Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.143
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Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 2 p.143
haunt their accustomed place in the window. While mentioning this fading remnant of an ancient mystery it may be added, that on conversing with a man who was working in the garden at the back of the house, he stated he had that morning, when trenching deeply into the ground, as if to verify this dismal tradition, turned up a quantity of human bones, and from the numbers he had dug up and reburied, he conceived there must have been a burial ground, or "some queer wark," on the site in former times. A grave historian might have overlooked this bit of private family history, but When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs the dubious tale. And thus the story of the skulls of Calgarth lives to this day. It has been said by a recent critic that, "without directly abandoning the miraculous legends, which form so large a part of our early history, Dr. Lingard, in his work on the Anglo-Saxon Church, takes a low view of them, though he justly ascribes many of these relations to the intensity of the belief of the people in providential interpositions." With the following quotation therefore, taken from that eminent historian, I will leave this part of my subject, on which it may probably be thought there has been already too much said. "Hence was generated a predisposition to invest every unexpected or wished-for event with a supernatural character - to see in it the evident hadiwork of the Almighty - a dream often would be taken for a vision, or a warning from Heaven - a conjecture afterwards verified by the event, be converted into a prophecy - an occurrence in conformity with the object of their prayer, be pronounced a special interposition of the Divine power, and narratives of distant surprising cures be admitted without inquiry, and on the mere testimony of the relators. It cannot be denied that this remark will apply to many of the facts recorded as miracles in our ancient writers - their previous disposition of mind has led them into error. It was, however, an error of the head not the of the heart; one which might argue a want of science and discernment, but not of religion and piety."(to be continued.) |
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