Eden. I want to suggest that the Tree of Life was there to perform such a sacramental function. If Adam passed the test of obedience, it would be the means of God’s imparting eternal life to him, not by magic, but by the working of his Spirit ‘by, with and under’ the fruit of the Tree. But Adam sinned. He failed the test and lost his right to eat from the Tree. As one commentator puts it, ‘that he might understand himself to be deprived of his former life, a solemn excommunication is added; not that the Lord would cut him off from all hope of salvation, but, by taking away what he had given, would cause man to seek new assistance elsewhere.’3 Just as Christians who profane the Lord’s Supper are subject to judgment, so Adam would have been further condemned if he had presumed to eat the fruit to which he was not now entitled. In doing so, he would have been trying to rob life from God, a grave blasphemy. The implication of Genesis 3:22 (NIV) ‘And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever,”’ is that he, and us with him,4 would have been plunged into a condition of absolute lostness. He would have lived eternally cut off from God without hope of escape from the terrible consequences of sin. This would have been God’s just punishment for such a presumptuous sin, not merely a ‘magical’ effect of the Tree of Life. Mercifully, God did not permit this to happen.5 Adam was cast out of the Garden of Eden. No longer could he even contemplate eating from the Tree of Life. It was beyond his reach. Physical death now began to enter the human race. Adam began to die! The last Adam (Christ) later came to Earth to die so that through faith in Jesus, we may now inherit the eternal life Adam forfeited. Indeed, Jesus says to those who persevere in faith, ‘To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God.’6 The Genesis account of the Tree of Life reminds us there is only one way to attain to an eternal life of blessedness—the way God has appointed. That is through His Son, the Creator of heaven and Earth—the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He alone who can say, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’
The Muslim man explained that probably the most fundamental difference is that the Koran2 speaks of Jesus as a prophet—definitely not the Son of God. That evening, the Australian-born student told her father of the encounter, and asked, ‘Dad, I’ve been thinking … our bodies are unclean! Why would God, who is pure, sully himself by coming down to Earth in human form?’ After her father failed to give a reasoned answer, she turned her back on the church, converted to Islam and later married a Muslim.3. Such a question requires only a basic understanding of the Atonement to answer. Salvation required a sacrificial ‘last Adam’ (1 Cor. 15:45) to shed His blood in death, one who was a physical descendant of the first, yet sinless. This could be fulfilled only through God incarnate, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 9:12, 22). Notice, though, how all this is built upon the foundational Genesis truths of the first Adam bringing in sin and death, and the first shedding of blood as a covering for sin (Genesis 3:21). The increasing confusion caused in the church by long-age compromises (which, by putting suffering, death and bloodshed before Adam, undermine these truths) is a major reason why so many today cannot give reasoned answers to basic Gospel-related questions (contravening 1 Peter 3:15). This leaves young people in the church vulnerable to being tossed by winds of false doctrine (Ephesians 4:14).
Following September 11, 2001, the increased prominence of Islam in the media, and public declarations by government (and many church) leaders that Islam is a ‘great’ religion, will likely raise further questions in the minds of many young people in the churches. E.g. ‘Do Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God?’ and ‘What does the Koran say about the Bible?’ Many Christian commentators have sought to raise awareness of fundamental doctrinal differences between the Koran and the Bible (see below), but few people are aware of how the Muslim’s holy book starkly contradicts the Biblical account of our origins. Genesis provides a unified description of Creation; the Koran does not. Creation, The Fall, Flood and Babel . Genesis provides a unified description of Creation; the Koran does not. Instead, fragmented passages are scattered across many of its 114 chapters (‘Sura’). The tables (below) attempt to assimilate these fragments for a clearer picture of what the Koran says, compared to the Bible. The many contradictions highlighted in these tables surely demolish any claims that the ‘revelation’ given to Muhammad is not a corruption of, but reliably builds upon, Judeo-Christian history. Eve’s distorted view, obviously wrong, is portrayed as truth in the Koran. For instance, the Koranic account prohibits Adam from going anywhere near the Forbidden Tree, while Genesis says that God only commanded Adam not to eat its fruit (see Table 2). (Man had been placed in the garden to tend it (Genesis 2:15), which seems to require physical access to each tree for e.g. pruning.) Interestingly, the Bible relates that Eve, who was deceived (1 Timothy 2:14), had misconstrued God’s instruction to not eat of the fruit from the tree to instead also mean not to touch it (Genesis 3:3). Yet Eve’s distorted view, obviously wrong, is portrayed as truth in the Koran [update: see Did Eve lie before the Fall?—Ed.]. The Biblical account of origins also makes more sense of today’s world than does the Koran—e.g. the presence of sin, violence, death and the origin of languages (and concomitant minor ‘racial’ differences). The Bible explains why the whole creation is so obviously groaning, in bondage to decay (Romans 8:19–22). In contrast, the Koran makes God responsible for death and suffering (see Tables 1 and 2), in common with long-age and evolutionary Christian views, and Eastern religions.
The Koran and evolution
With the increased adoption of evolution-based curricula, some Muslim leaders and scholars began to recognize the threat to Islam from a rising tide of evolutionary thinking. Their response has been either to attack evolution, or, more commonly, to blend it with Islam.
New Scientist reported that Islamic creationist books cite and copy Christian creationists, but with Biblical references deleted.
1. The Islamic creationists
The creationist Muslims claim that ‘The theory [of evolution] and the holy Qur’an are in direct conflict with each other and no compatibility is possible anywhere.’4 New Scientist reported that Islamic creationist books cite and copy Christian creationists, but with Biblical references deleted.5
2. The Islamic evolutionists
Evolution-believing Muslims seem to be far more numerous, and vocal, than creationist Muslims.
They have a substantial strategic advantage precisely because the Koran is so vague, nebulous and seemingly open to various interpretations.6 They delight in pointing out that, in contrast, ‘There is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever in the Biblical description of the Creation in six days followed by a day of rest, the sabbath, analogous with the days of the week.’7 These evolution-accommodating Muslims are adamant that the ‘days’ of Creation in the Koran ‘mean in reality “very long Periods, or Ages, or Aeons”?’.7 Muslim apologists gleefully point out that the Koran is compatible with evolution where the Bible is not. Muslim apologists gleefully point out that the Koran is compatible with evolution where the Bible is not, e.g.: ‘Neither here nor anywhere else in the Holy Qur-án is it affirmed that Adam was the first man, or that there was no creation by God before Adam, nor that Adam lived or man was created, or the earth made, only six thousand years ago.’8,9 Long-age Muslims exploit the Bible’s explicit detail of the Flood, too. They say that because the Bible clearly says there was a recent global Flood, while ‘science’ says there was not, the Bible is wrong and the Koran is thus confirmed to be right!10 Some of the Muslim literature even claims that the Koran shows that Allah revealed to Muhammad details about the ‘big bang’, ancient universe and evolution long before scientists began to ‘discover’ such ‘facts’.11
Christian awareness: In the same way that being aware of evolutionary challenges to our faith helps us to be ready with answers,12 so, too, we need to be aware of what religions, including Islam, actually say, in order to be better prepared to answer our children’s questions.13 When men teach things that are contrary to the Bible, we are commanded to actively oppose such ideas (2 Corinthians 10:5). Christians need to be ready to help guide young people through the kinds of ‘intellectual crisis of faith’ that many confront in their teenage years—whether because of exposure to evolutionary teaching, or to other religions.
Knowing that the Word of God accurately explains our world ahead of all opposing ideas not only strengthens our own faith, but gives us the confidence to reach out in love to challengers—including Muslims. In Koran 6:91, the Book given to Moses is described as ‘a light and guidance to man …’
Using Genesis to reach Muslims?
Just as the Apostle Paul used Athenian beliefs to draw his Greek listeners to the truth of the Gospel (Acts 17:22–23, 28), Christians could use a similar approach when talking with Muslims. One could start by reminding the Muslim that the Koran says that the Scriptures of Jews and Christians were given by God, e.g. Koran 2:87—‘We gave Moses the Book and followed him up with a succession of Apostles; We gave Jesus the son of Mary Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit.’ Similarly, in Koran 6:91, the Book given to Moses is described as ‘a light and guidance to man …’ . So why so many irreconcilable differences between Genesis 1–11 and the Koran? A Muslim might say that today’s copies of the Bible have been corrupted. But the earliest Biblical manuscripts (e.g. in the British Museum14) date from before Muhammad, demonstrating the reliability of our current copies. The Bible explains that death, violence, pain and decay entered a once-perfect Creation as a result of Adam’s sin in the garden of Eden. A further challenge for the Muslim would concern the presence of death, suffering, grief, etc., in the world. Consider the following exchange between American TV host Larry King and Georgetown University’s Islamic professor of theology, Maysam Al-Faruqi:
KING: Maysam, if you believe in heaven and paradise, then dying is good?
AL-FARUQI: Absolutely. And dying is perfectly natural, it’s the end of things.
KING: Why do we treat it tragically? … …
AL-FARUQI: Well, there is the pain …15
So in this Muslim (also theistic evolutionary) view of death as ‘perfectly natural’, why grieve and wail at the death of a loved one? The Islamic professor’s answer, ‘Well, there is the pain …’ begs the question: ‘So pain and suffering are a “natural”? part of God’s good (Koran 32:7) creation, too?’ Clearly, Muslims have no satisfactory answer.But the Bible explains that death, violence, pain and decay entered a once-perfect Creation as a result of Adam’s sin in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:17, 3:19; Romans 5:12–17; 8:19–22; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22). Thankfully, this situation is only temporary, as God gave his Son, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, that those who believe in Him can look forward to the coming restoration, to a world with ‘no more death, mourning, crying or pain’, i.e. no more Genesis Curse (John 1:18, 3:16; Acts 3:21; Revelation 21:4, 22:3).
In Islam, Adam (Ādam; Arabic: آدم), whose role is being the father of humanity, is looked upon by Muslims with reverence. Eve (Ḥawwāʼ;Arabic: حواء ) is the “mother of humanity.” The creation of Adam and Eve is referred to in the Qurʼān, although different Qurʼanic interpreters give different views on the actual creation story (Qurʼan, Surat al-Nisaʼ, verse 1).
In al-Qummi’s tafsir on the Garden of Eden, such place was not entirely earthly. According to the Qurʼān, both Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in a Heavenly Eden (See alsoJannah). As a result, they were both sent down to Earth as God’s representatives. Each person was sent to a mountain peak: Adam on al-Safa, and Eve on al-Marwah. In this Islamic tradition, Adam wept 40 days until he repented, after which God sent down the Black Stone, teaching him the Hajj. According to a prophetic hadith, Adam and Eve reunited in the plain of ʻArafat, near Mecca. They had two sons together, Qabil (Cain) and Habil (Abel). There is also a legend of a younger son, named Rocail, who created a palace and sepulcher containing autonomous statues that lived out the lives of men so realistically they were mistaken for having souls. The concept of original sin does not exist in Islam, because Adam and Eve were forgiven by God. When God orders the angels to bow to Adam, Iblis questioned, “Why should I bow to man? I am made of pure fire and he is made of soil.” The liberal movements within Islam have viewed God’s commanding the angels to bow before Adam as an exaltation of humanity, and as a means of supporting human rights; others view it as an act of showing Adam that the biggest enemy of humans on earth will be their ego. The Garden of Eden is spoken about prominently in the Quran and the tafsir (interpretation). This includes surat Sad, which features 21 verses on the subject, surat al-Baqarah, surat al-A’raf, and surat al-Hijr. The narrative mainly surrounds the expulsion of Iblis from the garden and his subsequent tempting of Adam and Eve. After Iblis refuses to follow God’s command to bow down to Adam for being his greatest creation, Allah transforms him into Satan as a punishment. Unlike the Biblical account, the Quran mentions only one tree in Eden, the tree of immortality, which Allah specifically forbade to Adam and Eve. Satan, disguised as a serpent, repeatedly told Adam to eat from the tree, and eventually both Adam and Eve did so, thus disobeying Allah.These stories are also featured in the Islamic hadith collections, including al- Tabari. The Tree of Immortality (Arabic: شجرة الخلود) is the tree of life motif as it appears in the Quran. It is also alluded to in hadiths and tafsir. Unlike the biblical account, the Quran mentions only one tree in Eden, also called the tree of immortality, which Allah specifically forbade to Adam and Eve. Satan, disguised as a serpent, repeatedly told Adam to eat from the tree, and eventually both Adam and Eve did so, thus disobeying Allah. The hadiths however speak about other trees in heaven.
"My bonds, which I carry about with me for the sake of Jesus Christ (praying that I may attain to God), exhort you. Continue in harmony among yourselves, and in prayer with one another; for it becomes every one of you, and especially the presbyters, to refresh the bishop, to the honour of the Father, of Jesus Christ, and of the apostles. I entreat you in love to hear me, that I may not, by having written, be a testimony against you. And do ye also pray for me, who have need of your love, along with the mercy of God, that I may be worthy of the lot for which I am destined, and that I may not be found reprobate."
– St Ignatius of Antioch, from his Letter to the Trallians.
Stained glass window from St Philip and St James' church in Baltimore, MD.
A re-edited portrait of Pete Seeger at a Hudson River festival in 2011. Pete never stopped in his quest to get everyone to sing. An amazing man who fought for social justice all his life and always lived simply according to his principles despite worldwide fame. Miss ya Pete. RIP. 1919-2014. DSC09019-crop-adj5from4-rock-sig-Pete-Seeger_pregamma_0.7_mantiuk06_contrast_mapping_0.2_saturation_factor_0.8_detail_factor_2
Un centenar de personas marcharon por las calles de Montevideo en solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, exhortando a “frenar la masacre” provocada por la ofensiva militar de Israel en la franja de Gaza.
A Dominican tertiary, "St Catherine de’ Ricci became especially well known for her ecstasies of the Passion. From 1542 to 1554, each Thursday and Friday she experienced in a trance the events of Christ’s passion, “acting out” its episodes herself. While in the same trance she would unconsciously exhort those about her with an eloquence beyond her native talent. She also received on her own body the stigmata (the wounds) of Christ’s Passion."
This stained glass window is from St Vincent Ferrer in NYC, and today (4 Feb) is her feast day.
Queanbeyan Age (NSW : 1867 - 1904) | Thu 23 May 1872 | Page 2
Local and District News.
CEREMONY OF LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE OF ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH QUEANBEYAN.
LAST Thursday the first practical effort, towards church building on the part of the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan was made and attended with great success. We refer to the interesting ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the church intended for the accommodation of Presbyterian worshippers. The hour fixed for the ceremony was noon of that day, but it was nearly one o'clock before everything was in readiness. The weather previously had been very unpropitious, and up to midnight of Wednesday it threatened anything but a pleasant day. Notwithstanding, Thursday proved all that could be desired for the season of the year; the day was bright. The site was rendered very attractive by a profusion of bunting flaunting over the suspended stone, which hung in readiness for its final disposition by the lady who was to be entrusted with the resposibility and honour of declaring the same well and truly laid. Near at hand was a spacious pavilion occupied by a long table and seats —the former crowded with substantial viands intended for the refreshment of those who would attend the ceremony.
All things being in readiness, the Rev. John Gibson, of Yass, moderator of the presbytery of Goulburn, commenced the proceedings by giving out the Old Hundreth Psalm, which was sung by those present—about a hundred persons.
The Rev. James Paterson, M.A., of Braidwood, read an appropriate psalm, and offered prayer.
Mr. John Gale then came forward and said, as honorary secretary to the building committee he had been requested to make a financial statement, read certain communications, and offer a few preliminary remarks. It was to him a matter of surprise that the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan were so late in undertaking the building of a church for their better accommodation when assembled for the purpose of worshipping the God of their fathers after the manner, which to them seems right and proper. They had long worshipped under disadvantages, and though for some time past they had enjoyed the comparative convenience of the Court-house, yet they felt it was not exactly the place—that they might and ought to assemble in a place of their own set apart exclusively to the use of public worship. Although they were now, for the first time, met to witness the laying of the foundation stone of their long projected church, it reflected unfavourably upon them as a body that they had not done this long ago. Something like ten years ago, he recollected they got the promise of about £400 for the purpose of building a church, but for want of proper combination and energy nothing was done for a long lapse of time—so long, that subscribers became morally and legally relieved from the obligations of their promises. A little while ago they renewed their exertions, with very good results. A building committee was appointed, and that committee felt themselves justified in commencing operations without delay, which they did by calling for and accepting tenders for the work. The sum already promised was about £400, of which at least £350 was good; and it was thought it was with such a list quite safe to undertake the erection of a church whose estimated cost would be from £500 to £550. Their esteemed. fellow-townsman, the Rev. A. D. Soares, had generously furnished them with a plan and specifications of the work, and thus all things were in readiness. Acting under the instructions of the committee he (Mr Gale) had sent circulars far and wide, and on the whole the result had been very encouraging. If some whom they had invited were not present, in a few instances they had sent satisfactory apologies, and something encouraging to represent them. He would proceed to read letters from some to whom circulars had been sent. The first was from the Rev. A. D. Soares, who had been unexpectedly called away on professional business, but sent his first year's subscription and best wishes for the success of the undertaking. Then there followed a letter from their friend the Rev. S. F. Mackenzie, of Goulburn, whose late return after a long absence from home, had rendered it impossible to give his attendance, but whose letter closed with these kind words :—"I trust you may have a very successful gathering, and that the divine blessing may rest on your undertaking." He also read a letter from Mr Slatterie, of Gundaroo, stating his inability to attend, promising a further subscription, and wishing them "a pleasant day and a pledge of good things to come." These letters were as good as so many speeches, and obviated the necessity of many more words from him, beyond exhorting those present to contribute liberally and cheerfully to the fund by laying their contributions on the stone as soon as it should be declared well and truly laid. He was pleased to be able to announce that a lady whom they all knew and respected, the excellent wife of a most worthy man, had consented to lay the stone. There, in that cavity underneath the stone hanging under the triangle, the bottle which he held in his hand was to be laid. That homely looking bottle contained what in course of time antiquarians might regard with much interest and curiosity—viz., several coins of the realmu of different value, copies of the Queanbeyan Age of that day, of the Presbyterian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Evening News, and of the following document:—
"The foundation stone of this St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church was laid on Thursday, the 16th day of May, A.D., 1872, by Elizabeth, wife of Charles McKeahnie Esq., of Booroomba, county of Cowley, district of Queanbeyan, an elder of the Presbyterian congregation of the said district.
"His Excellency Sir Alfred Stephen, Knight, Chief Justice of the Colony of New South Wales, administering the Government thereof.
"The Reverend Archibald Constable Geekie, D.D., Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales.
"The Reverend John Gibson, Moderator of the Presbytery of Goulburn.
"Minister of the Presbyterlan Church, Queanbeyan—vacant.
"Elder—Charles McKeahnie, Esq.
"Building Commlttee—Andrew Morton, Esq:, JP Chairman, R. W. McKellar, Esq., Treasurer. Mr. John Gale, Secretary. Messrs. J. J. Wright,. W. Graham, and E. McDonald.
"Trustees—Andrew Morton, Esq., J.P., Andrew Cunningham; Esq., J,P., Alexander Ryrie, Esq., J.P., J. J. Wright, Esq., J.P.
"Architect.—The Reverend A. D. Soares of Christ Church, Queanbeyan.
"Contractors.—Thomas Priest, for masonry; Thomas Jordan, for carpenter's work."
Nothing more remained for him to say than that the ceremony of laying the stone would now be proceeded with.
Rev. John Gibson then introduced Mrs McKeahnie, and having placed in her hand the bottle, that lady deposited it in the cavity prepared for its reception. The mortar having been spread, Mrs
McKeahnie smoothed it with a trowel, and the stone having been carefully lowered to its position, she struck it with a hammer, and in remarkably clear voice and pleasing manner said, "I declare this foundation stone of St. Stephen's Prebyterlaun church truly laid, and humbly dedicate the same in the name of the, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Amen."
The Rev. J. Gibson came forward and said, that having been suffering for some days with neuralgic pains, and fearing that he would be unable to address them, otherwise to-day, he would read an address. The rev. gentleman then read as follows:—My dear Christian friends,—we are assembled now at the interesting ceremonial of laying the foundation stone of a Presbyterian Church on this spot. The time is brief since this scene of busy life was an extensive sweep of undulating land occupied by the blackfellow and kangaroo; but now we behold it, as if by magic, converted into a busy and Important town. The presence of humanity, with relations temporal and eternal, has imparted to the place secular worth and religious Interest. From a benovolent solicitude for the spiritual and social welfare of this important town and neighbourhood, the Presbyterians are about erecting a house for the Triune God. If it be asked, For what purpose are you going to erect this temple? we answer, The highest conceivable one—the sanctuary is for the Most High who condescends to dwell with men on the earth—to promote his glory, to serve his cause, and promote the kingdom of his dear Son. No personal or selfish interests are to be promoted by its erection, but it is to stand as a free will offering and memorial to the God of heaven. This will invest it with a beauty far transcending any architectural merits which it may possess. This will give it a glory which will cause it to outvie many a more towering structure. What purpose Is this building to serve? It is to promote the spiritual interests of the members of the community in which it is placed. It will stand on the side of order, virtue, and social progress. It will stand Identified with the rights of Cæsar, with the rule of the magistrate, and with the free obedience of the citizen. It will stand associated with the honour and integrity of the tradesman, with the love of the domestic circle, and with the peace and progress of the individual mind—with its future perfection, glory, and immortality. If the design of its erection be accomplished, it will be another well sunk in the arid plains of man's existence. Here the pure waters of salvation are intended to flow. Here the ignorant are to be instructed, the wanderer brought in, the backslider invited back, the far off prodigal called home. This is to stand as a sister lighthouse, to intimate to the voyager to eternity that there are shoals, rocks, and breakers ahead, and to guide to the port of eternal life and glory. May the preachers and people here ever keep near the desired chart and infallible compass, and harmoniously voyage on to the eternal ocean of love and joy! Dear friends, unless this object be effected—that is, subserve the interests of vital godliness in the district, our labour will be in vain. Let our prayer be, "God be merciful to us, and bless us. Save now we beseech thee, and send prosperity." We would not forget that other denominations are operating here to advance the same momentous and vital interests, and we would bid them God speed, and we trust they will heartily reciprocate our good wishes for their prosperity and usefulness. We have, as Presbyterians, our peculiarities, and we attach to them considerable importance—we hold them firmly, because conscientiously, and take them from the New Testament as our sufficient directory and model. We say in reference to human authority in the church—
"Let Cæsar's dues be ever paid,
To Cæsar and his throne,
But consciences and souls were made
To be the Lord's alone.
In the Christian ministry, we believe one alone is the Master, and all ministers brethren. Christ the head, and all his people "members one of another." But whilst we hold our scriptural polity with the greatest tenacity, we hold in common with other denominations, principles and truths infinitely more piecious, and we trust our piety will ever be strong enough to sustain the pratical pre-eminence of these, and the due subordination of the other. Looking at man in his fallen condition—debased, polluted, condemned, involved in a ruin from which there is no extrication without the redemption by Jesus Christ, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and holding tenaciously the proper divinity of the incarnate Redeemer, and to the consequent ineffable dignity and moral worth and power of his atoning death, and discarding with all vehemence the sacramental virtue of ordinances as the medium of the Spirit's regenerative action—a notion untenable in scripture, and philosopically absurd—for the sound old doctrine of the instrumentality of divine truth, which, permeated by the evangelical element, (our preaching and teaching take their inspiration from the cross)—proclaims Jesus Christ and him crucified as the only basis of a sinner's hope, and insists upon the apostolic testimony—repentence towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. May these precious soul-quickening truths be ever preached in the new edifice, and of many here, and others growing up may it be said, These were born in her and may the Highest establish her. Amen.
Dr. Andrew Morton, J.P., followed. He said, as one of the oldest Presbyterlans of the district, it was expected of him that he should say a few words. The Presbyterians were not the most numerous religious body in the district, and moreover they were for the greater part poor. To accomplish the task they had begun, it was necessary they should continue to exert themselves. Already they were encouraged by the presence and assistance of other religious bodies. But still they must depend mainly on themselves. They must put their shoulders to the wheel again and again, not in brief spasmodic efforts, but by unremitting perseverance, and then they would soon have the pleasure of seeing their undertaking finished in a manner creditable to all who took part in the same. He congratulated them that they were resolved to lie no longer under the reproach of being the only religious denomination in the town who had not a church of their own. It was true that God was not confined to buildings made by hands. Their ancestors, the grand old Covenanters, worshipped the Most High on the hill sides of their native land, owing to a persecuting government. But now the necessity for this no longer existed. Those who formerly persecuted were now found amongst the number who were assisting them in their noble work. While they were proud of the time when God was confessed under circumstances of persecution, he could not help thinking that these were better days, when all denominationse are found working side by side and mutually assisting each other in one grand object they had in view.
(Cheers,)
At the close of Dr. Morton's address contributions amounting to £22 10s were laid upon the stone, and upon the sum being announced, and the doxology sung, the company present adjourned to the pavilion to lunch.
THE LUNCHEON,
which was an ample spread, was provided by the generous oontributions. of town and country friends, and consisted of all the seasonable, dishes, with a liberal supply of wines. About one hundred sat down to the refreshments provided, but so abundant were the supplies, that not one-half of the provisions were consumed.
At the close of the meal, the Rev. J. Gibson called for three cheers for the Queen, which were loyally given, and the company dispersed for a short time.
THE TEA MEETING.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent by several active ladies and gentlemen in preparing for tea at the oddfellows' hall. At about seven, p.m., the hall was filled, and on the arrival of the clergymen, grace was sung, and tea served. The ladles presiding at, and who had provided the tables, were—Mrs Graham, Mrs Mackellar, and Mrs Gale: They were assisted in their pleasant but arduous task of serving by several other ladles. A very pleasant hour was spent over tea, and then the company adjourned to the open air, while the tables were being removed and preparations completed for
THE PUBLIC MEETING.
The chair was occupied by Dr. Morton, who called upon the Rev. J. Gibson to give out a hymn and offer prayer, after which
The Chairman, acknowledging the honour conferred upon him in calling him to preside over the meeting, and regretting that he was not better quailfied to fill the chair, said he felt gratified to find that after long years of delay, and procrastination, the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan at length had the prospect before them of seeing a church of their own erected. It was well known that as a religious community they were poor—few were poorer than they, but he felt confident that what had occurred that day was an earnest that they were able to remove the stigma which had too long rested upon them —that they were the only religious denomination in the town who were not in a position to possess a church of their own. There were no difficulties before them but such as they might overcome, especially when, as they saw today, members of other religious persuasions were so ready to come forward to their assistance. There was a time when the various religious bodies were antagonistic to each other; there was a time when the Presbyterians were the objects of persecution by those who were now so ready to encourage and support them. It was a hopeful sign of the times that they were all able and disposed to throw aside minor differences to carry on the great work of spreading the gospel. He trusted they would never more witness those painful dissentions and strifes which had so characterised the past. It was not needful for him to say more as there were present those who would do full justice to the occasion which had brought them together. Having congratulated, the Presbyterians of the district on witnessing the laying of the foundation stone of St. Stephen's Church, and expressed a hope that at no very distant day they would assemble to witness its opening, the Chairman concluded by calling upon the secretary for a statement and a few remarks.
Mr Gale rose and said, in obedience to the request of the chairman he would, for the information of those who were not present at the laying of the foundation stone, repeat in substance what he stated on that occasion. He then gave a brief statement of the means at the disposal of the building committee, the probable estimate of their undertaking, and the amount still necessary to be raised in order to liquidate the debt which the committee would incur. After a few words of congratulation on the success which had so far attended their efforts, and giving expression to his belief that their exertions would not be relaxed until they had brought their undertaking to a succeesful issue, he concluded by urging upon Presbyterians the duty of renewed consecration of themselves to the service of God and more unity of purpose and effort amongst themselves.
The Rev. J. Gibson, the next speaker, said he was glad, seeing what great preparations bad been made, that he had made an effort to be present, and regretted that others whom they, had expected were not there also. Since they last met he noticed there had been a divorce and a marriage, but fortunately no breach of promise case. Their late pastor was in one sense married to them, but he had chosen nevertheless to go and settle elsewhere. This was the divorce. The marriage he referred to—that of the Rev. S F. Mackenzie—doubtless had something to do with that gentleman's absence from the interesting ceremonies of the day. He was pleased to notice that notwithstanding the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan were deprived of their minister they had the pluck to commence the erection of a church. He had not seen the plan, but presumed the design would be chaste and appropriate. He emphatically denounced the miserable spirit which was content with erecting a mean building for the worship of the Most High. Their style of church architecture ought to be improved; they ought to launch out more—
Larger boats may venture more, While smaller boats keep close to shore.
He hoped the Queanbeyan church of St Stephen's would be a beautiful one, and that the press, the pulpit, and the ladies would use their best energies to secure that laudable object. He complimented Mrs McKeahnie on the graceful and efficient manner in which she had discharged her honourable duty that day, and well and truly laid the foundation stone. Such ceremonies were not new to him, and he professed to know something about them. Referring to his being present, during his last visit to England, when the Prince of Wales laid a foundation-stone, he said he was glad that Almighty God In his good providence had raised up his Royal Highness from the gates of death (loud cheers), and he hoped he was spared to become a better man. He referred also to his church-building experience in the West Indies, and related some interesting incidents connected therewith; and said he was proud to observe that morning so much money laid on the stone instead of being buried underneath it. If Queanbeyan could not finish unaided the noble work they had undertaken, he hoped they would send a deputation to Yass where he knew they would find help; and a noble church he hoped they would have. The Presbyterlans of Yass had lately improved their own church in a way that they had no reason to be ashamed of it, for he thought It would now compare favourably with any other church in Yass. He admitted there were many degenerate sons of the noble old Covenanters who had turned away from them and were giving the cold shoulder to the cause; but he exhorted all present nevertheless to cleave to the church of their fathers, and they would be sure to prosper in the work they had undertaken. Referring to the past, he blushed to think that the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan, had had over them men who were not fit to be ministers—of course their late pastor formed a honourable exceptian; but, though he did not approve of the Rev. W. Mackenzie leaving them he trusted God would overrule all for good, and send them a man after His own heart. He added —" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy might." Let it not be said "these men began to build and were not able to finish." Of this, he said, there was little fear while they had their McKeahnies and Mortons to stand by them; and his concluding words were, "Establish Thou the work of our hands upon us: yea, the work of, our hands establish Thou it."
Mr. W. G. O'Neill was then called upon, and rising expressed the pleasure it afforded him to coöperate with the Presbyterians in furthering the interests of their church. Some 14 or 15 years ago, when the late Rev. Mr Ross was conducting a meeting in the old court house over the river, an effort was put forth to build a Presbyterian Church, but through all these past years nothing had actually been done until to-day; and now they had got the steam up he trusted they would go ahead at the rate of 30 or 40 knots an hour. One gentleman had spoken of having beautiful churches. The realisation of this object lay with the ladies. If one-half of what they spent in personal adournment were appropriated to church-building there would be no difficulty in the way. Again, there were plenty of rich men who had the means, if they only had the will, to render miaterial assistance,and all should give according to their means, in which case they would have a church which would be a credit to. the Presbyterian body, and all would be able to say they had a few bricks in the structure. They were bound by the claims of Christian brotherhood to help one another, in accordance with the spirit of the well-known hymn beginning—
"Help us to help each other, Lord."
The Presbyterians of Queanbeyan were not very strong and they needed help, but as they had been liberally disposed towards others he knew that others would help them now, He hoped they would get on from this out. If he could solicit subscriptions for the new church he would be happy to do so, and thus return their favours. He concluded by wishing all success to the undertaking they had commenced that day.
The Rev. Charles Jones was next asked to address the meeting. He was glad to see such a number present, but felt disappointed In having to, speak before the senior ministers had addressed the meeting. He was glad to be associated with gatherings of the members of the church of the Redeemer. Such occasions called to mind the God on high who helps them in their undertakings for his glory, and was their Father and Friend, whom they had promised to obey, and whose laws they had taken as their guide through life. Their great desire was success in all sections of the church. If they had that day been successful in laying the foundation stone, what was to prevent their success in raising the superstructure of their chureh, and in paying their minister's stipend, and this would be matter for thankfulness. It was pleasant to see one of their fair ones come forth, as had been done that day, and lay the foundation stone of their new chiurch, and it was pleasant to see the various signs of prosperity which surrounded them, But it was possible to witness all this, and yet fall short of true success. Success of the best kind must be looked for in other things. It lay in the salvation of men, and not in the erection of a building or in attention to secular affairs. Their grand work lay in achieving the wonders of redeeming grace in the salvation of perishing men. Jesus's words to his disciples were " Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." The great work of the present day was to raise the fallen and spread scriptural holiness throughout the world, and thus anticipate the joys of everlasting life. In his humble opinion, when a church ceased to be a soul-saving church it mistook its mission ; if it was not successful in bringing souls to God, it was not successful at all. To be successful required nothing more than to follow the Lord Jesus, and be true to their principles and the truths of God. It was dillicult at all times to be faithful to God, but he instanced the case of Ahab and Elijah to show that courage and fidelity were necessary in reproving superiors. Something more than spasmodic effort was necessary to accomplish their object—their's was a life-plan work. And it would not do to break down their precepts by ill example. The present standard of Christian morals was lower than it ought to be—was enough to make them ashamed, and it was no wonder they were not more successful. The duty of the Christian church was to let its light shine, and if every Christian did but observe his duty in this respect there would be more conversions to God. He reminded them of the command given to the disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until endued with power from on high, and argued that in like manner all Christians were to look for the baptism of the Spirit in order to be enabled to adorn the gospel of God. He concluded by exhorting his hearers to trust in the promises of God and look forward to the time when Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto God and heaven and earth should be filled with one song— Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! He wished them every success, not only in their church building, but in winning souls, for thus should they shine as the brightness df the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever.
The Rev. James Paterson said, when their honorary secretary invited him to the laying of, the foundation stone of their new church, he did not tell him of the tea meeting which was to follow, or, like another reverend brother, he might have found an excuse for his absence; but having promised he was determined not to back out. After some remarks on the weather, and the bright day and pleasant ceremony they had enjoyed, he observed that he was disappointed at seeing so few present at the ceremony. Such an event did not occur every day, and more ought to have been present, though perhaps money considerations kept some away. Having passed censure, he would now bestow praise upon those who had so well furnished the tables both at luncheon and and tea. He felt very happy, and wished to thank those of other denominations for their promises of help, and to remind Presbyterians that they could not expect, others to labour for them unless they did their best for themselves. They should remember the old proverb—" God helps those who help them selves." He accorded all praise to the McKeahnies, and Mortons, and Grahams of their number, but it was necessary that all should put their shoulder to the wheel. He gave them an illustration from natural history of the power of combination. There was a variety of monkey, which when wishing to cross a river selected an overhanging tree and ascending it linked head and tail and thus formed a chain until it became long enough to reach by a process of oscillation a tree on the opposite bank of the river, which was grasped by the monkey at the extremity of the chain, and thusa bridge was formed over which they all passed in safety. It was wonderful what could be done by combined action. He urged them not to have a large debt upon their church; nothing could be more to their discredit or discouragement, and it was well known that people would not go into a debt-laden church for fear of being taxed for its liquidation, and moreover ministers were loth to accept a call in such cases. He exhorted them to cleave to each other and live on the best of terms with other denominations of Christians. He shoped that ere long they would have a minister sent amongst them, and he hoped they would encourage him by attending regularly on the ordinances. Referring to their own ecclesiastical system, he said be should like to see in it more pliancy. There were excellences in the Wesleyan and Church of England systems which they might copy with advantage. He referred to the employment of lay preachers, and of sending out catechists or candidates for the ministry to occupy stations for which they had no ordained ministers, and under the supervision of ministers of neighbouring districts, and to go up annually to pass an examination until they were fitted for ordination. Thus they could supplement the work of the college, and from Wollongong to Eden, and elsewhere, fields of labour existed which an agency of this sort could fill. He concluded by expreesiong a hope that the Presbyterians of Queanbeyan would date a new era from that day for great spiritual prosperity, and that amongst them many sons and daughters might be born to the Lord.
Mr R. W. Mackellar rose to propose a vote of thanks, and not to make a speech, for the subjects under consideration were exhausted. He moved that the thanks of the meeting be accorded to the ladies and others who had so liberally provided for their, wants that day.
Mr C. McKeahnie seconded the motion, which was carried by acclamation.
Mr Gale moved, and Mr O'Neill seconded, a vote of thanks to the chairman and clerical visitors, and this also being carried by acclamation, and duly acknowledged, the benediction was pronounced, and the meeting broke up.
We understand total proceeds for the day including remittances from absentees, amounted to over £85.
------------------------------------------------
Queanbeyan Age (NSW : 1867 - 1904) | Wed 11 Mar 1874 | Page 2
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.
ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, QUEANBEYAN.
THE OPENING SERVICES
OF this, the first place of Presbyterian worship built in Queanbeyan, were conducted on Sunday last under very encouraging and auspicious circumstances.
The building was commenced about two years ago, the foundation being completed and the chief corner stone laid by Mrs Charles McKeahie, with the usual ceremonies, on the 16th May, 1872. Owing to oversight in not binding the various contractors to time the works have been carried on but tardily, and even now the church is in a very incomplete state, as stated in our last issue.
A description of the building may not be out of place here, before we notice more particularly the services of Sabbath last. The design is gothic, and the material of the walls is rubble stone, neatly jointed, the copings of the buttresses, the parapets, string courses, &c., being of Portland cement. The building. comprises the body of the church, which furnishes accomodation for about 150 hearers, a neat porch, and a "session room," or vestry, at the rear. A bell-turret, surmounted by a spire-which is covered with zinc, and from its paltry appearance is the only defect noticeable in the building to ordinary spectators—springs from the right angle of the front gable of the building. The corbels from which the arches of the doors and windows spring are chastely wrought flowers and human heads of Grecian features. There are ten narrow windows in the main building, two smaller ones in the porch, and one in the vestry. These, as well as a large quatre-foil window in the gable behind the pulpit, are to be of stained glass, and although the order for them was given some time ago they had not arrived in time for the opening.
Exteriorly the church is, with the, defect already mentioned, a very handsome structure, and reflects great credit on the architect who designed it and when the grounds around it are properly laid out, and the gates and ornamental fence erected, the Presbyterian Church of St. Stephen's will be one of the handsomest public buildings in Queanbeyan ; and facing, as it does, the public recreation reserve, will always have the advantage of being a conspicuous object in, the foreground.
The interior of the church is beautiful, and in thorough keeping with the exterior. Ascending three broad steps the porch is gained, and thence, passing through folding doors, the church is entered. The first object which strikes the attention of the observer is a very handsome rostrum, rising from a low platform, and surmounted by a bookboard. This is lighted by two chaste lamps. We may mention that this necessary piece of church furniture is the workmanship, as well as the gift, of Mr John Kealman, who has the contracts for the seats—a portion of which only are as yet completed—and the gates and palisading fence enclosing the allotment. Two elaborate four-burner lamps, of the same pattern as those on the pulpit or desk mentioned above, depend from the ceiling and light the body of the church. The lamps were selected by Mr J. J. Wright on his recent visit to Sydney. The inner roof or ceiling is somewhat peculiar, and in our opinion the interior would have had a better effect to the eye if the ordinary open roof had been substituted for the present arrangement. Though, perhaps, for acoustic purposes the plan adopted is preferable. The ceiling springs from the wallplates erect for a foot or eighteen inches, and then by two or three slight angles, or "covings" rises archlike to the centre. It is lined with tongued-and-grooved pine, coloured and varnished in harmony with the oak graining of the doors and window frames.
Mr Thos. Priest was the contractor for the masonry Mr T. Jordon, for the carpenters' work; Mr J. Evitts, for the plastering ; Mr F. A. Helmund, for the painters' work; and Mr John Kealman, for the interior fittings, the windows, and the gates and fencing. The belfry is fitted with a bell, the gift of Mr Holdsworth, of Sydney.
The cost of the building is not exactly estimated ; but will probably exceed £500.
Although the seats for the Church were not completed in readiness for the opening services, through the courtesy of the Rev. C. Jones, who lent the spare seats of the Wesleyan Church, and Colonel Russell, P.M., who gave permission for the use of the Court-house forms ; ample accomodation, it was believed, had been provided for those who would attend the services of Sabbath last. Indeed, considering that the seats used were not made for the building, they were capable of very convenient arrangement and provided nearly as much sitting accommodation as the church can afford. But, nevertheless, long before the hour of morning service it was evident that the church would be crowded. And by eleven o'clock, all the available sitting and standing room, including the porch its-self, was occupied—the congregation crowding to the very feet of the minister, and a large number, who had been unable to gain admittance, were obliged to go away. There could not have been less than two hundred persons crowded into the church and porch during the morning service, many of whom had come from the country—some as far as twenty-five or thirty miles distant.
The Rev. R. Steel, M.A., Ph. D., of St. Stephen's Church, Sydney, conducted the opening services. The morning service began by singing the Old Hundredth Psalm, and a dedicatory prayer, appropriate chapters from the Bible, and other devotional exercises, the reverend docter announced his text from the Book of Genesis, 28th chap. v. 22—" And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house." The preacher introduced his subject by reminding his hearers of the object which had brought them together that day—to dedicate that building to the worship of Almighty God.
"The sound of the church-going bell,"
had that morning called to mind a multitude of reminiscences—Bible scenes—associations of their youth, and of other lands. He dwelt upon these in a descriptive manner, which arrested the breathless attention of the congregation, and awoke the tenderest emotions of their hearts. Churches were places of prayer, praise, and instruction. He expatiated on these points of discourse at large, showing the duty and advantages of public worship, and concluded an eloquent and powerful sermon, which occupied about an hour in delivery, by expressing his earnest wish that the place wherein they were assembled might become the birthplace of many souls.
The Sacrament of Baptism was then administered to two infants, and the service was brought to a close by prayer, singing, and the Apostolic Benediction.
The collection at morning service amounted to £7 14s 8d.
The evening service was begun at 7 o'clock ; and many who were disappointed of a seat in the morning, were there betimes in order to secure accommodation. As in the morning the church was crowded, the porch also, and many persons stood around the building wherever they could hear the sermon. The evening text was Ephesians v. 1.—"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children." The discourse founded upon these words was very fine. The love which God bears for mankind was dwelt upon and illustrated in a variety of ways which could not have failed to carry conviction to the hearts of those who heard the preacher's fervent words ; and the manner in which God's children are to imitate Him in His communicable attribites was ably set forth.
The collection at the close of the evening service amounted to £2 19s 8d.
All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,
Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground
And from the first grey wakening we have found
No refuge from the skirmishing fine rain
And the wind that made the canvas heave and flap
And the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.
All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,
Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer stream
Too light to stir the acorns that suddenly
Snatched from their cups by the wild south-westerly
Pattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.
And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,
Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,
Reading the Sunday papers – I saw a fox
And mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; –
And we talked of girls and dropping bombs on Rome,
And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities
Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees:
Yet thought softly, morosely of them, and as indifferently
As of ourselves or those whom we
For years have loved, and will again
Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rain
Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.
And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart
Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday
Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play,
Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me
By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree
To the Shoulder o’ Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded long
On death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.
Fatherhood
The Apostle Paul is very specific here in defining a fatherly role and gives three special characteristics of a Christian father. We fathers tend to apply them in reverse order but Paul states them as:
Encouraging
Like children, we are often tempted to give up. When that happens, the real need is for someone to come along side who can identify with and encourage them to keep going. A Christian father is one who is always there to give an encouraging word when needed. And the need is often!
Comforting
This reference is to the kind of comfort that helps a child or another person carry a burden of grief or pain. Just by coming alongside in this concerned way, the burden is made lighter and the pain is lessened. We were not created to be alone, especially in grief. The Christian father and disciple maker is also always there for times of comfort giving.
Exhorting:
This is the direction and assertiveness characteristic that should be evident in the father/disciple maker relationship. There are times when the father moves from the side to stand squarely in front and confront them with something that they need to face. The dangers in not exercising this responsibility are very great and should compel us to be diligent toward both our children and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
J.J. Andrews is an elderly Lutheran pastor friend in Rangoon, Burma—now Myanmar—with a great father’s heart for ministry. Several years ago his daughter died of viral hepatitis. Two months later his wife passed away from a broken heart. Six months after that one of his sons suddenly died. He was crushed. He said, "I felt like Job, only no one visited me."
A young Filipino staff member of Open Doors heard about this situation. He made a special trip just to visit Brother J.J. and encourage him. J.J. said, “Thank you for coming in my darkest hour.”
Some months later, I was visiting Brother J.J. in Rangoon. He had his young grand-children laughing and playing around his home. He smiled as he shared unforgettable lessons with me. The words I remember verbatim were, “God rewarded me for my perseverance and healed my broken heart!” The ministry of encouragement is straight from the heart of Father God.
RESPONSE
Today I will commit to being an encourager, comforter and exhorter.
PRAYER
Thank You Lord for Christian fathers who have modelled Your heart with their children
-Open Doors
Russian painter and printmaker, active in Germany. When he was ten, his family moved to Moscow. Following family tradition, he was originally educated for a military career, attending cadet school, and, later, the Alexander Military School in Moscow. However, while still a cadet, he became interested in painting. At the age of 16, he visited the Moscow World Exposition, which had a profound influence on him. He subsequently spent all of his leisure time at the Tret’yakov State Gallery, Moscow. In 1884 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Samogita Infantry–Grenadier’s Regiment, based in Moscow. In 1889 he transferred to a regiment in St Petersburg, and later enrolled in the Academy of Art (1889–96), where he was a student of Il’ya Repin. Indeed his works of this period reflected some of the conventions of Realism (e.g. W. W. Mathé Working, 1892; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Seeking to escape the limitations on expression exhorted by the Russian art establishment, in 1896 Jawlensky and his colleagues Igor Grabar, Dmitry Kardovsky and marianne Werefkin moved to Munich to study with Anton Ažbe. Here he made the acquaintance of another expatriate Russian artist, Vasily Kandinsky. In Munich Jawlensky began his lasting experimentation in the combination of colour, line, and form to express his innermost self (e.g. Hyacinth, c. 1902; Munich, Lenbachhaus).
In the early years of the 20th century, backed by the considerable wealth of his companion Werefkin, Jawlensky spent his summers travelling throughout Europe, including France, where his works were exhibited in Paris with the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne of 1905. Travelling exposed him to a diverse range of artists, techniques, and artistic theories during a formative stage in his own career as a painter. His work, initially characterized by simplified forms, flat areas of colour and heavy black outlines, was in many ways a synthesis of the myriad influences to which he was exposed. As well as the influence of Russian icons and folk art, Ažbe imparted a sense of the importance of line and colour. In Paris, Jawlensky became familiar with the works of Vincent van Gogh, and some of his paintings reflect elements of van Gogh’s technique and approach to his subject-matter (e.g. Village in Bayern (Wasserburg), 1907; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In particular his symbolic and expressive use of bright colour was more characteristic of van Gogh and Paul Gauguin than of the German Expressionists, with whom he had the greatest contact. In 1905 Jawlensky visited Ferdinand Hodler, and two years later he began his long friendship with Jan Verkade and met Paul Sérusier. Together, Verkade and Sérusier transmitted to Jawlensky both practical and theoretical elements of the work of the Nabis, and Synthetist principles of art. The Theosophy and mysticism of the Nabis, with their emphasis on the importance of the soul, struck a responsive chord in Jawlensky, who sought in his art to mirror his own inner being. The combination of technique and spirituality characteristic of these movements, when linked to Jawlensky’s own experience and emerging style, resulted in a period of enormous creativity and productivity.
Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion Gabriele Münter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings (e.g. Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau, 1908–9; Munich, Lenbachhaus), they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. In 1909 they helped to found the Neue künstlervereinigung münchen (NKVM). After a break-away group formed the Blaue Reiter in 1911, Jawlensky remained in the NKVM until 1912, when works by him were shown at the Blaue Reiter exhibitions. During this period he made a vital contribution to the development of Expressionism. In addition to his landscapes of this period, Jawlensky also produced many portraits. Like all of his work, his treatment of the human face and figure varied over time. In the years preceding World War I, for example, Jawlensky produced portraits of figures dressed colourfully (e.g. Schokko with a Wide-brimmed Hat, 1910) or even exotically (e.g. Barbarian Princess, 1912; Hagen, Osthaus Mus.). However, following a trip to the Baltic coast, and renewed contact with Henri Matisse in 1911 and Emil Nolde in 1912, Jawlensky turned increasingly to the expressive use of colour and form alone in his portraits. He often stripped from his art the distraction of brightly coloured apparel to emphasize the individual depicted and the artist’s own underlying state of mind (e.g. Head of a Woman, 1912; Berlin, Alte N.G.).
This dynamic period in Jawlensky’s life and art was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Expelled from Germany in 1914, he moved to Switzerland. Here he began Variations, a cycle of landscape paintings of the view from his window at isolated St Prex on Lake Geneva. The works in this series became increasingly abstract and were continued long after he had left St Prex (e.g. Variation, 1916; and Variation No. 84, 1921; both Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). In ill-health he spent the end of the war in Ascona. While in St Prex, Jawlensky had first met Galka Scheyer, a young art student who was captivated by his works. Scheyer’s expressions of admiration and support reinvigorated Jawlensky’s art and (with less success) his finances, first by embracing his theoretical and stylistic tenets, and later by promoting his work in Europe and the USA.
After a hiatus in experimentation with the human form, Jawlensky produced perhaps his best-known series, the Mystical Heads (1917–19), and the Saviour’s Faces (1918–20), which are reminiscent of the traditional Russian Orthodox icons of his childhood. In these works he attempted to further reduce conventional portraiture to abstract line, form and, especially, colour (e.g. Head of a Girl, 1918; Ascona, Mus. Com. A. Mod.; and Christ, 1920; Long Beach, CA, Mus. A.). In 1921 he began another cycle in the same vein, his Abstract (sometimes called Constructivist) Heads (1921–35), for example Abstract Head: Red Light (1930; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). His graphic art also included highly simplified, almost geometric heads, such as the lithograph Head II (1921–2; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden).
In 1922, after marrying Werefkin’s former maid Hélène Nesnakomoff, the mother of his only son, Andreas, born before their marriage, Jawlensky took up residence in Wiesbaden. In 1924 he organized the Blue four, whose works, thanks to Scheyer’s tireless promotion, were jointly exhibited in Germany and the USA. From 1929 Jawlensky suffered from a crippling arthritis that severely limited his creative activity. During this final period of his life he endured not only poor health and near poverty but the threat of official persecution as well. In 1933 the Nazis forbade the display of his ‘degenerate’ works. Nevertheless he continued his series of increasingly abstract faces, producing more than 1000 works in the Meditations series (1934–7), which included examples of abstract landscapes and still-lifes, as well as portraits. These series represented further variations on the face broken down into its component parts, using geometric shapes, line and colour to convey the mood of the painting and, hence, that of the painter himself. Jawlensky’s state of mind is vividly reflected in these works, as he adopted an increasingly dark, brooding palette (e.g. Large Meditation III, No. 16, 1937; Wiesbaden, Mus. Wiesbaden). By 1937, when his physical condition forced him to cease painting altogether, these faces had been deconstructed to their most basic form: a cross forming the expressive brow, nose and mouth of the subject, on a richly coloured background (e.g. Meditation, 1937; Zurich, Ksthaus). No longer able to use art as a means of conveying his innermost self, Jawlensky began to dictate his memoirs in 1938.
Edward Kasinec, From Grove Art Online
THE holy women were very near the door of Nicodemus’s house at the moment of our Lord’s Resurrection; but they did not see anything of the prodigies which were taking place at the sepulchre. They were not aware that guards had been placed around the tomb, for they had not visited it on the previous day, on account of its being the Sabbath. They questioned one another anxiously concerning what would have to be done about the large stone at the door, as to who would be the best person to ask about removing it, for they had been so engrossed by grief that they had not thought about it before. Their intention was to pour precious ointments upon the body of Jesus, and then to strew over it flowers of the most rare and aromatic kinds, thus rendering all the honour possible to their Divine Master in his sepulchre. Salome, who had brought more things than any one else, was a rich lady, who lived in Jerusalem, a relation of St. Joseph, but not the mother of John. The holy women came to the determination of putting down their spices on the stone which closed the door of the monument, and waiting until some one came to roll it back.
The guards were still lying on the ground, and the strong convulsions which even then shook them clearly demonstrated how great had been their terror, and the large stone was cast on one side, so that the door could be opened without difficulty. I could see the linen cloth in which the body of Jesus had been wrapped scattered about in the tomb, and the large winding-sheet lying in the same place as when they left it, but doubled together in such a manner that you saw at once that it no longer contained anything but the spices which had been placed round the body, and the bandages were on the outside of the tomb. The linen cloth in which Mary had enveloped the sacred head of her Son was still there.
I saw the holy women coming into the garden; but when they perceived the light given by the lamps of the sentinels, and the prostrate forms of the soldiers round the tomb, they for the most part became much alarmed, and retreated towards Golgotha. Mary Magdalen was, however, more courageous, and, followed by Salome, entered the garden, while the other Women remained timidly on the outside.
Magdalen started, and appeared for a moment terrified when she drew near the sentinels. She retreated a few steps and rejoined Salome, but both quickly recovered their presence of mind, and walked on together through the midst of the prostrate guards, and entered into the cave which contained the sepulchre. They immediately perceived that the stone was removed, but the doors were closed, which had been done in all probability by Cassius. Magdalen opened them quickly, looked anxiously into the sepulchre, and was much surprised at seeing that the cloths in which they had enveloped our Lord were lying on one side, and that the place where they had deposited the sacred remains was empty. A celestial light filled the cave, and an angel was seated on the right side. Magdalen became almost beside herself from disappointment and alarm. I do not know whether she heard the words which the angel addressed to her, but she left the garden as quickly as possible, and ran to the town to inform the Apostles who were assembled there of what had taken place. I do not know whether the angel spoke to Mary Salome, as she did not enter the sepulchre; but I saw her leaving the garden directly after Magdalen, in order to relate all that had happened to the rest of the holy women, who were both frightened and delighted at the news, but could not make up their minds as to whether they would go to the garden or not.
In the meantime Cassius had remained near the sepulchre in hopes of seeing Jesus, as he thought he would be certain to appear to the holy women; but seeing nothing, he directed his steps towards Pilate’s palace to relate to him all that had happened, stopping, however, first at the place where the rest of the holy women were assembled, to tell them what he had seen, and to exhort them to go immediately to the garden. They followed his advice, and went there at once. No sooner had they reached the door of the sepulchre than they beheld two angels clothed in sacerdotal vestments of the most dazzling white. The women were very much alarmed, covered their faces with their hands, and prostrated almost to the ground; but one of the angels addressed them, bade them not fear, and told them that they must not seek for their crucified Lord there, for that he was alive, had risen, and was no longer an inhabitant of the tomb. He pointed out to them at the same moment the empty sepulchre, and ordered them to go and relate to the disciples all that they had seen and heard. He likewise told them that Jesus would go before them into Galilee, and recalled to their minds the words which our Saviour had addressed to them on a former occasion: ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of sinners, he will be crucified, and the third day rise again.’ The angels then disappeared, and left the holy women filled with joy, although of course greatly agitated; they wept, looked at the empty tomb and linen clothes, and immediately started to return to the town. But they were so much overcome by the many astounding events which had taken place, that they walked very slowly, and stopped and looked back often, in hopes of seeing our Lord, or at least Magdalen.
In the meantime Magdalen reached the Cenaculum. She was so excited as to appear like a person beside herself, and knocked hastily at the door. Some of the disciples were still sleeping, and those who were risen were conversing together. Peter and John opened the door, but she only exclaimed, without entering the house, ‘They have taken away the body of my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him,’ and immediately returned to the garden. Peter and John went back into the house, and after saying a few words to the other disciples followed her as speedily as possible, but John far outstripped Peter. I then saw Magdalen re-enter the garden, and direct her steps towards the sepulchre; she appeared greatly agitated, partly from grief, and partly from having walked so fast. Her garments were quite moist with dew, and her veil hanging on one side, while the luxuriant hair in which she had formerly taken so much pride fell in dishevelled masses over her shoulders, forming a species of mantle. Being alone, she was afraid of entering the cave, but stopped for a moment on the outside, and knelt down in order to see better into the tomb. She was endeavouring to push back her long hair, which fell over her face an obscured her vision, when she perceived the two angels who were seated in the tomb, and I heard one of them address her thus: ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ She replied, in a voice choked with tears (for she was perfectly overwhelmed with grief at finding that the body of Jesus was really gone), ‘Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’ She said no more, but seeing the empty winding-sheet, went out of the sepulchre and began to look about in other parts. She felt a secret presentiment that not only should she find Jesus, but that he was even then near to her; and the presence of the angels seemed not to disturb her in the least; she did not appear even to be aware that they were angels, every faculty was engrossed with the one thought, ‘Jesus is not there! Where is Jesus?’ I watched her wandering about like an insane person, with her hair floating loosely in the wind: her hair appeared to annoy her much, for she again endeavoured to push it from off her face, and having divided it into two parts, threw it over her shoulders.
She then raised her head, looked around, and perceived a tall figure, clothed in white, standing at about ten paces from the sepulchre on the east side of the garden, where there was a slight rise in the direction of the town; the figure was partly hidden from her sight by a palm-tree, but she was somewhat startled when it addressed her in these words: ‘Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?’ She thought it was the gardener; and, in fact, he had a spade in his hand, and a large hat (apparently made of the bark of trees) on his head. His dress was similar to that worn by the gardener described in the parable which Jesus had related to the holy women at Bethania a short time before his Passion. His body was not luminous, his whole appearance was rather that of a man dressed in white and seen by twilight. At the words, ‘Whom seekest thou?’ she looked at him, and answered quickly, ‘Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him; and I will take him away.’ And she looked anxiously around. Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She then instantly recognised his beloved voice, and turning quickly, replied, ‘Rabboni (Master)!’ She threw herself on her knees before him, and stretched out her hands to touch his feet; but he motioned her to be still, and said, ‘Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God. He then disappeared.
The reason of the words of Jesus, ‘Do not touch me,’ Was afterwards explained to me, but I have only an indistinct remembrance of that explanation. I think he made use of those words because of the impetuosity of Magdalen’s feelings, which made her in a certain degree forget the stupendous mystery which had been accomplished, and feel as if what she then beheld was still mortal instead of a glorified body. As for the words of Jesus, ‘I am not yet ascended to my Father,’ I was told that their meaning was that he had hot presented himself to his Father since his Resurrection, to return him thanks for his victory over death, and for the work of the redemption which he had accomplished. He wished her to infer from these words, that the first-fruits of joy belong to God, and that she ought to reflect and return thanks to him for the accomplishment of the glorious mystery of the redemption, and for the victory which he had gained over death; and if she had kissed his feet as she used before the Passion, she would have thought of nothing but her Divine Master, and in her raptures of love have totally forgotten the wonderful events which were causing such astonishment and joy in Heaven. I saw Magdalen arise quickly, as soon as our Lord disappeared, and run to look again in the sepuchre, as if she believed herself under the influence of a dream. She saw the two angels still seated there, and they spoke to her concerning the resurrection of our Lord in the same words as they bad addressed the two other women. She likewise saw the empty winding-sheet, and then, feeling certain that she was not in a state of delusion, but that the apparition of our Lord was real, she walked quickly back towards Golgotha to seek her companions, who were wandering about to and fro, anxiously looking out for her return, and indulging a kind of vague hope that they should see or hear something of Jesus.
The whole of this scene occupied a little more than two or three minutes. It was about half-past three when our Lord appeared to Magdalen, and John and Peter entered the garden just as she was leaving it. John, who was a little in advance of Peter, stopped at the entrance of the cave and looked in. He saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and waited until Peter came up, when they entered the sepulchre together, and saw the winding-sheet empty as has been before described. John instantly believed in the Resurrection, and they both understood clearly the words addressed to them by Jesus before his Passion, as well as the different passages in Scripture relating to that event, which had until then been incomprehensible to them. Peter put the linen clothes under his cloak, and they returned hastily into the town through the small entrance belonging to Nicodemus.
The appearance of the holy sepulchre was the same when the two apostles entered as when Magdalen first saw it. The two adoring angels were seated, one at the head, and the other at the extremity of the tomb, in precisely the same attitude as when his adorable body was lying there. I do not think Peter was conscious of their presence. I afterwards heard John tell the disciples of Emmaus, that when he looked into the sepulchre he saw an angel. Perhaps he was startled by this sight, and therefore drew back and let Peter enter the sepulchre first; but it is likewise very possible that the reason of his not mentioning the circumstance in his gospel was because humility made him anxious to conceal the fact of his having been more highly favoured than Peter.
The guards at this moment began to revive, and rising, gathered up their lances, and took down the lamps, which were on the door, from whence they cast a glimmering weak light on surrounding objects. I then saw them walk hastily out of the garden in evident fear and trepidation, in the direction of the town.
In the meantime Magdalen had rejoined the holy women, and given them the account of her seeing the Lord in the garden, and of the words of the angels afterwards, whereupon they immediately related what had been seen by themselves, and Magdalen wended her way quickly to Jerusalem, while the women returned to that side of the garden where they expected to find the two apostles. Just before they reached it, Jesus appeared to them. He was clothed in a long white robe, which concealed even his hands, and said to them, ‘All hail’ They started with astonishment, and cast themselves at his feet; he spoke a few words, held forth his hand as if to point out something to them, and disappeared. The holy women went instantly to the Cenaculum, and told the disciples who were assembled there that they had seen the Lord; the disciples were incredulous, and would not give credence either to their account or to that of Magdalen. They treated both the one and the other as the effects of their excited imaginations; but when Peter and John entered the room and related what they likewise had seen, they knew not what to answer, and were filled with astonishment.
Peter and John soon left the Cenaculum, as the wonderful events which had taken place rendered them extremely silent and thoughtful, and before long they met James the Less and Thaddeus, who had wished to accompany them to the sepulchre. Both James and Thaddeus were greatly overcome, for the Lord had appeared to them a short time before they met Peter and John. I also saw Jesus pass quite close to Peter and John. I think the former recognised him, for he started suddenly, but I do not think the latter saw him.
Beware Trains exhorts the notice behind 2 runs of steel fence. The bridge is Small Heath viaduct which spans the running lines and the almost disused marshalling yard at Small Heath. In a hurry to pass by is a Cross Country Voyager, it was working 1V 85 the 07.00 Edinburgh to Reading service.
* I would have liked the train to have had more blur bur given the light 1/20 second was the slowest I could get without too much over exposure.
Copyright Geoff Dowling: All rights reserved
Jesus once told Peter to be ready to forgive “up to seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21, 22) A true friend is quick to overlook minor failings. To illustrate: Some do not like eating raspberries because of their little seeds. Those who enjoy this fruit, however, do not notice the seeds. True friends are loved for their fine qualities; their minor faults are overlooked. Paul exhorted us: “Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely.” (Colossians 3:13) Those who learn to be forgiving keep their friends.
Forgiving others for personal offenses does not mean that we are condoning or minimizing what they have done; neither does it mean letting others take unfair advantage of us. After all, when Jehovah forgives us, he is certainly not trivializing our sins, and he will never allow sinful humans to trample upon his mercy. (Hebrews 10:29) , forgiveness is defined as “the act of pardoning an offender; ceasing to feel resentment toward him because of his offense and giving up all claim to recompense." - plainly said just let it go....we all fall,we are all imperfect,we or someone else may say and do things sometimes that we wish never happened..but we need to just let it go..it's not worth us holding on to, it can rob us of our happiness. so i forgive................
"In the liturgy of the Order, today’s feast expresses the unique bond between the Friars Minor and the Friars Preachers, due to the affinity between the founders of these Orders in their historic mission in building up the Church. As Saint Catherine of Siena recorded of them most beautifully, ‘Truly Dominic and Francis were two pillars of Holy Church: Francis with the poverty that was his hallmark, and Dominic by his learning.’ We who follow them faithfully are taught to ‘become discples of such humble masters.’
A contemporary of Saint Dominic, Francis (1182-1226), followed the poor Christ with an admirable simplicity, and the Crucified with singular charity. In living according to the form of the Gospel, he attracted to himself numerous brothers and sisters, whom he joyfully exhorted to love of poverty, praise of the Creator and obedience to the Church. He was marked with the stigmata of the Lord in 1224, and went happily to ‘Sister Death’ on 3 October 1226. He was canonised by Gregory IX in 1228."
This painting is in the House of Peter Seila, the 'Maison Dominique' in Toulouse.
With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.
-----------------------------------------------------
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.
The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.
The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.
The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.
During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.
St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.
The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.
The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate
The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.
Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.
The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.
The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."
The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.
"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.
At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.
The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.
Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.
The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."
At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.
The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.
A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.
At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."
On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.
Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.
St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.
The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.
Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.
Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.
Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."
Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."
On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—
"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which to the world impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done,
In honour of his God, and Christendom?
How that he did divide, from pagans three,
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,
Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear
These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.
Or shall I tell of his adventures since
Done in Virginia, that large continent?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;
And made their land, being so large a station,
An habitation for our Christian nation,
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;
Which else for necessaries, must have died.
But what avails his conquests, now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?
Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment; and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense."
Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.
"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."
Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.
"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.
In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.
Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.
A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."
Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.
We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.
On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.
It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—
"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent.
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!"
This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.
The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—
"You prisoners that are within,
Who, for wickedness and sin,
after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."
And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.
"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.
"Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you.
Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you."
The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.
Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"
When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."
"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."
In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.
Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—
"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."
To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.
Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.
In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …
"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!
A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.
"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!
"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."
After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.
Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—
"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,
Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."
And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):
"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;
The roast meat on the stall
Invited me to take a taste;
My money was but small."
But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—
"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,
'Tis a very fine dirty place;
Where there's more arrows and bows. …
Than was handled at Chivy Chase."
We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.
Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.
In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.
Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."
We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.
Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."
A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.
At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.
"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.
There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."
Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…
"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."
A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.
The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."
This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."
Tendrá algo que ver con las "Mujeres LIbres" que hacían un diario libertario?
las primeras anarkas-feministas?
De todas formas es bueno ver de dónde venimos.
21 RAZONES PARA SER FEMINISTA EN EL SIGLO XXI
1.- Porque queremos un mundo de paz y justicia en donde la dignidad
humana sea respetada.
2.- Porque pedimos que hombres y mujeres sean iguales en dignidad,
iguales en derechos y que éstos sean aplicados.
3.- Porque los 2/3 de los analfabetos del mundo son mujeres y niñas.
4.- Porque el 99% de las tierras cultivadas del mundo pertenecen a
los hombres, mientras que las mujeres producen el 70% del cultivo de
alimentos básicos. Porque las mujeres se encuentren entre el 70% de
los más pobres del mundo.
5.- Porque el 84% de los parlamentarios del mundo son hombres
mientras que las mujeres son más de la mitad del electorado.
6.- Porque en ningún país las mujeres se benefician realmente de los
mismos derechos que los hombres. Porque, en Afganistán, las mujeres
sufren una barbarie desmedida y se encuentran privadas de todo tipo
de derechos.
7.- Porque, en Francia, a trabajo igual, los hombres ganan un 15%
más que las mujeres y una media, ante un trabajo equivalente, de un
25% más que ellas.
8.- Porque los hombres sólo colaboran en un 20% de las tareas
domésticas, cuidado de hijos y mayores de la familia.
9.- Porque al menos uno de cada 10 hogares es el escenario de
violencias graves cuyas víctimas son en un 95% mujeres y niños.
10.- Porque la sexualidad consentida entre adultos aporta una
satisfacción recíproca y no debería utilizarse, mediante palabras o
actos, para lastimar o vejar.
11.- Porque toda mujer ha sido insultada en la calle o conduciendo
su automóvil.
12.- Porque la publicidad representa con demasiada frecuencia de
manera degradante a las mujeres, así como las relaciones entre
hombres y mujeres.
13.- Porque en el mundo, cada año, a dos millones de niñas le es
practicada la ablación y se añaden a los cien millones de mujeres
mutiladas genitalmente.
14.- Porque exhortamos a resistir frente a la violencia del sistema
machista, que exalta una virilidad brutal y desprecia los seres
diferentes: mujeres, niños, homosexuales, débiles, etc..
15.- Porque en algunos países, la voluntad política y el trabajo
feminista han producido ya un cambio de mentalidades, en Canadá,
Europa del Norte, por ejemplo.
16.- Porque somos solidarias de las mujeres y niñas que, en
cualquier lugar son maltratadas, humilladas, explotadas, insultadas,
golpeadas, violadas.
17.- Porque "el feminismo nunca ha matado a nadie, mientras que el
machismo mata todos los días" (Benoîte Groult).
18.- Porque pedimos una ley antisexista tomando como modelo la ley
francesa antirracista de 1972, para que los delitos y los crímenes
sexistas sean reconocidos como tales y castigados.
19.- Porque aspiramos al ideal de Libertad,y Fraternidad; porque
podríamos reemplazarlo por "adelfité" (1), para representar mejor la
idea de una solidaridad armoniosa entre todos los seres humanos,
hombres y mujeres.
20.- Porque "la utopía de hoy es la realidad de mañana" (Víctor
Hugo).
21.- Porque...... ..... (añade tu propia razón).Es por todo ello que
somos feministas y lo seguiremos siendo tanto tiempo como sea
preciso.
(1) hace referencia a Delfos, en la antigüedad ciudad de las mujeres
donde se encontraba el templo de Afrodita.
comunica-accion. org
Un día estaba predicando y hablé del gran desastre que estaba por venir. Así que exhorté a los hermanos y hermanas a asistir a las reuniones activamente, poner más empeño en leer la Biblia y seguir el camino del Señor en la vida real, para poder observar y esperar el regreso del Señor. Pero vi que algunos hermanos y hermanas permanecían débiles y llenos de dudas sobre si podrían ser arrebatados al Reino de los Cielos. Luego expliqué: “Hermanos y hermanas, la Biblia dice: ‘porque con el corazón se cree para justicia, y con la boca se confiesa para salvación’ (Romanos 10:10). Mientras creamos en el Señor con nuestros corazones y confirmemos nuestra fe en Él con nuestras palabras, nuestra fe nos permitirá obtener la salvación eterna. Cuando el Señor regrese, seguramente seremos arrebatados al Reino de los Cielos”. Al escuchar lo que dije, los hermanos y hermanas estaban todos felices y tenían algo de fortaleza. En este momento, su compañero de trabajo Zhang se puso de pie y dijo: “No lo creo”. El Señor Jesús dijo: ‘[…] sino el que hace la voluntad de mi Padre que está en los cielos’ (Mateo 7:21). Esto claramente nos dice que solo aquellos que hacen la voluntad de Dios pueden entrar al Reino de los Cielos. Aunque hemos sido salvos, todavía cometemos pecados durante el día y nos arrepentimos en la noche. Esto no es hacer la voluntad del Padre celestial. Creo que aún no podremos entrar en el reino de los cielos”.
…
Fuente : www.jesucristo-es.org/reino-de-los-cielos.html
Recomendación :Reflexiones Cristianas
Scripture quotations taken from www.LBLA.com . Copyright by The Lockman Foundation.
En la sacristía de la Seo se encuentra la custodia procesional, que realizó el orfebre Pedro Lamaison (con base en un dibujo de Damián Forment) entre 1537 y 1541 con 218 kilos de plata. El gasto fue pagado por don Hernando de Aragón. En 1623 se añadió un último cuerpo, obra realizada por Claudio Yenequi en 1623, y el basamento y una imagen de Santo Tomás, realizada por Juan Dargallo en 1735, sufragado por el arzobispo Tomás Crespo de Agüero. El conjunto se enmarca dentro del estilo plateresco.
Esta fiesta conmemora la Institución de la Sagrada Eucaristía el Jueves Santo con el fin de tributarle culto público y solemne de adoración, amor y gratitud.
Fue el Papa Urbano IV, quien publicó la bula "Transiturus" el 8 de septiembre de 1264, en la que, una vez ensalzado el amor de nuestro Salvador en la Eucaristía, ordenó que se celebrara la Solemnidad del "Corpus Christie" en el día jueves después del domingo de la Santísima Trinidad, a la vez que otorgaba indulgencias a todos los fieles que asistían.
A la muerte del Papa Urbano IV (2 de octubre de 1264), poco después de la publicación del decreto se difundió la fiesta por el Papa Clemente V, que tomó el asunto en sus manos y en el concilio general de Viena (1311), ordenó una vez más la adopción de esta fiesta. Publicó un nuevo decreto incorporando el de Urbano IV. Juan XXII, sucesor de Clemente V, instó su observancia.
Ninguno de los decretos habla de la procesión con el Santísimo como un aspecto de la celebración. Sin embargo estas procesiones fueron dotadas de indulgencias por los Papas Martín V y Eugenio IV y se hicieron bastante comunes en a partir del siglo XIV.
El Concilio de Trento declara que muy piadosa y religiosamente fue introducida en la Iglesia de Dios la costumbre, que todos los años, determinado día festivo, se celebre esta singular veneración y solemnidad, y reverente y honoríficamente sea llevado en procesión por las calles y lugares públicos, por el que se hace nuevamente presente la victoria y triunfo de la muerte y resurrección de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. Juan Pablo II también exhortó a que se renueve la costumbre de honrar a Jesús en este día llevándolo en solemnes procesiones.
TWENTY-FIVE SQUARE MILES SURROUNDED BY REALITY
By FLORENCE WILLIAMS
My brother-in-law Peter lives in Boulder, Colorado. Whenever I use the bathroom in his house, I heave a bucket of used bath water down the toilet to flush it. This provides a welcome opportunity to enhance my deltoids, and it can save approximately 7,300 gallons of fresh water per year. Peter usually bikes, but occasionally he'll drive his hybrid Honda from where it's parked next to his xeriscaped yard to the Buddhist meditation classes he teaches downtown. He is, in short, the quintessential Boulderite.
This town practically perspires virtue. Last April, Boulder became the first city in the country to impose an additional tax on residents who use electricity made from coal (households and businesses that opt to buy power from alternative sources are exempt). About a third of the total waste stream here is recycled. The city-run North Boulder Recreation Center has one of the largest solar hydronic systems in the country. The Boulder Outlook Hotel boasts about its ''zero-waste'' policy. Pizza delivery boys drive Priuses. The city is ringed by 43,000 acres of protected open space -- that's nearly three times the landmass of Manhattan -- and laced with 300 miles of greenways, trout-filled creeks and designated bike lanes.
In the People's Republic of Boulder, or Bold-Air, or the Gore-Tex Vortex, as Outside magazine called it, the bicycle is chief mascot. To understand the extent to which this city of 100,000 has become a mini Copenhagen with a view, I stop by Ryan Van Duzer's house. Duzer, as he is known, is a minor celebrity.
He hosts a nightly local cable show called ''Out There,'' and he was until recently the city's paid bicycle ambassador. Before that post, he spent three months bicycling home from his Peace Corps gig. In Honduras.
He takes me to his garage, which is stocked with no cars but about a dozen bicycles. ''I've never had a driver's license,'' he says. ''In Boulder, you can get anywhere on a bike almost as fast as a car can. I've only been hit by a car once in all my life, and it was mostly my fault.'' Duzer is 29, chatty, fit and chisel-jawed. He's made for outdoor TV. I can see why he was the bike ambassador, giving safety talks to kids, coordinating the 40 breakfast stations for the city's bike-to-work week and distributing free bells, maps and reflectors. In Boulder, a community program gives bikes to homeless people in exchange for work, and the city has designated dozens of new routes and trails in recent years. ''If I don't drive, there's one less car on the road,'' Duzer says. ''We can be a little less oil dependent and reduce our climate impact. Plus I have more money to spend on traveling the world!'' Duzer is a bike fanatic, but he's not a bike snob, and therefore I know we'll get along fine. His main bike is an old Trek 8000 hard-tail, meaning it doesn't have rear suspension. Its bumper stickers say ''My Other Bike Is a Bike'' and ''Make Bike Not Car.'' He hands me a mountain bike and a water bottle, and we take off down Juniper Avenue, through narrow alleys, down leafy paths and along quiet streets. We pedal past the community gardens east of Broadway, where food waste is collected from grocery stores and composted. After cruising past a few pleasant downtown blocks, we hit the Boulder Creek Path and take a right, toward the mountains. This is the main artery of Boulder bikeland. The creek burbles alongside, and some shirtless college students stand dripping by the bank, holding inner tubes. We pass moms with strollers, a man in a wheelchair holding a Chihuahua and a bicyclist towing a sleeping white Labrador in a child's trailer. We get passed by a few of Boulder's famously serious cyclists, clad in painfully bright Lycra and riding LeMond carbon-fiber bikes. Duzer yells, ''Howdy!'' or ''Hey-a!'' and trills his bell. We breeze past the butterfly garden, the fishing pond designed exclusively for children ages 6 to 12, the bearproof canisters and the interpretive signs about neo-tropical migrating birds and protecting the water supply. In typical Boulder fashion, it's exhortative and sanctimonious: ''Please don't wash anything down your sidewalk you wouldn't want a deer to drink.''
Then, at Eben G. Fine Park, we come upon what appears to be a uniquely un-Boulder scene: young children pounding each other with foam swords and bludgeons. I investigate. On closer inspection, the kids are wearing elaborate costumes and speaking in medieval English. Turns out they're part of a ''quest-based'' summer camp called Renaissance Adventures.
Let's get one thing straight: Boulder is not for everybody. Some conservatives hate the place. The New York Times columnist David Brooks has made immense fun of it as a latte town of bourgeois bohemians with their in-your-jowls liberalism and an uncanny ability to accrue wealth while pretending to care only about following their creative visions. According to American City Business Journals, Boulder has a higher percentage of college and postcollege graduates than anywhere else in the country.
The town is rigorously conformist in its alternative way -- if you wear river sandals and sport a Timbuk2 messenger bag while sipping a doppio espresso out of a nontoxic cup, you'll feel right at home. Boulder can veer dangerously close to preciousness. Inspired by the animal rights movement, the city has officially designated pet owners as ''guardians.'' If an eating establishment uses organic produce or composts its waste, it practically screams the fact, desperate to be heard above all the other eco cacophony. The menu at the Sunflower restaurant, for example, catalogs its lengthy cred right on the cover: it uses certified organic ingredients that are free of synthetic chemicals, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides; it serves nothing with preservatives, chemical additives, artificial ingredients, growth hormones or antibiotics; it uses only nonirradiated herbs and spices, Celtic salt and filtered water; and it offers organic biodynamic wine. A sign next to the flusher in the bathroom informs me not only that I need to hold the button, but also why: ''This is a pressurized, low-water-usage device.''
At Amante Coffee, a sign announces that the shop uses natural cleaning products and conserves water, and it does not dispose of food waste down the drain (must be something about clean water for those deer). The baristas here wear Italian soccer jerseys to serve customers wearing cycling jerseys and clopping awkwardly about in their clipless cycling shoes. They're also trained to make designs with milk froth. ''We do a lot of latte art here,'' says the barista Jeff DiPallo, 37. ''It's how you pull the shot, angle the pitcher and use the spout, almost like a paintbrush. We can do leaves and geese and stuff.''
Then there's the humiliation that comes with being in the fittest town in America. ''If you don't have an Italian bike, you get looked down upon,'' says Marc Peruzzi, the editor in chief of Skiing magazine, based in Boulder. ''You have to throw your ego out the window.'' Peruzzi says that when he rides his bike on the hills west of town, he routinely gets chased and passed by pro cyclists, even the gray-bearded ones. Still, he loves it here.
It's all too easy to make fun of Boulder, but under the town's veneer of adrenaline-jacked grooviness is a strong, prescient history of conservation and scientific innovation. At the National Center for Atmospheric Research, an impressive structure that looms over the southern end of town, scientists recently shared with Al Gore a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the weighty Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In addition to carbon dioxide, Boulder residents willingly get taxed for open space and curbside recycling. In fact, the city first bought open space, the glorious Chautauqua Park, more than a hundred years ago, and in 1967, voters became the first in the nation to tax themselves -- four-tenths of a cent sales tax -- specifically for purchasing public parkland.
All that hillside greenery, though, comes at a cost: the exorbitant price of limited real estate. The median home price here is about half a million dollars, but that figure straddles a million if it's within walking distance of a trailhead. Boulder still has its vestigial hippies and wannabes, but unless they're sleeping in a school bus, they're the kind with trust funds. They live in what a friend of mine calls ''trophy shacks'' -- tiny, unimpressive cottages that nevertheless cost a fortune because of their proximity to trails and sushi. The town's unshaven roots thankfully keep it from feeling too polished, but one gets the sense the place is entering cultural exclusivity at warp speed.
Boulder's contradictions -- is it a rarefied resort or a throwback commune? -- have given rise to a unique feel-good materialism, which, for a visitor, is actually great fun. The sparkling two-year-old St. Julien hotel offers both a $230 Boulder Rocks hot stone treatment and a rack full of bicycles for rent just outside the front door. At tony boutiques, you can pine, as I did, for the $200 jeans that flatter many a buff backside all over town. Or you might like to hike through the poppies under the looming Flatirons with the Adventure Rabbi while discussing the meaning of forgiveness.
Consciousness-raising restaurants might sound insufferable, but chefs all over Boulder have figured out how to make that notion pretty appealing. At the Black Cat, just off the Pearl Street Mall, the chef Eric Skokan mines ingredients for Mediterranean-fusion dishes from his own organic garden and makes the lush mozzarella from scratch. The Kitchen on upper Pearl serves a near-perfect gnocchi with organic beef, and at the jostling-room-only Boulder County Farmers' Market you can sample local goat cheeses, veggie dumplings and a confusing array of garlics. Even fast food has caught up. On the recommendation of my friend Clay, who reviews restaurants for the Boulder Weekly, I stop by the VG Burger on 28th Street. It sits across the parking lot from a Taco Bell and next to a Dairy Queen. I order the mango-love hemp ice cream shake and oven-baked ridged organic spuds. I'm skeptical of the shake, the color of which looks remarkably like a shade of dysentery. But both items are absolutely delicious. The price for my modest shake and fries: eight bucks. I could have gotten a DQ mini-cone for a dollar.
Hoping to tap further into Boulder's peculiar moneyed vibe, I attend a public talk offered by Naropa University's ''World Cafe'' series. The talk is aptly called ''Conscious Capitalism,'' by Patricia Aburdene of the ''Megatrends'' books fame. ''We have to dwell in nowness,'' she tells a crowd of about 80 gathered around small tables at the Naropa campus. ''Higher consciousness is necessary for invention and technical innovation.'' This is what's called preaching to the converted.
In the campus parking lot, I chat with Ben Stevens, who's wearing a crocheted beret atop his waist-length single dreadlock. ''She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know,'' says Stevens, who sells fair-trade Jamaican coffee, tea and fruit drinks from a 1949 tangerine-colored bread truck at the biweekly farmers' market. Stevens says he is now on the brink of a major business breakthrough, a new beverage he hopes to distribute nationally. ''It's going to blow pomegranate juice off the map,'' he tells me, practically bouncing up and down. ''It's made with hibiscus from wild nature and has amazing amounts of electrolytes and antioxidants.''
With his proceeds, he hopes to finish building an organic showcase farm in Jamaica. I believe him. Boulderites might look like they just staggered out of a boxcar or jumared up a crevasse, but chances are they're managing a social venture fund or running a natural-products company, or at least overseeing their own green investments. Wild Oats Markets started in Boulder (Whole Foods bought it last year for $565 million), as did the Celestial Seasonings tea company, the largest of its kind in the United States. Izze fruit sodas is based here, and White Wave tofu is located just outside the city limits. Moosehead Breweries from Canada just opened its United States headquarters in the Boulder environs. Backpacker magazine recently relocated from Pennsylvania, joining the magazines VeloNews, Climbing, Inside Triathlon, Freeskier, Ski and Skiing.
One quintessential Boulder business venture is Sid Factor 7, run out of an upstairs studio on Pearl Street by Jason Olden and Eric Lyon. They design clothing and gear for outdoor companies like Pearl Izumi, CamelBak and Under Armour. They introduced their new line of ''tech casual'' men's jackets called Scapegoat at Paragon Sports, Flying A and other stores last fall. Sid Factor 7 embodies the Boulder ethos in every way. ''We live the research,'' says Lyon, a lean former mountain bike racer. ''We do it every day. We've ridden it, snowboarded in it, kayaked in it.''
Olden, who's 35, proudly shows me his new ''townie,'' a sleek black commuting bike that ''mimics a three-speed working-class bicycle'' but features Japanese fenders and a mint-condition leather Brooks saddle. Like many things in Boulder, it's working hard to look more casual than it really is. Olden and Lyon offer their four employees an ample gear allowance and a ''powder clause,'' meaning they can ditch the office if it snows enough for fresh tracks. And, wouldn't you know it, ''we're wind-powered and we recycle.''
Boulder may be the most fitness-obsessed town on the map, but it's also one of the stillest. You can go from panting your guts out in a training session with the triathlete Dave Scott at Flatiron Athletic Club to walking into the Shambhala Meditation Center for a class on ''The Sadhana of Nonmeditation: A Practice of No Activity.'' In this town, you can find meditation classes any day of the week, yoga sessions in a wide variety of contortionist dogmas and good old-fashioned dharma talks. Home to one of the very few nationally accredited Buddhist-inspired colleges in the country, Boulder has nurtured rinpoches and transplanted a Tajik teahouse. Just off the Boulder Creek Path, the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse serves gorgeous curries and looks like Tavern on the Green if it were designed by the Dalai Lama.
Which brings me back to the Adventure Rabbi. I'd read about Jamie Korngold on a Boulder Web site. In addition to her Talmudic qualifications, she's an expert telemark skier, a triathlete, a former ultradistance runner and an emergency medical technician. Instead of presiding over services in some airless room, she takes her congregation into the mountains. Evidently, it's a hit. Her Saturday hikes routinely approach the 50-person limit for the city's open-space permit. One fine morning near the end of my visit, I meet up with her at the lodge at Chautauqua Park, where visitors can still rent cottages and attend concerts much as they did more than 100 years ago. The people who stay here look as if they might break out into folk dancing. Being here makes me want to don wool and strum a guitar.
After a few days in Boulder, I'm pretty mellow and Rocky Mountain awe-filled myself. And since spirituality and materialism are the essential duality of the place, it seems fitting to challenge my inner Zen with a lavish meal. I meet my friends Clay and Nils, both foodies, at L'Atelier on Pearl Street. Clay convinces us to order the eight-course tasting menu, and Nils convinces us to order a Renteria Russian River 2004 pinot noir. He sips it, then proclaims it to be full-bodied and very fine. The restaurant is pleasantly candlelit, the clientele wearing suit jackets and silk sweater sets. The diners are likely a mix of atmospheric scientists and transplanted Silicon Valley millionaires. They may be spiritually enlightened, but they're not in danger of becoming monks, at least not unless the monastery comes with a sommelier.
As we slurp moules in a red curry sauce, the talk turns to sports. Naturally, Clay and Nils are serious cyclists. Clay is leaving next week for the weeklong Ride the Rockies tour, and Nils, an astrophysics professor, is training for July's Triple Bypass, a one-day exercise in pain traversing three passes in one day.
''I'm not in as good shape as last year, but I'm not too bad,'' says Nils, poising a spoon over the coconut sorbet intermezzo. ''Feel my butt muscles.''
Me: ''I'll take your word for it.''
Nils: ''No, really, feel them.''
Clay, writing his next restaurant review out loud: ''Ah, the meal had been going so well until Nils asked us to feel his butt.''
Clearly my day of asceticism is over. Tomorrow I will give up altogether on enlightenment. To ease myself back to a more banal American reality, I will wander into a nail salon called Ten20, where I will watch ''Sex and the City'' on a giant plasma TV and eat peanut M&Ms while having a pedicure. Then I will fly home on a jet, the kind that produces a lot of carbon dioxide, tax-free.
The cap exhorts readers to have a "Happy New Year" (via Haode - boy and girl? - signifying ideal happiness). Retro find from Wuhan's flea market.
En la sacristía de la Seo se encuentra la custodia procesional, que realizó el orfebre Pedro Lamaison (con base en un dibujo de Damián Forment) entre 1537 y 1541 con 218 kilos de plata. El gasto fue pagado por don Hernando de Aragón. En 1623 se añadió un último cuerpo, obra realizada por Claudio Yenequi en 1623, y el basamento y una imagen de Santo Tomás, realizada por Juan Dargallo en 1735, sufragado por el arzobispo Tomás Crespo de Agüero. El conjunto se enmarca dentro del estilo plateresco.
Esta fiesta conmemora la Institución de la Sagrada Eucaristía el Jueves Santo con el fin de tributarle culto público y solemne de adoración, amor y gratitud.
Fue el Papa Urbano IV, quien publicó la bula "Transiturus" el 8 de septiembre de 1264, en la que, una vez ensalzado el amor de nuestro Salvador en la Eucaristía, ordenó que se celebrara la Solemnidad del "Corpus Christie" en el día jueves después del domingo de la Santísima Trinidad, a la vez que otorgaba indulgencias a todos los fieles que asistían.
A la muerte del Papa Urbano IV (2 de octubre de 1264), poco después de la publicación del decreto se difundió la fiesta por el Papa Clemente V, que tomó el asunto en sus manos y en el concilio general de Viena (1311), ordenó una vez más la adopción de esta fiesta. Publicó un nuevo decreto incorporando el de Urbano IV. Juan XXII, sucesor de Clemente V, instó su observancia.
Ninguno de los decretos habla de la procesión con el Santísimo como un aspecto de la celebración. Sin embargo estas procesiones fueron dotadas de indulgencias por los Papas Martín V y Eugenio IV y se hicieron bastante comunes en a partir del siglo XIV.
El Concilio de Trento declara que muy piadosa y religiosamente fue introducida en la Iglesia de Dios la costumbre, que todos los años, determinado día festivo, se celebre esta singular veneración y solemnidad, y reverente y honoríficamente sea llevado en procesión por las calles y lugares públicos, por el que se hace nuevamente presente la victoria y triunfo de la muerte y resurrección de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. Juan Pablo II también exhortó a que se renueve la costumbre de honrar a Jesús en este día llevándolo en solemnes procesiones.
Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire (Loiret)
Château de Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire.
La construction du château actuel a du commencer vers la fin XIIe, début XIIIe siècle, par le comte Etienne II de Sancerre. et vice-chambellan royal.
Le site était probablement occupé par un castrum dès le XIe siècle. Le premier seigneur connu, Robert de Saint-Brisson, est mentionné dans les années 1060 : Il fait don de son église Sainte-Marie, qui devait se trouver à l'intérieur du castrum, à l'abbaye de Fleury, don confirmé par le pape en 1072.
Le castrum est mentionné par l'abbé Suger (1080-1151), abbé de Saint-Denis et principal ministre des rois Louis VI le Gros et Louis VII le Jeune. D'après l'abbé, le château appartenait à un seigneur qui se serait livré à des déprédations sur des marchands; ce pourquoi Louis VI aurait détruit le castrum, en 1135, par les flammes et contraint la "turris"* et le seigneur à se rendre.
(Ea quam extremam fecit expedicionem, nobilissimo exercitu castrum Sancti Brictionis super fluvium Ligerim, ob sui rapacitatem et mercatorum depredacionem, et incendio dissolvit et turrim et dominum ad dedicionem coegit)
Du château tel qu'il devait être avant sa destruction en 1135, il ne reste probablement que le plan de masse d'un ensemble fortifié significatif des XIe et XIIe siècles.
En 1181, le château est tenu par Étienne Ier de Blois-Champagne**, comte de Sancerre, qui meurt en 1191 à Saint-Jean d'Acre, lors de la troisième croisade (1189-1192). C'est le frère de la reine mère Adèle de Champage, veuve de Louis VII. A la mort de son père, le comte de Blois Thibaut IV, il hérite de la seigneurie de Sancerre, alors que ses deux frères aînés héritent de la Champagne pour l'une, et Blois et Chartres pour l'autre. Son frère cadet, Guillaume (dit Guillaume aux Blanches Mains), ne reçut rien, rentra dans l'Eglise et devint archevêque de Reims ( et aussi évêque de Chartres et archevêque de Sens). On rapporte que ce dernier combatit l'hérésie dans son diocèse et qu'il fit brûler deux femmes de Reims reconnues comme hérétiques***. Mais il est aussi l'auteur de plusieurs chartes, dont une, la loi de Beaumont, qui organisait l'affranchissement de la commune de Beaumont-en-Argonne, et qui libérait la ville de toute servilité envers le seigneur et organisait l'élection de magistrats locaux.
Après la mort d'Etienne Ier de Sancerre lors du siège de Saint-Jean d'Acre, son fils aîné Guillaume devient comte de Sancerre. Toutefois, les châtellenies de Saint-Brisson et de Châtillon-surLoing sont détachées du comté de Sancerre et deviennent possessions de son frère cadet Étienne. Les deux frères étant trop jeunes sont placés sous tutelle de leur oncle Guillaume aux Blanches Mains, archevêque de Reims et ministre du roi. Guillaume participera à la bataille de Bouvines (27 juillet 2014) qui verra la victoire de Philippe Auguste. Son frère et vassal Etienne (Etienne II de Sancerre) sera à ses côtés. Guillaume sera fait prisonnier du despote d'Epire , Théodore Ier, lors de l'expédition contre l'Empire latin d'Orient (Constantinople) en 1217, il meurt en captivité.
Etienne II de Sancerre (branche cadette des seigneurs de saint-Brisson), seigneur de Charenton-du-Cher, de Châtillon-sur-Loing et de Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire, Marchéville, de Montreuil-Bellay et La Loupe, accordera aux habitants de Saint-Brisson la charte de Lorris qui donne aux habitants des privilèges et franchises****. Il est probablement à l'origine du château dans son aspect actuel, peut-être avec son oncle l'archevêque Guillaume aux Mains Blanches. Il meurt en 1252, à l'âge de 72 ans environ.
La famille de Sancerre restera propriétaire de Saint-Brisson jusque vers 1290. Etienne III de Sancerre, seigneur de saint-Brisson aura deux filles. La cadette, Jeanne de Sancerre, dame de Saint-Brisson, épouse en 1290 Jean Ier de Courtenay. Les Courtenay prennent ainsi possession du lieu.
En 1425, le domaine est érigé en barronie pour Jean IV de Courtenay. Celui-ci dissipa sa fortune et dût vendre, entre autres, Saint-Brisson à Guillaume et Jean Juvenal des Ursins, en 1471. Jean IV de Courtenay fut baptisé de "Sans Terre". (Voir le portrait de Guillaume par Jean Fouquet : collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010064846)
En 1473, Jacquette des Ursins, fille de Guillaume hérite du domaine et le donne à son époux Philibert de Beaujeu.
A la mort de Philibert de Beaujeu, le château revient à François de Clèves dernier époux de Catherine d'Amboise ancienne veuve de Philibert de Beaujeu.
En 1567, Pierre Ier Séguier*****, avocat général au parlement de Paris, puis président à mortier au parlement de Paris, rachète le château à Henriette de Clèves et son époux Ludovic de Gonzague, ce dernier étant endetté. La famille Séguier transforme la forteresse en lieu d'habitation.
Sidoine Charles François Séguier, marquis de Saint-Brisson, né en novembre 1738 à Saint-Brisson, officier d'infanterie, homme de lettres, après avoir lu l'Emile, devient disciple de Jean-Jacques Rousseau******, il meurt le 17 avril 1773, à l'âge de 34 ans.
En 1793, Nicolas-Maximilien-Sidoine Séguier de Saint-Brisson, fils posthume de Sidoine François Charles Seguier (il naît en décembre alors que son père est décédé en avril), fait abattre le châtelet d'entrée du château, une partie de la courtine Ouest (jusqu'à l'actuelle terrasse), la tour ronde Sud-Ouest et l'intégralité de la courtine Sud.
À partir de 1819, les descendants font restaurer le château.
En 1987, Anne de Ranst de berchem, donne le château à la commune. Une association des Amis du Château de Saint-Brisson (ACSB) est créée pour financer les réparations et assurer les visites.
En 2015, la mairie, n'étant plus capable d'en assurer l'entretien, décide de vendre le château. Celui-ci est racheté par la famille Guyot (qui possède par ailleurs le château de la Ferté-Saint-Aubin) pour 500 000 €, par l'intermédiaire d'une société, et réouvert en 2016.
* "Turris", tour de défense, et plus généralement toute haute maison, citadelle, etc... Dans le Gaffiot : Tour en bois à étages, ouvrage de siège souvent monté sur roues, maison élevée, château...
** Il est possible que Saint-Brisson soit arrivé dans la famille de Sancerre après 1135, après confiscation par le roi du domaine du seigneur détrousseur et remise au comte de Champagne.
*** L'hérésie a été très tôt présente en Champagne. Déjà en 1048, l'évêque de Châlons-sur-Marne dénonçait une hérésie "manichéenne" dans son diocèse. En mai 1239, sous le règne de Saint-Louis, sur le Mont-Aimé en Champagne, l'archevêque de Reims Henry de Braine, fera brûler 180 hérétiques. (flic.kr/p/27BnnPP)
**** La charte de Lorris, du nom du village de Lorris dans le Gâtinais, auquel le roi Louis VI le Gros avait accordé une charte, en 1134, qui accordait à ce village une large autonomie administrative et judiciaire et des privilèges fiscaux. Cette charte servit ensuite de modèle.
***** En 1555, il s'opposera à l'édit introduisant l'Inquisition en France. Sa descendance sera composée de nombreux hommes de loi. Pierre Séguier fut aussi seigneur de Sorel, L'Étang-la-Ville, Autry (Vieux-Château), Saint-Brisson, La Verrière, et bailli de Saint-Denis.
****** Dans les Confessions, Rousseau, à propos de son exil en Suisse, consacre quelques lignes au marquis de Saint-Brisson :
"Le seul Français qui parut me venir voir par goût pour mes sentiments et pour mes ouvrages fut un jeune officier du régiment de Limousin, appelé M. Séguier de Saint-Brisson, qu’on a vu et qu’on voit peut-être encore briller à Paris et dans le monde par des talents assez aimables, et par des prétentions au bel esprit. Il m’était venu voir à Montmorency l’hiver qui précéda ma catastrophe. Je lui trouvai une vivacité de sentiment qui me plut. Il m’écrivit dans la suite à Motiers, et soit qu’il voulût me cajoler, ou que réellement la tête lui tournât de l’Émile, il m’apprit qu’il quittait le service pour vivre indépendant, et qu’il apprenait le métier de menuisier. Il avait un frère aîné, capitaine dans le même régiment, pour lequel était toute la prédilection de la mère, qui, dévote outrée, et dirigée par je ne sais quel abbé tartufe, en usait très mal avec le cadet, qu’elle accusait d’irréligion, et même du crime irrémissible d’avoir des liaisons avec moi. Voilà les griefs sur lesquels il voulut rompre avec sa mère, et prendre le parti dont je viens de parler, le tout pour faire le petit Émile.
Alarmé de cette pétulance, je me hâtai de lui écrire pour le faire changer de résolution, et je mis à mes exhortations toute la force dont j’étais capable : elles furent écoutées. Il rentra dans son devoir vis-à-vis de sa mère, et il retira des mains de son colonel sa démission, qu’il lui avait donnée, et dont celui-ci avait eu la prudence de ne faire aucun usage, pour lui laisser le temps d’y mieux réfléchir. Saint-Brisson, revenu de ses folies, en fit une un peu moins choquante, mais qui n’était guère plus de mon goût ; ce fut
de se faire auteur. Il donna coup sur coup deux ou trois brochures, qui n’annonçaient pas un homme sans talent, mais sur lesquelles je n’aurai pas à me reprocher de lui avoir donné des éloges bien encourageants pour poursuivre cette carrière.
Quelque temps après, il me vint voir, et nous fîmes ensemble le pèlerinage de l’île de Saint-Pierre. Je le trouvai dans ce voyage différent de ce que je l’avais vu à Montmorency. Il avait je ne sais quoi d’affecté, qui d’abord ne me choqua pas beaucoup mais qui
m’est revenu souvent en mémoire depuis ce temps-là. Il me vint voir encore une fois à l’hôtel de Saint-Simon, à mon passage à
Paris pour aller en Angleterre. J’appris là, ce qu’il ne m’avait pas dit, qu’il vivait dans les grandes sociétés, et qu’il voyait assez souvent Mme de Luxembourg. Il ne me donna aucun signe de vie à Trye et ne me fit rien dire par sa parente, Mlle Ségnier, qui était
ma voisine, et qui ne m’a jamais paru bien favorablement disposée pour moi. En un mot, l’engouement de M. de Saint-Brisson
finit tout d’un coup, comme la liaison de M. de Feins ; mais celuici ne me devait rien, et l’autre me devait quelque chose, à moins
que les sottises que je l’avais empêché de faire n’eussent été qu’un jeu de sa part : ce qui, dans le fond, pourrait très bien être."
www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/bulmo_0007-473x_2017_num_175_3_130...
www.meucat.com/maps/mapa_satelite.php?COD=roma&NOME=P...
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Following, a text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or "Fountain of the Four Rivers" is a fountain in Rome, Italy, located in the Piazza Navona. Designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini, it is emblematic of the dynamic and dramatic effects sought by High Baroque artists. It was erected in 1651 in front of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, and yards from the Pamphilj Palace belonging to this fountain's patron, Innocent X (1644-1655).
The four gods on the corners of the fountain represent the four major rivers of the world known at the time: the Nile, Danube, Ganges, and Plate. The design of each god figure has symbolic importance.
Design
Bernini's design was selected in competition. The circumstances of his victory are described as follows:
So strong was the sinister influence of the rivals of Bernini on the mind of Innocent that when he planned to set up in Piazza Navona the great obelisk brought to Rome by the Emperor Caracalla, which had been buried for a long time at Capo di Bove for the adornment of a magnificent fountain, the Pope had designs made by the leading architects of Rome without an order for one to Bernini. Prince Niccolò Ludovisi, whose wife was niece to the pope, persuaded Bernini to prepare a model, and arrange for it to be secretly installed in a room in the Palazzo Pamphili that the Pope had to pass. When the meal was finished, seeing such a noble creation, he stopped almost in ecstasy. Being prince of the keenest judgment and the loftiest ideas, after admiring it, said: “This is a trick … It will be necessary to employ Bernini in spite of those who do not wish it, for he who desires not to use Bernini’s designs, must take care not to see them.”
Paraphrase from Filippo Baldinucci, The life of Cavaliere Bernini (1682)
Public fountains in Rome served multiple purposes: first, they were highly needed sources of water for neighbors in the centuries prior to home plumbing. Second, they were monuments to the papal patrons. Earlier Bernini fountains had been the Fountain of the Triton in Piazza Barberini, the fountain of the Moor in the southern end of Piazza Navona erected during the Barberini papacy, and the Neptune and Triton for Villa Montalto, whose statuary now resides at Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Each has animals and plants that further carry forth the identification, and each carries a certain number of allegories and metaphors with it. The Ganges carries a long oar, representing the river's navigability. The Nile's head is draped with a loose piece of cloth, meaning that no one at that time knew exactly where the Nile's source was. The Danube touches the Papal coat of arms, since it is the large river closest to Rome. And the Río de la Plata is sitting on a pile of coins, a symbol of the riches America could offer to Europe (the word plata means silver in Spanish). Also, the Río de la Plata looks scared by a snake, showing rich men's fear that their money could be stolen. Each is a river god, semi-prostrate, in awe of the central tower, epitomized by the slender Egyptian obelisk (built for the Roman Serapeum in AD 81), symbolizing by Papal power surmounted by the Pamphili symbol (dove). In addition, the fountain is a theater in the round, a spectacle of action, that can be strolled around. Water flows and splashes from a jagged and pierced mountainous disorder of travertine marble. A legend, common with tour-guides, is that Bernini positioned the cowering Rio de la Plata River as if the sculpture was fearing the facade of the church of Sant'Agnese by his rival Borromini could crumble against him; in fact, the fountain was completed several years before Borromini began work on the church.
The dynamic fusion of architecture and sculpture made this fountain revolutionary when compared to prior Roman projects, such as the stilted designs Acqua Felice and Paola by Fontana in Piazza San Bernardo (1585-87) or the customary embellished geometric floral-shaped basin below a jet of water such as the Fontanina in Piazza Campitelli (1589) by Giacomo della Porta.
Unveiling
he Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was unveiled to the populace of Rome on 12 June 1651. According to a report from the time, an event was organised to draw people to the Piazza Navona. Beforehand, wooden scaffolding, overlaid with curtains, had hidden the fountain, though probably not the obelisk, which would have given people an idea that something was being built, but the precise details were unknown. Once unveiled, the full majesty of the fountain would be apparent, which the celebrations were designed to advertise. The festival was paid for by the Pamphili family, to be specific, Innocent X, who had sponsored the erection of the fountain. The most conspicuous item on the Pamphili crest, an olive branch, was brandished by the performers who took part in the event.
The author of the report, Antonio Bernal, takes his readers through the hours leading up to the unveiling. The celebrations were announced by a woman, dressed as the allegorical character of Fame, being paraded around the streets of Rome on a carriage or float. She was sumptuously dressed, with wings attached to her back and a long trumpet in her hand. Bernal notes that "she went gracefully through all the streets and all the districts that are found among the seven hills of Rome, often blowing the round bronze [the trumpet], and urging everyone to make their way to that famous Piazza." A second carriage followed her; this time another woman was dressed as the allegorical figure of Curiosity. According to the report, she continued exhorting the people to go towards the piazza. Bernal describes the clamour and noise of the people as they discussed the upcoming event.
The report is actually less detailed about the process of publicly unveiling the fountain. However, it does give ample descriptions of the responses of the spectators who had gathered in the Piazza. Once there, Bernal notes, the citizens of the city were overwhelmed by the massive fountain, with its huge life-like figures. The report mentions the "enraptured souls" of the population, the fountain, which "gushes out a wealth of silvery treasures" causing "no little wonder" in the onlookers. Bernal then continues to describe the fountain, making continuous reference to the seeming naturalism of the figures and its astonishing effect on those in the piazza.
The making of the fountain was met by opposition by the people of Rome for several reasons. First, Innocent X had the fountain built at public expense during the intense famine of 1646-48. Throughout the construction of the fountain, the city murmurred and talk of riot was in the air. Pasquinade writers protested the construction of the fountain in September 1648 by attaching hand-written invectives on the stone blocks used to make the obelisk. These pasquinades read, "We do not want Obelisks and Fountains, It is bread that we want. Bread, Bread, Bread!" Innocent quickly had the authors arrested, and disguised spies patrol the Pasquino statue and Piazza Navona
The streetvendors of the market also opposed the construction of the fountain, as Innocent X expelled them from the piazza. The Pamphilij pope believed they detracted from the magnificence of the square. The vendors refused to move, and the papal police had to chase them from the piazza. Roman Jews, in particular, lamented the closing of the Navona, since they were allowed to sell used articles of clothing there at the Wednesday market.
Navona Square (Piazza Navona).
Following, a text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in first century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium.[1] The ancient Romans came there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as 'Circus Agonalis' (competition arena). It is believed that over time the name changed to 'in agone' to 'navone' and eventually to 'navona'.
Defined as a public space in the last years of 15th century, when the city market was transferred to it from the Campidoglio, the Piazza Navona is a significant example of Baroque Roman architecture and art. It features sculptural and architectural creations: in the center stands the famous Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone by Francesco Borromini and Girolamo Rainaldi; and the Pamphilj palace also by Rainaldi and which features the gallery frescoed by Pietro da Cortona.
The Piazza Navona has two additional fountains: at the southern end is the Fontana del Moro with a basin and four Tritons sculpted by Giacomo della Porta (1575) to which, in 1673, Bernini added a statue of a Moor, or African, wrestling with a dolphin, and at the northern end is the Fountain of Neptune (1574) created by Giacomo della Porta. The statue of Neptune in the northern fountain, the work of Antonio Della Bitta, was added in 1878 to make that fountain more symmetrical with La Fontana del Moro in the south.
At the southwest end of the piazza is the ancient 'speaking' statue of Pasquino. Erected in 1501, Romans could leave lampoons or derogatory social commentary attached to the statue.
During its history, the piazza has hosted theatrical events and other ephemeral activities. From 1652 until 1866, when the festival was suppressed, it was flooded on every Saturday and Sunday in August in elaborate celebrations of the Pamphilj family. The pavement level was raised in the 19th century and the market was moved again in 1869 to the nearby Campo de' Fiori. A Christmas market is held in the piazza.
Other monuments on the Piazza Navona are:
Stabilimenti Spagnoli
Palazzo de Cupis
Palazzo Torres Massimo Lancellotti
Church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore
Palazzo Braschi (Museo di Roma)
Sant'Agnese in Agone
Literature and films
The piazza is featured in Dan Brown's 2000 thriller Angels and Demons, in which the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi "The Fountain of the four rivers"(the Danube, the Gange, the Nile and the River Plate) is listed as one of the Altars of Science. During June 2008, Ron Howard directed several scenes of the film adaptation of Angels and Demons on the southern section of the Piazza Navona, featuring Tom Hanks.
The piazza is featured in several scenes of director Mike Nichols' 1970 adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22.
The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi was used in the 1990 film Coins in the Fountain. The characters threw coins into the fountain as they made wishes. The Trevi Fountain was used in the 1954 version of the film.
A Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi, é maior das três fontes, localizada no centro da praça. Na fonte dos rios, Bernini projetou quatro estátuas representando os rios dos quatro continentes: o Nilo, o Danúbio, o rio da Prata e o Ganges. As estátuas estão montadas sobre um obelisco egípcio, sendo circundadas por leões e outros animais fantásticos, tendo no cume uma pomba em bronze, símbolo da paz no mundo e da família Pamphili. Para realçar a rivalidade entre Bernini e Borromini, que fez a igreja de Santa Agnese, os romanos criaram uma lenda em torno da fonte dos rios, que fica em frente a esta igreja. Segundo os romanos, as estátuas duvidam da solidez do projeto de Borromini. A que retrata o rio da Prata, tem a mão erguida, a proteger o corpo do desabamento da igreja; a que retrata o Nilo, traz a cabeça coberta por um véu, a recusar a ver a obra de Borromini.
A seguir um texto, em português, da Wikipédia a Enciclopédia Livre:
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fonte dos Quatro Rios), foi esculpida por Gian Lorenzo Bernini entre 1648 e 1651, artista do barroco italiano, foi concebida por uma ordem do Papa Inocencio X o Papa da familia Pamphili, cujo tinha sua casa nesta praça.
Esta localizada na Praça de Navona, em Roma. Ela representa os quatro principais continentes do mundo cortados por seus principais rios: Rio Nilo, na África; Rio Ganges, na Ásia, Rio da Prata, na América e o Rio Danúbio, na Europa.
A seguir, texto em português do site Wiki lingue:
A escultura da Fonte dos Quatro Rios, encontra-se na Piazza Navona de Roma (Itália) e foi criada e talhada pelo escultor e pintor Gian Lorenzo Bernini em 1651 baixo o papado de Inocencio X, em plena época barroca, durante o período mais prolífico do genial artista e cerca da que em outro tempo fué a Chiesa dei San Giacomo de gli Spagnoli
A fonte compõe-se de uma base formada de uma grande piscina elíptica, coroada em seu centro de uma grande mole de mármol, sobre a qual se eleva um obelisco egípcio de época romana, o obelisco de Domiciano .
As estátuas que compõem a fonte, têm umas dimensões maiores que na realidade e são alegorias dos quatro rios principais da Terra (Nilo, Ganges, Danubio, Rio da Prata), a cada um deles em um dos continentes conhecidos na época. Na fonte a cada um destes rios está representado por um gigante de mármol .
As árvores e as plantas que emergem da água e que se encontram entre as rochas, também estão em uma escala maior que na realidade. Os animais e vegetales, gerados de uma natureza boa e útil, pertencem a espécies grandes e potentes (como o leão, cavalo, cocodrilo, serpente, dragão, etc.). O espectador, girando em torno da fonte, descobre novas formas que dantes estavam escondidas ou cobertas pela massa rocosa. Com esta obra, Bernini quer suscitar admiração em quem olha-a, criando um pequeno universo em movimento a imitação do espaço da realidade natural.
A fonte foi submetida a restauração, um trabalho que se deu por concluído em dezembro de 2008. Constitui um dos palcos finque da novela e o filme Anjos e Demónios, à qual é arrojado um dos cardeais sequestrados, e Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) se lança à água para lhe salvar.
Os animais da fonte
A fonte apresenta figuras de sete animais, além de uma pequena pomba e o emblema dos Pamphili. Para poder observá-las basta com dar uma volta ao redor da fonte. As figuras são: um cavalo, uma serpente de terra (na parte mais alta, cerca do obelisco), uma serpente de mar, um delfín (que funciona também como desagüe), um cocodrilo, um leão e um dragão. Notar também a vegetación esculpida que parece real.
Praça Navona.
A seguir, um texto em português, da Wikipédia a Enciclopédia livre:
A Praça Navona (em italiano: Piazza Navona) é uma das mais célebres praças de Roma. A sua forma assemelha-se à dos antigos estádios da Roma Antiga, seguindo a planificação do Estádio de Domiciano (também denominado entre os italianos de Campomarzio, em virtude da natureza rude e esforçada dos exercícios - manejo de armas - e desportos atléticos que aí se realizavam). Albergaria até 20 mil espectadores sentados nas bancadas. A origem do nome deve-se ao nome pomposo que lhe foi dado ao tempo do Imperador Domiciano (imperador entre 81-96 d.c.): "Circo Agonístico" (do étimo grego Agonia, que significa precisamente - exercício, luta, combate). Actualmente o nome corresponde à corruptela da forma posterior in agone, depois nagone e finalmente navone, que por mero acaso significa também "grande navio" na língua italiana.
As casas que entretanto e com o passar dos anos foram sendo construídas sobre as bancadas, delimitariam e circunscreveriam até à actualidade o tão afamado Circo Agonístico.
A Navona passou de fato a caracterizar-se como praça nos últimos anos do século XV, quando o mercado da cidade foi transferido do Capitólio para aí. Foi remodelada para um estilo monumental por vontade do Papa Inocêncio X, da família Pamphili e é motivo de orgulho da cidade de Roma durante o período barroco. Sofreu intervenções de Gian Lorenzo Bernini (a famosa Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fonte dos Quatro Rios, 1651) ao centro); de Francesco Borromini e Girolamo Gainaldi (a igreja de Sant'Agnese in Agone); e de Pietro de Cortona, que pintou a galeria no Palácio Pamphilj, sede da embaixada do Brasil na Itália desde 1920.
O mercado tradicional voltou a ser transferido em 1869 para o Campo de' Fiori, embora a praça mantenha também um papel fundamental em servir de palco para espectáculos de teatro e corridas de cavalos. A partir de 1652, em todos os Sábados e Domingos de Agosto, a praça tornava-se num lago para celebrar a própria família Pamphili.
A praça dispõe ainda duas outras fontes esculpidas por Giacomo della Porta - a Fontana di Nettuno (1574), na área norte da praça, e a Fontana del Moro (1576), na área sul.
Na extremidade norte da praça, por debaixo dos edifícios, foram postas a descoberto ruínas antiquíssimas, a uma cota muito abaixo da actual, comprovando a primeva utilização daquele imenso terreiro. Outros monumentos com entrada para a praça:
Stabilimenti Spagnoli
Palazzo de Cupis
Palazzo Torres Massimo Lancellotti
Church of Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore
Curiosidades
Na Piazza Navona, está localizado o Palazzo Pamphilj, propriedade da República Federativa do Brasil, sede da Embaixada Brasileira e da Missão Diplomática do Brasil para a Itália.
With the rain falling harder, it was a bit of a route march to Holborn and my next church, the stunning St Sepulchre, which was also open.
-----------------------------------------------------
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate. It has been a living of St John's College, Oxford, since 1622.
The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.
The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666,[1] which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing[2] -. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.
The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling[3] installed in 1834. The Vicars' old residence has recently been renovated into a modern living quarter.
During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.
St Sepulchre is named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.
The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. Its north aisle (formerly a chapel dedicated to Stephen Harding) is dedicated as the Musicians' Chapel, with four windows commemorating John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba, Walter Carroll and the conductor Sir Henry Wood respectively.[4] Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ" at this church [1] and later became its organist, also has his ashes buried in this church.
The south aisle of the church holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.[5] The west end of the north aisle has various memorials connected with the City of London Rifles (the 6th Battalion London Regiment). The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Sepulchre-without-Newgate
The Early History of St. Sepulchre's—Its Destruction in 1666—The Exterior and Interior—The Early Popularity of the Church—Interments here—Roger Ascham, the Author of the "Schoolmaster"—Captain John Smith, and his Romantic Adventures—Saved by an Indian Girl— St. Sepulchre's Churchyard—Accommodation for a Murderess—The Martyr Rogers—An Odd Circumstance—Good Company for the Dead—A Leap from the Tower—A Warning Bell and a Last Admonition—Nosegays for the Condemned—The Route to the Gallows-tree— The Deeds of the Charitable—The "Saracen's Head"—Description by Dickens—Giltspur Street—Giltspur Street Compter—A Disreputable Condition—Pie Corner—Hosier Lane—A Spurious Relic—The Conduit on Snow Hill—A Ladies' Charity School—Turnagain Lane—Poor Betty!—A Schoolmistress Censured—Skinner Street—Unpropitious Fortune—William Godwin—An Original Married Life.
Many interesting associations—Principally, however, connected with the annals of crime and the execution of the laws of England—belong to the Church of St. Sepulchre, or St. 'Pulchre. This sacred edifice—anciently known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey, or by Chamberlain Gate (now Newgate)—stands at the eastern end of the slight acclivity of Snow Hill, and between Smithfield and the Old Bailey. The genuine materials for its early history are scanty enough. It was probably founded about the commencement of the twelfth century, but of the exact date and circumstances of its origin there is no record whatever. Its name is derived from the Holy Sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem, to the memory of which it was first dedicated.
The earliest authentic notice of the church, according to Maitland, is of the year 1178, at which date it was given by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, to the Prior and Canons of St. Bartholomew. These held the right of advowson until the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII., and from that time until 1610 it remained in the hands of the Crown. James I., however, then granted "the rectory and its appurtenances, with the advowson of the vicarage," to Francis Phillips and others. The next stage in its history is that the rectory was purchased by the parishioners, to be held in fee-farm of the Crown, and the advowson was obtained by the President and Fellows of St. John the Baptist College, at Oxford.
The church was rebuilt about the middle of the fifteenth century, when one of the Popham family, who had been Chancellor of Normandy and Treasurer of the King's Household, with distinguished liberality erected a handsome chapel on the south side of the choir, and the very beautiful porch still remaining at the south-west corner of the building. "His image," Stow says, "fair graven in stone, was fixed over the said porch."
The dreadful fire of 1666 almost destroyed St. Sepulchre's, but the parishioners set energetically to work, and it was "rebuilt and beautified both within and without." The general reparation was under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, and nothing but the walls of the old building, and these not entirely, were suffered to remain. The work was done rapidly, and the whole was completed within four years.
"The tower," says Mr. Godwin, "retained its original aspect, and the body of the church, after its restoration, presented a series of windows between buttresses, with pointed heads filled with tracery, crowned by a string-course and battlements. In this form it remained till the year 1790, when it appears the whole fabric was found to be in a state of great decay, and it was resolved to repair it throughout. Accordingly the walls of the church were cased with Portland stone, and all the windows were taken out and replaced by others with plain semi-circular heads, as now seen—certainly agreeing but badly with the tower and porch of the building, but according with the then prevailing spirit of economy. The battlements, too, were taken down, and a plain stone parapet was substituted, so that at this time (with the exception of the roof, which was wagon-headed, and presented on the outside an unsightly swell, visible above the parapet) the church assumed its present appearance." The ungainly roof was removed, and an entirely new one erected, about 1836.
At each corner of the tower—"one of the most ancient," says the author of "Londinium Redivivum," "in the outline of the circuit of London" —there are spires, and on the spires there are weathercocks. These have been made use of by Howell to point a moral: "Unreasonable people," says he, "are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of St. Sepulchre's tower, which never look all four upon one point of the heavens." Nothing can be said with certainty as to the date of the tower, but it is not without the bounds of probability that it formed part of the original building. The belfry is reached by a small winding staircase in the south-west angle, and a similar staircase in an opposite angle leads to the summit. The spires at the corners, and some of the tower windows, have very recently undergone several alterations, which have added much to the picturesqueness and beauty of the church.
The chief entrance to St. Sepulchre's is by a porch of singular beauty, projecting from the south side of the tower, at the western end of the church. The groining of the ceiling of this porch, it has been pointed out, takes an almost unique form; the ribs are carved in bold relief, and the bosses at the intersections represent angels' heads, shields, roses, &c., in great variety.
Coming now to the interior of the church, we find it divided into three aisles, by two ranges of Tuscan columns. The aisles are of unequal widths, that in the centre being the widest, that to the south the narrowest. Semi-circular arches connect the columns on either side, springing directly from their capitals, without the interposition of an entablature, and support a large dental cornice, extending round the church. The ceiling of the middle aisle is divided into seven compartments, by horizontal bands, the middle compartment being formed into a small dome.
The aisles have groined ceilings, ornamented at the angles with doves, &c., and beneath every division of the groining are small windows, to admit light to the galleries. Over each of the aisles there is a gallery, very clumsily introduced, which dates from the time when the church was built by Wren, and extends the whole length, excepting at the chancel. The front of the gallery, which is of oak, is described by Mr. Godwin as carved into scrolls, branches, &c., in the centre panel, on either side, with the initials "C. R.," enriched with carvings of laurel, which have, however, he says, "but little merit."
At the east end of the church there are three semicircular-headed windows. Beneath the centre one is a large Corinthian altar-piece of oak, displaying columns, entablatures, &c., elaborately carved and gilded.
The length of the church, exclusive of the ambulatory, is said to be 126 feet, the breadth 68 feet, and the height of the tower 140 feet.
A singularly ugly sounding-board, extending over the preacher, used to stand at the back of the pulpit, at the east end of the church. It was in the shape of a large parabolic reflector, about twelve feet in diameter, and was composed of ribs of mahogany.
At the west end of the church there is a large organ, said to be the oldest and one of the finest in London. It was built in 1677, and has been greatly enlarged. Its reed-stops (hautboy, clarinet, &c.) are supposed to be unrivalled. In Newcourt's time the church was taken notice of as "remarkable for possessing an exceedingly fine organ, and the playing is thought so beautiful, that large congregations are attracted, though some of the parishioners object to the mode of performing divine service."
On the north side of the church, Mr. Godwin mentions, is a large apartment known as "St. Stephen's Chapel." This building evidently formed a somewhat important part of the old church, and was probably appropriated to the votaries of the saint whose name it bears.
Between the exterior and the interior of the church there is little harmony. "For example," says Mr. Godwin, "the columns which form the south aisle face, in some instances, the centre of the large windows which occur in the external wall of the church, and in others the centre of the piers, indifferently." This discordance may likely enough have arisen from the fact that when the church was rebuilt, or rather restored, after the Great Fire, the works were done without much attention from Sir Christopher Wren.
St. Sepulchre's appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity from the earliest period of its history, if one is to judge from the various sums left by well-disposed persons for the support of certain fraternities founded in the church—namely, those of St. Katherine, St. Michael, St. Anne, and Our Lady—and by others, for the maintenance of chantry priests to celebrate masses at stated intervals for the good of their souls. One of the fraternities just named—that of St. Katherine— originated, according to Stow, in the devotion of some poor persons in the parish, and was in honour of the conception of the Virgin Mary. They met in the church on the day of the Conception, and there had the mass of the day, and offered to the same, and provided a certain chaplain daily to celebrate divine service, and to set up wax lights before the image belonging to the fraternity, on all festival days.
The most famous of all who have been interred in St. Sepulchre's is Roger Ascham, the author of the "Schoolmaster," and the instructor of Queen Elizabeth in Greek and Latin. This learned old worthy was born in 1515, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Cambridge University, and in time rose to be the university orator, being notably zealous in promoting what was then a novelty in England—the study of the Greek language. To divert himself after the fatigue of severe study, he used to devote himself to archery. This drew down upon him the censure of the all-work-and-no-play school; and in defence of himself, Ascham, in 1545, published "Toxophilus," a treatise on his favourite sport. This book is even yet well worthy of perusal, for its enthusiasm, and for its curious descriptions of the personal appearance and manners of the principal persons whom the author had seen and conversed with. Henry VIII. rewarded him with a pension of £10 per annum, a considerable sum in those days. In 1548, Ascham, on the death of William Grindall, who had been his pupil, was appointed instructor in the learned languages to Lady Elizabeth, afterwards the good Queen Bess. At the end of two years he had some dispute with, or took a disgust at, Lady Elizabeth's attendants, resigned his situation, and returned to his college. Soon after this he was employed as secretary to the English ambassador at the court of Charles V. of Germany, and remained abroad till the death of Edward VI. During his absence he had been appointed Latin secretary to King Edward. Strangely enough, though Queen Mary and her ministers were Papists, and Ascham a Protestant, he was retained in his office of Latin secretary, his pension was increased to £20, and he was allowed to retain his fellowship and his situation as university orator. In 1554 he married a lady of good family, by whom he had a considerable fortune, and of whom, in writing to a friend, he gives, as might perhaps be expected, an excellent character. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, in 1558, she not only required his services as Latin secretary, but as her instructor in Greek, and he resided at Court during the remainder of his life. He died in consequence of his endeavours to complete a Latin poem which he intended to present to the queen on the New Year's Day of 1569. He breathed his last two days before 1568 ran out, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the most private manner, in St. Sepulchre's Church, his funeral sermon being preached by Dr. Andrew Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's. He was universally lamented; and even the queen herself not only showed great concern, but was pleased to say that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds than her tutor Ascham, which, from that somewhat closehanded sovereign, was truly an expression of high regard.
Ascham, like most men, had his little weaknesses. He had too great a propensity to dice and cock-fighting. Bishop Nicholson would try to convince us that this is an unfounded calumny, but, as it is mentioned by Camden, and other contemporary writers, it seems impossible to deny it. He died, from all accounts, in indifferent circumstances. "Whether," says Dr. Johnson, referring to this, "Ascham was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature." His most valuable work, "The Schoolmaster," was published by his widow. The nature of this celebrated performance may be gathered from the title: "The Schoolmaster; or a plain and perfite way of teaching children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue. … And commodious also for all such as have forgot the Latin tongue, and would by themselves, without a schoolmaster, in short time, and with small pains, recover a sufficient habilitie to understand, write, and speak Latin: by Roger Ascham, ann. 1570. At London, printed by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate," a printer, by the way, already mentioned by us a few chapters back (see page 208), as having printed several noted works of the sixteenth century.
Dr. Johnson remarks that the instruction recommended in "The Schoolmaster" is perhaps the best ever given for the study of languages.
Here also lies buried Captain John Smith, a conspicuous soldier of fortune, whose romantic adventures and daring exploits have rarely been surpassed. He died on the 21st of June, 1631. This valiant captain was born at Willoughby, in the county of Lincoln, and helped by his doings to enliven the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He had a share in the wars of Hungary in 1602, and in three single combats overcame three Turks, and cut off their heads. For this, and other equally brave deeds, Sigismund, Duke of Transylvania, gave him his picture set in gold, with a pension of three hundred ducats; and allowed him to bear three Turks' heads proper as his shield of arms. He afterwards went to America, where he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Indians. He escaped from them, however, at last, and resumed his brilliant career by hazarding his life in naval engagements with pirates and Spanish men-of-war. The most important act of his life was the share he had in civilising the natives of New England, and reducing that province to obedience to Great Britain. In connection with his tomb in St. Sepulchre's, he is mentioned by Stow, in his "Survey," as "some time Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England."
Certainly the most interesting events of his chequered career were his capture by the Indians, and the saving of his life by the Indian girl Pocahontas, a story of adventure that charms as often as it is told. Bancroft, the historian of the United States, relates how, during the early settlement of Virginia, Smith left the infant colony on an exploring expedition, and not only ascended the river Chickahominy, but struck into the interior. His companions disobeyed his instructions, and being surprised by the Indians, were put to death. Smith preserved his own life by calmness and self-possession. Displaying a pocket-compass, he amused the savages by an explanation of its power, and increased their admiration of his superior genius by imparting to them some vague conceptions of the form of the earth, and the nature of the planetary system. To the Indians, who retained him as their prisoner, his captivity was a more strange event than anything of which the traditions of their tribes preserved the memory. He was allowed to send a letter to the fort at Jamestown, and the savage wonder was increased, for he seemed by some magic to endow the paper with the gift of intelligence. It was evident that their captive was a being of a high order, and then the question arose, Was his nature beneficent, or was he to be dreaded as a dangerous enemy? Their minds were bewildered, and the decision of his fate was referred to the chief Powhatan, and before Powhatan Smith was brought. "The fears of the feeble aborigines," says Bancroft, "were about to prevail, and his immediate death, already repeatedly threatened and repeatedly delayed, would have been inevitable, but for the timely intercession of Pocahontas, a girl twelve years old, the daughter of Powhatan, whose confiding fondness Smith had easily won, and who firmly clung to his neck, as his head was bowed down to receive the stroke of the tomahawks. His fearlessness, and her entreaties, persuaded the council to spare the agreeable stranger, who could make hatchets for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for herself, the favourite child. The barbarians, whose decision had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown; and when his decision of character succeeded in changing the current of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual promises of friendship and benevolence. Thus the captivity of Smith did itself become a benefit to the colony; for he had not only observed with care the country between the James and the Potomac, and had gained some knowledge of the language and manners of the natives, but he now established a peaceful intercourse between the English and the tribes of Powhatan."
On the monument erected to Smith in St. Sepulchre's Church, the following quaint lines were formerly inscribed:—
"Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which to the world impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done,
In honour of his God, and Christendom?
How that he did divide, from pagans three,
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,
Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear
These conquered heads, got by his sword and spear.
Or shall I tell of his adventures since
Done in Virginia, that large continent?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;
And made their land, being so large a station,
An habitation for our Christian nation,
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;
Which else for necessaries, must have died.
But what avails his conquests, now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?
Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment; and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense."
Sir Robert Peake, the engraver, also found a last resting-place here. He is known as the master of William Faithorne—the famous English engraver of the seventeenth century—and governor of Basing House for the king during the Civil War under Charles I. He died in 1667. Here also was interred the body of Dr. Bell, grandfather of the originator of a well-known system of education.
"The churchyard of St. Sepulchre's," we learn from Maitland, "at one time extended so far into the street on the south side of the church, as to render the passage-way dangerously narrow. In 1760 the churchyard was, in consequence, levelled, and thrown open to the public. But this led to much inconvenience, and it was re-enclosed in 1802."
Sarah Malcolm, the murderess, was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's in 1733. This coldhearted and keen-eyed monster in human form has had her story told by us already. The parishioners seem, on this occasion, to have had no such scruples as had been exhibited by their predecessors a hundred and fifty years previous at the burial of Awfield, a traitor. We shall see presently that in those more remote days they were desirous of having at least respectable company for their deceased relatives and friends in the churchyard.
"For a long period," says Mr. Godwin (1838), "the church was surrounded by low mean buildings, by which its general appearance was hidden; but these having been cleared away, and the neighbourhood made considerably more open, St. Sepulchre's now forms a somewhat pleasing object, notwithstanding that the tower and a part of the porch are so entirely dissimilar in style to the remainder of the building." And since Godwin's writing the surroundings of the church have been so improved that perhaps few buildings in the metropolis stand more prominently before the public eye.
In the glorious roll of martyrs who have suffered at the stake for their religious principles, a vicar of St. Sepulchre's, the Reverend John Rogers, occupies a conspicuous place. He was the first who was burned in the reign of the Bloody Mary. This eminent person had at one time been chaplain to the English merchants at Antwerp, and while residing in that city had aided Tindal and Coverdale in their great work of translating the Bible. He married a German lady of good position, by whom he had a large family, and was enabled, by means of her relations, to reside in peace and safety in Germany. It appeared to be his duty, however, to return to England, and there publicly profess and advocate his religious convictions, even at the risk of death. He crossed the sea; he took his place in the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross; he preached a fearless and animated sermon, reminding his astonished audience of the pure and wholesome doctrine which had been promulgated from that pulpit in the days of the good King Edward, and solemnly warning them against the pestilent idolatry and superstition of these new times. It was his last sermon. He was apprehended, tried, condemned, and burned at Smithfield. We described, when speaking of Smithfield, the manner in which he met his fate.
Connected with the martyrdom of Rogers an odd circumstance is quoted in the "Churches of London." It is stated that when the bishops had resolved to put to death Joan Bocher, a friend came to Rogers and earnestly entreated his influence that the poor woman's life might be spared, and other means taken to prevent the spread of her heterodox doctrines. Rogers, however, contended that she should be executed; and his friend then begged him to choose some other kind of death, which should be more agreeable to the gentleness and mercy prescribed in the gospel. "No," replied Rogers, "burning alive is not a cruel death, but easy enough." His friend hearing these words, expressive of so little regard for the sufferings of a fellow-creature, answered him with great vehemence, at the same time striking Rogers' hand, "Well, it may perhaps so happen that you yourself shall have your hands full of this mild burning." There is no record of Rogers among the papers belonging to St. Sepulchre's, but this may easily be accounted for by the fact that at the Great Fire of 1666 nearly all the registers and archives were destroyed.
A noteworthy incident in the history of St. Sepulchre's was connected with the execution, in 1585, of Awfield, for "sparcinge abrood certen lewed, sedicious, and traytorous bookes." "When he was executed," says Fleetwood, the Recorder, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, July 7th of that year, "his body was brought unto St. Pulcher's to be buryed, but the parishioners would not suffer a traytor's corpse to be laid in the earth where their parents, wives, children, kindred, masters, and old neighbours did rest; and so his carcass was returned to the burial-ground near Tyburn, and there I leave it."
Another event in the history of the church is a tale of suicide. On the 10th of April, 1600, a man named William Dorrington threw himself from the roof of the tower, leaving there a prayer for forgiveness.
We come now to speak of the connection of St. Sepulchre's with the neighbouring prison of Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, that connection naturally was intimate. Its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution in the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated.
On the right-hand side of the altar a board with a list of charitable donations and gifts used to contain the following item:—"1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave, for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, for ever, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services the sexton is paid £16s. 8d.—£50.
It was formerly the practice for the clerk or bellman of St. Sepulchre's to go under Newgate, on the night preceding the execution of a criminal, ring his bell, and repeat the following wholesome advice:—
"All you that in the condemned hold do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die;
Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near
That you before the Almighty must appear;
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not to eternal flames be sent.
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!"
This practice is explained by a passage in Munday's edition of Stow, in which it is told that a Mr. John Dowe, citizen and merchant taylor of London, gave £50 to the parish church of St. Sepulchre's, under the following conditions:—After the several sessions of London, on the night before the execution of such as were condemned to death, the clerk of the church was to go in the night-time, and also early in the morning, to the window of the prison in which they were lying. He was there to ring "certain tolls with a hand-bell" appointed for the purpose, and was afterwards, in a most Christian manner, to put them in mind of their present condition and approaching end, and to exhort them to be prepared, as they ought to be, to die. When they were in the cart, and brought before the walls of the church, the clerk was to stand there ready with the same bell, and, after certain tolls, rehearse a prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for the unfortunate criminals. The beadle, also, of Merchant Taylors' Hall was allowed an "honest stipend" to see that this ceremony was regularly performed.
The affecting admonition—"affectingly good," Pennant calls it—addressed to the prisoners in Newgate, on the night before execution, ran as follows:—
"You prisoners that are within,
Who, for wickedness and sin,
after many mercies shown you, are now appointed to die to-morrow in the forenoon; give ear and understand that, to-morrow morning, the greatest bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of a passing-bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death; to the end that all godly people, hearing that bell, and knowing it is for your going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you, whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ's sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer, to the salvation of your own souls while there is yet time and place for mercy; as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless, upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance, you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return to Him."
And the following was the admonition to condemned criminals, as they were passing by St. Sepulchre's Church wall to execution:—" All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll.
"You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask mercy of the Lord, for the salvation of your own souls, through the [merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him.
"Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you.
Lord have mercy upon you;
Christ have mercy upon you."
The charitable Mr. Dowe, who took such interest in the last moments of the occupants of the condemned cell, was buried in the church of St. Botolph, Aldgate.
Another curious custom observed at St. Sepulchre's was the presentation of a nosegay to every criminal on his way to execution at Tyburn. No doubt the practice had its origin in some kindly feeling for the poor unfortunates who were so soon to bid farewell to all the beauties of earth. One of the last who received a nosegay from the steps of St. Sepulchre's was "Sixteen-string Jack," alias John Rann, who was hanged, in 1774, for robbing the Rev. Dr. Bell of his watch and eighteen pence in money, in Gunnersbury Lane, on the road to Brentford. Sixteen-string Jack wore the flowers in his button-hole as he rode dolefully to the gallows. This was witnessed by John Thomas Smith, who thus describes the scene in his admirable anecdotebook, "Nollekens and his Times:"—" I remember well, when I was in my eighth year, Mr. Nollekens calling at my father's house, in Great Portland Street, and taking us to Oxford Street, to see the notorious Jack Rann, commonly called Sixteenstring Jack, go to Tyburn to be hanged. … The criminal was dressed in a pea-green coat, with an immense nosegay in the button-hole, which had been presented to him at St. Sepulchre's steps; and his nankeen small-clothes, we were told, were tied at each knee with sixteen strings. After he had passed, and Mr. Nollekens was leading me home by the hand, I recollect his stooping down to me and observing, in a low tone of voice, 'Tom, now, my little man, if my father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, had been high constable, we could have walked by the side of the cart all the way to Tyburn.'"
When criminals were conveyed from Newgate to Tyburn, the cart passed up Giltspur Street, and through Smithfield, to Cow Lane. Skinner Street had not then been built, and the Crooked Lane which turned down by St. Sepulchre's, as well as Ozier Lane, did not afford sufficient width to admit of the cavalcade passing by either of them, with convenience, to Holborn Hill, or "the Heavy Hill," as it used to be called. The procession seems at no time to have had much of the solemn element about it. "The heroes of the day were often," says a popular writer, "on good terms with the mob, and jokes were exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged and the men who deserved to be."
"On St. Paul's Day," says Mr. Timbs (1868), "service is performed in St. Sepulchre's, in accordance with the will of Mr. Paul Jervis, who, in 1717, devised certain land in trust that a sermon should be preached in the church upon every Paul's Day upon the excellence of the liturgy o the Church of England; the preacher to receive 40s. for such sermon. Various sums are also bequeathed to the curate, the clerk, the treasurer, and masters of the parochial schools. To the poor of the parish he bequeathed 20s. a-piece to ten of the poorest householders within that part of the parish of St. Sepulchre commonly called Smithfield quarter, £4 to the treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and 6s. 8d. yearly to the clerk, who shall attend to receive the same. The residue of the yearly rents and profits is to be distributed unto and amongst such poor people of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, London, who shall attend the service and sermon. At the close of the service the vestry-clerk reads aloud an extract from the will, and then proceeds to the distribution of the money. In the evening the vicar, churchwardens, and common councilmen of the precinct dine together."
In 1749, a Mr. Drinkwater made a praiseworthy bequest. He left the parish of St. Sepulchre £500 to be lent in sums of £25 to industrious young tradesmen. No interest was to be charged, and the money was to be lent for four years.
Next to St. Sepulchre's, on Snow Hill, used to stand the famous old inn of the "Saracen's Head." It was only swept away within the last few years by the ruthless army of City improvers: a view of it in course of demolition was given on page 439. It was one of the oldest of the London inns which bore the "Saracen's Head" for a sign. One of Dick Tarlton's jests makes mention of the "Saracen's Head" without Newgate, and Stow, describing this neighbourhood, speaks particularly of "a fair large inn for receipt of travellers" that "hath to sign the 'Saracen's Head.'" The courtyard had, to the last, many of the characteristics of an old English inn; there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the dusty mail-coaches used to rumble, the tired passengers creeping forth "thanking their stars in having escaped the highwaymen and the holes and sloughs of the road." Into that courtyard how many have come on their first arrival in London with hearts beating high with hope, some of whom have risen to be aldermen and sit in state as lord mayor, whilst others have gone the way of the idle apprentice and come to a sad end at Tyburn! It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited upon the Yorkshire schoolmaster Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall. Mr. Dickens describes the tavern as it existed in the last days of mail-coaching, when it was a most important place for arrivals and departures in London:—
"Next to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield also, and the Compter and the bustle and noise of the City, and just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastwards seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westwards not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the 'Saracen's Head' inn, its portals guarded by two Saracen's heads and shoulders, which it was once the pride and glory of the choice spirits of this metropolis to pull down at night, but which have for some time remained in undisturbed tranquillity, possibly because this species of humour is now confined to St. James's parish, where doorknockers are preferred as being more portable, and bell-wires esteemed as convenient tooth-picks. Whether this be the reason or not, there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway; and the inn itself, garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind-boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein, there glares a small Saracen's head with a twin expression to the large Saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is of the Saracenic order."
To explain the use of the Saracen's head as an inn sign various reasons have been given. "When our countrymen," says Selden, "came home from fighting with the Saracens and were beaten by them, they pictured them with huge, big, terrible faces (as you still see the 'Saracen's Head' is), when in truth they were like other men. But this they did to save their own credit." Or the sign may have been adopted by those who had visited the Holy Land either as pilgrims or to fight the Saracens. Others, again, hold that it was first set up in compliment to the mother of Thomas à Becket, who was the daughter of a Saracen. However this may be, it is certain that the use of the sign in former days was very general.
Running past the east end of St. Sepulchre's, from Newgate into West Smithfield, is Giltspur Street, anciently called Knightriders Street. This interesting thoroughfare derives its name from the knights with their gilt spurs having been accustomed to ride this way to the jousts and tournaments which in days of old were held in Smithfield.
In this street was Giltspur Street Compter, a debtors' prison and house of correction appertaining to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. It stood over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and was removed hither from the east side of Wood Street, Cheapside, in 1791. At the time of its removal it was used as a place of imprisonment for debtors, but the yearly increasing demands upon the contracted space caused that department to be given up, and City debtors were sent to Whitecross Street. The architect was Dance, to whom we are also indebted for the grim pile of Newgate. The Compter was a dirty and appropriately convictlooking edifice. It was pulled down in 1855. Mr. Hepworth Dixon gave an interesting account of this City House of Correction, not long before its demolition, in his "London Prisons" (1850). "Entering," he says, "at the door facing St. Sepulchre's, the visitor suddenly finds himself in a low dark passage, leading into the offices of the gaol, and branching off into other passages, darker, closer, more replete with noxious smells, than even those of Newgate. This is the fitting prelude to what follows. The prison, it must be noticed, is divided into two principal divisions, the House of Correction and the Compter. The front in Giltspur Street, and the side nearest to Newgate Street, is called the Compter. In its wards are placed detenues of various kinds—remands, committals from the police-courts, and generally persons waiting for trial, and consequently still unconvicted. The other department, the House of Correction, occupies the back portion of the premises, abutting on Christ's Hospital. Curious it is to consider how thin a wall divides these widely-separate worlds! And sorrowful it is to think what a difference of destiny awaits the children—destiny inexorable, though often unearned in either case—who, on the one side of it or the other, receive an eleemosynary education! The collegian and the criminal! Who shall say how much mere accident— circumstances over which the child has little power —determines to a life of usefulness or mischief? From the yards of Giltspur Street prison almost the only objects visible, outside of the gaol itself, are the towers of Christ's Hospital; the only sounds audible, the shouts of the scholars at their play. The balls of the hospital boys often fall within the yards of the prison. Whether these sights and sounds ever cause the criminal to pause and reflect upon the courses of his life, we will not say, but the stranger visiting the place will be very apt to think for him. …
"In the department of the prison called the House of Correction, minor offenders within the City of London are imprisoned. No transports are sent hither, nor is any person whose sentence is above three years in length." This able writer then goes on to tell of the many crying evils connected with the institution—the want of air, the over-crowded state of the rooms, the absence of proper cellular accommodation, and the vicious intercourse carried on amongst the prisoners. The entire gaol, when he wrote, only contained thirty-six separate sleeping-rooms. Now by the highest prison calculation—and this, be it noted, proceeds on the assumption that three persons can sleep in small, miserable, unventilated cells, which are built for only one, and are too confined for that, being only about one-half the size of the model cell for one at Pentonville—it was only capable of accommodating 203 prisoners, yet by the returns issued at Michaelmas, 1850, it contained 246!
A large section of the prison used to be devoted to female delinquents, but lately it was almost entirely given up to male offenders.
"The House of Correction, and the Compter portion of the establishment," says Mr. Dixon, "are kept quite distinct, but it would be difficult to award the palm of empire in their respective facilities for demoralisation. We think the Compter rather the worse of the two. You are shown into a room, about the size of an apartment in an ordinary dwelling-house, which will be found crowded with from thirty to forty persons, young and old, and in their ordinary costume; the low thief in his filth and rags, and the member of the swell-mob with his bright buttons, flash finery, and false jewels. Here you notice the boy who has just been guilty of his first offence, and committed for trial, learning with a greedy mind a thousand criminal arts, and listening with the precocious instinct of guilty passions to stories and conversations the most depraved and disgusting. You regard him with a mixture of pity and loathing, for he knows that the eyes of his peers are upon him, and he stares at you with a familiar impudence, and exhibits a devil-may-care countenance, such as is only to be met with in the juvenile offender. Here, too, may be seen the young clerk, taken up on suspicion—perhaps innocent—who avoids you with a shy look of pain and uneasiness: what a hell must this prison be to him! How frightful it is to think of a person really untainted with crime, compelled to herd for ten or twenty days with these abandoned wretches!
"On the other, the House of Correction side of the gaol, similar rooms will be found, full of prisoners communicating with each other, laughing and shouting without hindrance. All this is so little in accordance with existing notions of prison discipline, that one is continually fancying these disgraceful scenes cannot be in the capital of England, and in the year of grace 1850. Very few of the prisoners attend school or receive any instruction; neither is any kind of employment afforded them, except oakum-picking, and the still more disgusting labour of the treadmill. When at work, an officer is in attendance to prevent disorderly conduct; but his presence is of no avail as a protection to the less depraved. Conversation still goes on; and every facility is afforded for making acquaintances, and for mutual contamination."
After having long been branded by intelligent inspectors as a disgrace to the metropolis, Giltspur Street Compter was condemned, closed in 1854, and subsequently taken down.
Nearly opposite what used to be the site of the Compter, and adjoining Cock Lane, is the spot called Pie Corner, near which terminated the Great Fire of 1666. The fire commenced at Pudding Lane, it will be remembered, so it was singularly appropriate that it should terminate at Pie Corner. Under the date of 4th September, 1666, Pepys, in his "Diary," records that "W. Hewer this day went to see how his mother did, and comes home late, telling us how he hath been forced to remove her to Islington, her house in Pye Corner being burned; so that the fire is got so far that way." The figure of a fat naked boy stands over a public house at the corner of the lane; it used to have the following warning inscription attached:— "This boy is in memory put up of the late fire of London, occasioned by the sin of gluttony, 1666." According to Stow, Pie Corner derived its name from the sign of a well-frequented hostelry, which anciently stood on the spot. Strype makes honourable mention of Pie Corner, as "noted chiefly for cooks' shops and pigs dressed there during Bartholomew Fair." Our old writers have many references—and not all, by the way, in the best taste—to its cookstalls and dressed pork. Shadwell, for instance, in the Woman Captain (1680) speaks of "meat dressed at Pie Corner by greasy scullions;" and Ben Jonson writes in the Alchemist (1612)—
"I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,
Taking your meal of steam in from cooks' stalls."
And in "The Great Boobee" ("Roxburgh Ballads"):
"Next day I through Pie Corner passed;
The roast meat on the stall
Invited me to take a taste;
My money was but small."
But Pie Corner seems to have been noted for more than eatables. A ballad from Tom D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," describing Bartholomew Fair, eleven years before the Fire of London, says:—
"At Pie-Corner end, mark well my good friend,
'Tis a very fine dirty place;
Where there's more arrows and bows. …
Than was handled at Chivy Chase."
We have already given a view of Pie Corner in our chapter on Smithfield, page 361.
Hosier Lane, running from Cow Lane to Smithfield, and almost parallel to Cock Lane, is described by "R. B.," in Strype, as a place not over-well built or inhabited. The houses were all old timber erections. Some of these—those standing at the south corner of the lane—were in the beginning of this century depicted by Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Ancient Topography of London." He describes them as probably of the reign of James I. The rooms were small, with low, unornamented ceilings; the timber, oak, profusely used; the gables were plain, and the walls lath and plaster. They were taken down in 1809.
In the corner house, in Mr. Smith's time, there was a barber whose name was Catchpole; at least, so it was written over the door. He was rather an odd fellow, and possessed, according to his own account, a famous relic of antiquity. He would gravely show his customers a short-bladed instrument, as the identical dagger with which Walworth killed Wat Tyler.
Hosier Lane, like Pie Corner, used to be a great resort during the time of Bartholomew Fair, "all the houses," it is said in Strype, "generally being made public for tippling."
We return now from our excursion to the north of St. Sepulchre's, and continue our rambles to the west, and before speaking of what is, let us refer to what has been.
Turnagain Lane is not far from this. "Near unto this Seacoal Lane," remarks Stow, "in the turning towards Holborn Conduit, is Turnagain Lane, or rather, as in a record of the 5th of Edward III., Windagain Lane, for that it goeth down west to Fleet Dyke, from whence men must turn again the same way they came, but there it stopped." There used to be a proverb, "He must take him a house in Turnagain Lane."
A conduit formerly stood on Snow Hill, a little below the church. It is described as a building with four equal sides, ornamented with four columns and pediment, surmounted by a pyramid, on which stood a lamb—a rebus on the name of Lamb, from whose conduit in Red Lion Street the water came. There had been a conduit there, however, before Lamb's day, which was towards the close of the sixteenth century.
At No. 37, King Street, Snow Hill, there used to be a ladies' charity school, which was established in 1702, and remained in the parish 145 years. Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale were subscribers to this school, and Johnson drew from it his story of Betty Broom, in "The Idler." The world of domestic service, in Betty's days, seems to have been pretty much as now. Betty was a poor girl, bred in the country at a charity-school, maintained by the contributions of wealthy neighbours. The patronesses visited the school from time to time, to see how the pupils got on, and everything went well, till "at last, the chief of the subscribers having passed a winter in London, came down full of an opinion new and strange to the whole country. She held it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write. They who are born to poverty, she said, are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know. She told her friends that London was in confusion by the insolence of servants; that scarcely a girl could be got for all-work, since education had made such numbers of fine ladies, that nobody would now accept a lower title than that of a waiting-maid, or something that might qualify her to wear laced shoes and long ruffles, and to sit at work in the parlour window. But she was resolved, for her part, to spoil no more girls. Those who were to live by their hands should neither read nor write out of her pocket. The world was bad enough already, and she would have no part in making it worse.
"She was for a long time warmly opposed; but she persevered in her notions, and withdrew her subscription. Few listen, without a desire of conviction, to those who advise them to spare their money. Her example and her arguments gained ground daily; and in less than a year the whole parish was convinced that the nation would be ruined if the children of the poor were taught to read and write." So the school was dissolved, and Betty with the rest was turned adrift into the wide and cold world; and her adventures there any one may read in "The Idler" for himself.
There is an entry in the school minutes of 1763, to the effect that the ladies of the committee censured the schoolmistress for listening to the story of the Cock Lane ghost, and "desired her to keep her belief in the article to herself."
Skinner Street—now one of the names of the past—which ran by the south side of St. Sepulchre's, and formed the connecting link between Newgate Street and Holborn, received its name from Alderman Skinner, through whose exertions, about 1802, it was principally built. The following account of Skinner Street is from the picturesque pen of Mr. William Harvey ("Aleph"), whose long familiarity with the places he describes renders doubly valuable his many contributions to the history of London scenes and people:—"As a building speculation," he says, writing in 1863, "it was a failure. When the buildings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers. Tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was commenced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject, and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition. Few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years things began to improve; the vast many-storeyed house which then covered the site of Commercial Place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house opposite the 'Saracen's Head' was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald, who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and, desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearied industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him, was soon able to interest them in matters of far higher interest…
"The most remarkable shop—but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house—was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snow Hill, and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books, so rich in gaily-coloured prints; such careful editions of the marvellous old histories, 'Puss in Boots,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Cinderella,' and the like. Fortunately the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. . . . . But Skinner Street did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, 'One swallow will not make a summer,' and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810 the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt—a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner Street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathised with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid those ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur Street, a miserable wretch had just been turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself, 'Who that could help it would live in Skinner Street?' The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up? Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at 'Sinbad' or 'Robinson Crusoe.' It would soon be re-opened, we naturally thought; but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy, or an ancient Charley, was found to regard the playful double knocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in, a heavy cloud of black dust, solidifying into inches thick, gathered on sills and doors and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as Giant Despair's Castle. Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remained from year to year without the slightest sign of life—absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile, in Stamford Street, Blackfriars, there are (1863) seven houses in a similar predicament— window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hanging from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rents alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered valuable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous 'Jarndyce v. Jarndyce' case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches 'unfriended by the world or the world's law,' seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony? Such things have been—the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants."
A street is nothing without a mystery, so a mystery let these old tumble-down houses remain, whilst we go on to tell that, in front of No. 58, the sailor Cashman was hung in 1817, as we have already mentioned, for plundering a gunsmith's shop there. William Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop for several years in Skinner Street, at No. 41, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there was a stone carving of Æsop reciting one of his fables to children.
The most noteworthy event of the life of Godwin was his marriage with the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, authoress of a "Vindication of the Rights of Women," whose congenial mind, in politics and morals, he ardently admired. Godwin's account of the way in which they got on together is worth reading:—"Ours," he writes, "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention, that influenced by ideas I had long entertained, I engaged an apartment about twenty doors from our house, in the Polygon, Somers Town, which I designed for the purpose of my study and literary occupations. Trifles, however, will be interesting to some readers, when they relate to the last period of the life of such a person as Mary. I will add, therefore, that we were both of us of opinion, that it was possible for two persons to be too uniformly in each other's society. Influenced by that opinion, it was my practice to repair to the apartment I have mentioned as soon as I rose, and frequently not to make my appearance in the Polygon till the hour of dinner. We agreed in condemning the notion, prevalent in many situations in life, that a man and his wife cannot visit in mixed society but in company with each other, and we rather sought occasions of deviating from than of complying with this rule. By this means, though, for the most part, we spent the latter half of each day in one another's society, yet we were in no danger of satiety. We seemed to combine, in a considerable degree, the novelty and lively sensation of a visit with the more delicious and heartfelt pleasure of a domestic life."
This philosophic union, to Godwin's inexpressible affliction, did not last more than eighteen months, at the end of which time Mrs. Godwin died, leaving an only daughter, who in the course of time became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and was the author of the wild and extraordinary tale of "Frankenstein."
As 2015 draws to an end, I can sum up my feelings with one word: gratitude. I feel grateful for many things: to simplify I 'll just say that I am grateful for one marvelous gift I am receiving everyday: TIME. Time to do what I love, to be with my loved ones, time to learn how to better use my time, time to think, time to listen, time to learn, time to expose a frame. In 2016 I wish you to be blessed with a better understanding of your inner time, and I exhort you to make the best of it, not based on someone else's definition of "best", not based on someone else's definition of "valuable", but simply listening to and trusting more your inner clock. Happy New Year !
Details of the rock art station 'Vente Bourbon 3' found by D. Caldwell around 2014 (published 2015) - one of many important and unpolluted rock art stations recently found in the forest of Fontainebleau.
After isolating a line composite and projecting it as a representation of a stage (see below), I have looked at other 'glyphs' to see if they might be schematic representations with shared themes.
The top photograph of a 'glyph' is often referred to as a swastika even if swastikas do not have dots between arms and end bars with a fade. I preferred the term 'ornamented cross'.
The lower photograph of a 'glyph' has been rotated by 180 degrees and can be seen pictured in its original alcove position to the left of the potential stage (see second image below). As there is no notion of perspective, I have assumed that the 'artist' simply wanted to show diagonal buttress into the base of a pole planted near the potential 'stage', before then extending the lines for a side-on view. With this in mind it makes no difference to rotate the image as pictured above. The local area's soil is sandy, and the bedrock is near the surface, and a Maypole without buttresses may have occurred once, but 'never again' (!). A buttressed pole without dancers might be presented in its schematic simplicity without any cords activated by dancers, or as a simple pole.
Seen from above and this time with dancers, a Maypole can be a combination of people with cords and dancers taking up the space between. Here a dot represents a space for a person.
Combining the side image with the schematic image from above and then animating the dots with people results in the representation above right.
Today many folk dancers are uniformed into exact local costume and regimented into perfect dance steps. This sense of perfection is very human, and its spirit of modelling and emulation must be envisaged in large get-togethers into the late great ages of prehistory. On saying that, local dances that spin on into evenings can also involve hats falling sideways, buttons coming undone, trousers slacking and dancers exalted aside dancers shy. Rings of onlookers watching circles of dance; interchanging between actor and observer. In the image of Maypole dancing, I have tried to capture this latter energy of informal collective spirit.
Maypoles are 'trees' of fertility and they symbolise the forces of nature. Erected poles, ornamented poles, selected saplings cut and set or signified trees are all variants of the Maypole that exist throughout quiet and dynamic details of Europe (and not simply a Germanic tradition is can be seen quoted), with other tangents in the rest of the world: north American sun-dance, Siberian Ysyakh, Egypt and so on. Broad rural detailing and specificities require time - deep time - and it is generally accepted that the Maypole celebrations crossed the bridge between late prehistory and history. The wide manifest suggest a point of 'origin' from far further than simply the Iron age (as is quoted).
A Maypole is a common structure associated with dance and festivity that might be set near a simple stage, and seeing a schematic juxtaposition of these two elements is not shocking.
In 1579 the Catholic Church made a decree regarding Maypoles making it unlawful to 'walk them in the streets and to plant them with crazy and ridiculous ceremonies' and it is perhaps logical to expect the rock art to have been generated from a prior date. This was not the first time that this Church had involved itself with trees as in 452, the Council at Tours "exhorts the clergy to excommunicate those who, at certain ...trees, are sacrificing to the devil" - with the word "sacrificing" probably imbibed with a little stigmatic interpretation and interchangeable with "dancing around".
Attaching cords to the top of a pole can abstract significance from the act of braiding and unbraiding cords of different colour, as dancers back and forth with a variety of inter-combination. Should this rock art 'glyph' be a representation of a Maypole, then the simple four cord variety may be either an early example (lets imagine a cord for each season) or a simplification (let's say that four cords are enough to communicate to others an inclusion of a Maypole with eight or more becoming messy and looking like a sun).
Pipes and drums and a small choir of singers: people from an extended region drawn to the magical monoliths; a stage with two sets of stairs and a couple of Maypoles would allow people to dance in lines, circles or to snake around and between. Even those who admit that they cannot dance, or that they are too old to dance, would be drawn to join in or clap as they watch the new generation rub static and emotional memories into trusted contact.
AJM 31.03.20