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(Continued from Last Week.)
A small steamer, on the choppy English Channel,
wh£re you are rocked as if in a cradle —but not to
stefep—results in consequences!
We were a very seasick crowd of passengers, who
looked with longing eyes toward the chalk cliffs of
Dover, that finally loomed up before us in the dis
tance.
I soon forgot my dizzy voyage, however, when I
stepped upon English soil, heard the English lan
guage spoken all around me, and could talk in my
native tongue to my heart’s content.
Soon we were speeding toward the great metropo
lis. After a few hours, we arrived at the Charing
Cross station and found ourselves in “teeming Lon
don’s central roar”.
Charing Cross station marks the place where the
body of Queen Eleanor made its last halt on its way
from Harby, Nottinghamshire, to Westminster Abbey,
and here, accordingly, her husband, Edward 1.,
erected one of the crosses which marked the several
stages of the journey.
Charing Cross station is within easy reach of
Trafalgar Square, which is located in the heart of
London. An imposing statue of Admiral Nelson, of
the British navy, rises from the center of this square.
Here one finds one’s self “in the full tide of human
existence”, where people of every kind gather and,
as Some one has expressed it, “London lets off steam,
and saves itself many broken heads and windows”.
Not far away from this point is the place of greater
and more universal interest to visitors than any other
spot in London —namely, Westminster Abbey, “the
great temple of silence and reconciliation where
twenty generations lie buried”.
It is filled with monuments of all kinds —ancient,
modern, hideous, artistic —many commemorating
worthies who lie buried elsewhere.
I have thought that if sometime, when the con
stant stream of visitors to this “national valhalla”
have retired and night has robed the Abbey in silence
and darkness, the spirits of that mighty throng of
long sleepers should arise and face each other, I
could imagine all hates and enmities being calmed
and quelled by the great statesman, Gladstone, so
much of calm, poise, power, magnanimity and “peace
bn earth” has the sculptor caught and held fast in
his statue, which seems to stand there a poised and
mighty champion of the right.
A gloomy experience it was the day we visited the
Tower of London, with its cruel and bloody associa
tions.
As we approached Traitor’s Gate, the double gate
way, by which prisoners were brought thither by
water, I thought of Sir Thomas More, Queen Anne
Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Gray
and others who had passed under that gloomy arch
into the gloomier prison cells that awaited them.
In an open square in the midst of this pile of dark,
grim towers, we stood upon the place where Anne
Boltyn was beheaded by order of her cruel and
beastly husband, Henry VIII.
Around this spot black-winged ravens flapped
lazily about, and a shudder ran through me at sight
of these “birds of ill omen”, which seemed so in
keeping with the ghastly memories of the place.
I breathed freely again only when we emerged
from those scenes of horrible associations into the
gay, busy, bustling streets of London, and, shaking
off the nightmare of it all, I felt a new sense of joy
in the thought that such examples of “man’s inhu
manity to man” have been left far back in the years.
We found three weeks a short time in which to see
this largest city in the world, with its British Mu
seum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Art Galleries, Buckingham
Palace —home of the reigning king—Houses of Par
liament, etc., etc.
More than anything else, I enjoyed the literary
associations there—the home of so much of English
literature.
I often saw an old fellow walking the streets of
London who seemed actually to have stepped from
the pages of some Dickens novel, so similar was he
to his photograph indelibly portrayed there by that
inimitable writer.
From London there are a number of interesting
excursions that no visitor can afford to miss, namely,
Windsor Castle, which fitted my concept of the
ABOARD THE STEA MSHIP SAXONIA
The Golden Age for December 15, 1910.
’Elizabeth Purser.
grandeur of a castle as none other that I saw; the
picturesque Warwick Castle; Kennilworth, which,
though crumbling to decay, stands immortalized in
Scott’s novel; the classic town of Oxford, with its
world-renowned university; the beautiful Hampton
Court Palace, and Shakespeare’s home.
I had only thought of the renown of Stratford, but
when I reached it, I found it to be a pretty little
town resting upon the banks of the more beautiful
Avon river.
A throng of visitors was coming and going while
we were in the home where Shakespeare was born,
and later while visiting Anne Hathaway’s cottage.
As I looked at the rough, high-backed seat in front
of the large, open fireplace in this cottage, where, it
is said, Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway sat in their
courting days, I wondered what kind of a lover this
master portrayer of the divine passion made, and
what kind of a woman Anne Hathaway was, to win
the love of a Shakespeare.
After a little visit to the picturesque city of Leam
ington, a short stop at Birmingham, we were off to
“Bonnie Scotland” on a flying trip, our hearts already
having gone on ahead of us to Liverpool, where, in
a short time, we were to take the steamer en route
to America.
MB.
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MISS ELIZABETH PURSER.
We reached Edinburgh one evening at about 8
o’clock, just as the setting sun was bathing the whole
land in a perfect glory of gold.
Then, for more than two hours, the light of day
lingered over the city as if loth to give place to the
darkness of night, and I had the exquisite pleasure of
watching a Scottish gloaming, which extended far
into the night. It really does not become dark there
until 11:00 o’clock at night, and day begins to dawn
before 3:00 o’clock in the morning, during the sum
mer season.
We spent only a few days in the beautiful city of
Edinburgh, rich in its associations with Sir Walter
Scott, that “Wizard of the North”; the unfortunate
Mary, Queen of Scotts, and John Knox, the great
religious leader.
It was a day of rare and exquisite pleasure that
we spent among the lakes and fern and heather
covered mountains of northern Scotland, which we
saw by means of steamers and stage coaches.
From there to Glasgow, and on to Ayr, the home
of the plough-boy poet, Robert Burns.
Through this typical Scotch village flows the bon
nie Doon river, spanned by the “Ault Brig”, across
which Tam O’Shanter fled in wild terror that night,
pursued by the witches which he fancied, in his
drunken delirium, that he saw when he made the
fatal peep into the window of the “Auld Kirk”.
Everything about the little town of Ayr seemed
just as it should be—so in keeping with the spirit of
Burns’ writings, and the harmony and completeness
of it all was restful.
We stopped at Dumfries long enough to see the
handsome mausoleum erected to Burns, and to drive
out to Maxwelton, nearby. There we found that —
The braes were bonnie,
Where early fa’s the dew;
And ’twas there that Annie Laurie
Gave him that promise true.
Next to Liverpool, where we spent several days in
eager anticipation of, and preparation for, our voyage
home. And now we are within a day of American
shores, “the land of the free and the home of the
brave”.
In contemplation of it my thoughts have jingled
into this rhyme:
O beautiful ship,
You rock and dip,
As you gracefully glide o’er the sea;
In my heart there’s a song,
As you bear me along
To America, The Land of the Free!
Long, long did I roam
In lands far from home,
Many mites o’er the dark surging wave;
But now I am bound—
Oh, joy at the sound!
For America, The Home of the Brave!
And now, good-bye to my readers and to my year
abroad.
A BEAUTIFUL PRAYER
LIGHTS UP “DARK VALLEY”.
A dispatch from Adairsville, Ga., to The Atlanta
Journal tells the following beautiful story:
A prayer which she had learned years before, and
had been answered in life, remained through death
as a guide for Mrs. Jane McAlister, who died near
this place Tuesday night. Even as death approached,
relatives of Mrs. McAlister heard her murmur the
lines over and over to herself. Her life had been
blessed by good health, and, although she was sev
enty-five years of age, her mind remained as clear as
a child’s.
The prayer was used as a text by the minister at
the funeral services.
The lines were taken from a religious publication
years ago, and were found in Mrs. McAlister's Bible
after her death.
The prayer follows:
“O most merciful God, cast me not off in the time
of my old age. Forsake me not if my strength fail
eth. May my hoary head be found in righteousness.
Preserve my mind from dotage and imbecility, and
my body from protracted disease and excruciating
pain.
“Deliver me from despondency in my declining
years, and enable me to bear with patience whatever
may be Thy holy will. I humbly ask that my reason
may continue to the last, and that I may be so com
forted and supported that I may leave my testimony
in favor of the reality of religion and of Thy gracious
faithfulness in fulfilling Thy gracious promises, and
when my spirit leaves this clay tenement, Lord Jesus,
receive it. Send some of the blessed angels to con
vey my inexperienced soul to the mansions which
Thy love has prepared; and, oh! may I have an
abundant entrance ministered unto me into the King
dom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!”
M It
“COULDN’T DO WITHOUT IT.”
Greshamville, Ga., Dec. 10, 1910.
The Golden Age,
Atlanta, Ga.
Gentlemen:—Please find enclosed check for $1.50
to cover my dues for one year’s subscription to THE
GOLDEN AGE.
My family and I have been reading your splendid
paper about two years, and enjoy it so much, we now
feel that we could not do without it.
Yours very truly,
H, D, HEAD.
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