ll more surprised to hear that the
heavy demands made on him in maintaining his state and keeping up his
splendid episcopal palaces are such that his income will not meet them.
We were told that the same situation prevails everywhere with these high
church dignitaries, and that only recently the Bishop of London had
published figures to show that he was $25,000 poorer in the three years
of his incumbency on an annual salary of $40,000 per year. It is not
strange, therefore, that among these churchmen there exists a demand for
a simpler life. The Bishop of Norwich frankly acknowledged recently that
he had never been able to live on his income of $22,500 per year. He
expressed his conviction that the wide-spread poverty of the bishops is
caused by their being required to maintain "venerable but costly
palaces." He says that he and many of his fellow-churchmen would prefer
to lead plain and unostentatious lives, but they are not allowed to do
so; that they would much prefer to devote a portion of their income to
charity and other worthy purposes rather than to be compelled to spend
it in useless pomp and ceremony.
Aside from its cathedral, Canterbury teems with unique relics of the
past, some antedating the Roman invasion of England. The place of the
town in history is an important one, and Dean Stanley in his "Memorials
of Canterbury," claims that three great landings were made in Kent
adjacent to the city, "that of Hengist and Horsa, which gave us our
English forefathers and character; that of Julius Caesar, which revealed
to us the civilized world, and that of St. Augustine, which gave us our
Latin Christianity." The tower of the cathedral dominates the whole city
and the great church often overshadows everything else in interest to
the visitor. But one could spend days in the old-world streets,
continually coming across fine half-timbered houses, with weather-beaten
gables in subdued colors and rich antique oak carvings. There are few
more pleasing bits of masonry in Britain than the great cathedral
gateway at the foot of Mercery Lane, with its rich carving, weather-worn
to a soft blur of gray and brown tones. Near Mercery Lane, too, are
slight remains of the inn of Chaucer's Tales, "The Chequers of Hope,"
and in Monastery Street stands the fine gateway of the once rich and
powerful St. Augustine's Abbey. Then there is the quaint little church
of St. Martins, undoubtedly one of the oldest in England, and generally
rep
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