house very long when he was seized with illness which quickly proved fatal. It was said at the time, though I find no mention of it in Miss Allies' book, that he gave his life in the cause of charity by going to attend a dying man who would otherwise have lacked the help of a priest, at a time when he himself was so ill that it was an evident danger for him to leave his bed.

Two years after this another son died, and in 1900 his sonin-law Mr. James Broder. In January, 1902, death brought to an end the happy union which was begun on October 1, 1840, when Thomas William Allies was married to Eliza Hall Newman. None who were privileged to know Mrs. Allies could ever forget her. The sparkle of the eye, the keen play of wit, the quenchless spirit of fun-often, it is to be feared, veiling a heart saddened by temporal trials-all this rises before the memory when her name is mentioned. To those who knew her not, no amount of description would reproduce her charming, lovable personality.

Mr. Allies has left us a noble record of her in his dedication of A Life's Decision.

To my sole partner in these trials, the more helpless and yet the more courageous, the quicker to see the Truth, the readier to embrace it, the first to surrender her home in the bloom of her youth, who chose without shrinking the loss I had brought on her, and by her choice doubled my gain.

The beautiful union between these two was not long severed. A little more than a year went by after Mrs. Allies' death before she was joined by her husband in the eternal world.

And here seems the right place to say a word about the one and only cause of complaint which we have in reading Miss Allies' book. Every man worthy of the name is more or less of a hero-worshipper, and the many hundreds who knew Mr. Allies, either personally or through his books, must have found an honorable niche for him among their intellectual idols. And for such as these, the second chapter of this book is painful reading. That Allies should have been very deeply in love is most natural and entirely to his credit. That he should have confided his hopes, fears, aspirations, and joys to the pages of his private journal was equally natural. But where was the necessity of publishing these sacred and intimate confidences? In doing so his biographer has allowed her filial love to obscure

her judgment. This is precisely an example of the dangers to which writers are liable when they portray the life of a parent. They so often forget that what to them is unspeakably precious is apt to sound a jarring note to outsiders. Especially is this true when the confidences thus cast upon a rude and critical world are those of a man whose name we have learnt to regard as the equivalent of something unearthly and majestic and above the common herd of men. But, after all, this single error of judgment is well atoned for by the rest of the book; and its readers, while heartily thanking Miss Allies, will close its pages with a strengthened conviction that every day of that long life of ninety years was nobly spent; that the whole man-heart and soul-was given over to the service of God-first in searching after the truth, then in embracing it, when found, with a glorious disdain of consequences and at the cost of all that the world holds good; and, finally, in imparting to others some of the enthusiastic love which filled his own soul for the sanctity, supremacy, and sublime grandeur of the Fisherman's Throne. To this last he gave himself almost wholly, except where the duties of his educational office intervened. "After the work of saving my soul," he writes in his Journal, "it is my work in life to defend the See of Peter." And with what a wealth of learning, and in what noble, impassioned English was that work performed! His volumes abound in passages which can never die, and they come straight from the heart of their author. Surely, to take one example, it would be difficult to find anywhere a more fascinating outburst of love and loyalty and devotion to the Bride of Christ than the closing words of his Life's Decision-words which may likewise fitly end this paper:

O Church of the living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array, O Mother of Saints and Doctors, Martyrs and Virgins, clothe thyself in the robe and aspect, as thou hast the strength, of Him whose Body thou art, the Love for our sake incarnate; shine forth upon thy lost children, and draw them to the double fountain of thy bosom, the well-spring of Truth and Grace.

GLASTONBURY.

the sea.

BY ELLIS SCHREIBER.

LASTONBURY, a small town in the county of Somerset (formerly the district of the somer-sœtas), was, at a remote period, an island formed by the waters of the River Brue and the tributary streams which overflowed the fens stretching westward to Its name, in Anglo-Saxon Glæstingabyrig, "the isle of glass," is said to be derived from the clear blue color of the surrounding water, glas in Welsh signifying blue. By the Britons it was called Avalon, the isle of apples, the word aval being Welsh for apple; some writers, however, assert that this name was derived from that of a famous British chieftain, Avalor Avalloc. It was known to the Romans as insula Avallonia. Glastonbury is no longer an island; the marsh lands surrounding it have long since been drained and converted into rich pastures.

"Glastonia is a town nestled in a morass with no advantage of sight or pleasantness; it can only be reached on foot or on horseback." Thus in the early part of the twelfth century wrote William of Malmesbury, who may be termed the first historian. of Glastonbury Abbey. His work entitled: De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiæ contains all that had previously been written, traditional, legendary, and historical, concerning this favored spot where, in the very infancy of Christianity, the Gospel was first preached in Britain, and the earliest chapel erected. The account he gives thereof, referring back to the first century of the Christian era, is detailed and interesting; but space does not permit us to review it here.

During the period of the Saxon invasion Glastonbury had proved a suitable place for harboring a congregation of native Christians. But in 658 "the one famous holy place of the conquered Britons which had lived through the storm of foreign. conquest," as Freeman terms it (Norman Conquest. Vol. I., p. 436), fell into Saxon hands; a Saxon community of monks

possession of the wooden basilica which had replaced the

original oratory of the Blessed Virgin, associated with the memory of many saints of the Celtic race. In 708 Ine, king of the West Saxons, rebuilt the monastery, which he bountifully endowed, and erected the abbey church, the major ecclesia, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul.

From this period the history of Glastonbury may be considered authentic; in the earlier times, where historic evidence is so scanty and legend abounds, it is difficult to draw the line. of demarcation between truth and fiction. Until the foundation of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Glastonbury was the chief seat of learning in England. The town grew up around the Abbey as people desirous of living near its hallowed precincts settled there. Not only did the sanctuary become a favorite place of pilgrimage, but so highly was it reverenced that kings and queens, archbishops and other prelates, coveted the privilege of interment there. The name of the town is asserted by some to have been taken from an English family, the Glaestings, who chose this spot for their settlement.

King Ine's monastery maintained a great reputation until it was ravaged and despoiled, as were many other monasteries, by the Danes in the ninth century. Christian priests were slain at the altar by those worshippers of Woden, for the Northmen were still heathen. But under the rule of King Alfred, Wessex was delivered from the invaders, and religion once more revived.

The next benefactor whose name is recorded in the annals of Glastonbury, and whose posthumous renown attracted many to the scene of his labors, was St. Dunstan, a youth of noble birth, who at an early age was dedicated to the service of our Lady. This celebrated man was born in the neighborhood of Glastonbury, and received his education from some Irish scholars who had taken up their abode there. Under their tuition he made extraordinary progress, and, in addition to his high literary attainments, he excelled in painting and was a skillful worker in brass and iron. These accomplishments, united to most engaging manners, brought him into notice at the Court of King Athelstan, where the favor with which he was regarded excited the jealousy of the courtiers. During a long illness Dunstan vowed to renounce the brilliant future open to him and become a monk. On his recovery he received the religious habit and shortly after the sacrament of Holy Orders.

On the accession of Edmund, successor to Athelstan, he was

appointed Abbot of Glastonbury, where he introduced the strict Benedictine rule, and, with funds supplied to him by the king, repaired the havoc wrought by the Danes. On being raised to the See of Winchester, he applied himself to effect the reform of the clergy; all those whose manner of life was discreditable to religion were first reprimanded, then severely punished. The secular clergy who had usurped the place of the regulars and possessed themselves of the abbacies were expelled, and in the religious homes, both of men and women, strict monastic discipline was enforced. Dunstan was presently made Archbishop of Canterbury; under his rule no less than forty-eight monasteries were rebuilt or erected.

Twenty-three years after his death the monks of Glaston bury besought permission from the king to translate the saint's remains to their monastery. It was granted, and a company of monks repaired to Canterbury for the purpose. On their arrival they found the cathedral laid waste, the Danes having ravaged it; yet they discovered among the ruins the tomb they were seeking, and found St. Dunstan's bones, the episcopal ring being still on his finger. On their return to Glastonbury, bearing the precious relics, they were received with great rejoicings. Fearing, however, lest at a later period the Archbishop of Canterbury might insist on the restoration of the relics to their first resting-place, the monks commissioned two of their number to deposit them in a place of secrecy, known to themselves alone. The secret was only to be revealed when the last possessor of it should be in articulo mortis, when it was to be communicated to another monk, so that one only should possess it. The two brethren accordingly enclosed the bones in a coffin, and inscribed on it the words Sancti Dunstani, and deposited it in a hole which they dug near the entrance of the great church; there it remained undisturbed for a hundred and seventy-two years.

Meanwhile, according to Adam of Domerham, the chronicler who, after William of Malmesbury's death, continued his work as historian of Glastonbury, the Abbot Henry de Blois, brother to King Stephen, rebuilt the church called the major ecclesia, and erected a new monastery on the foundations of the old, with a bell-tower, chapter-house, cloisters, infirmary, chapel, etc., a structure in fact which was described as "a splendid large palace," in the Norman style, richly decorated. He bequeathed