d twelve. All the churches are open for
service. We will look in noiselessly, but, indeed, we shall find no
congregations to disturb, only, literally, two or three gathered
together.

I will take you to the very heart of the City. Perhaps you have
thought that the heart of the City is that open triangular space faced
by the Royal Exchange, and flanked by the Bank of England and the
Mansion House. We have taught ourselves to think this, in ignorance of
the City history. But a hundred and fifty years ago there was no
Mansion House, three hundred years ago there was no Royal Exchange,
and the Bank of England itself is but a mushroom building of the day
before yesterday.

In the long life of London--it covers two thousand years--the chief
seat of its trade, the chief artery of its circulation, has been
Thames Street. Along here for seventeen hundred years were carried on
the chief events in the drama which we call the History of London. Its
past origin, its growth and expansion, are indicated along this line.
Here the City merchants of old--Whittingtons, Fitzwarrens, Sevenokes,
Greshams--thronged to do their business. To these wharves came the
vessels laden from Antwerp, Hamburg, Riga, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Venice,
Genoa, and far-off Smyrna and the Levant. This line stretches across
the whole breadth of the City. It indicates the former extent of the
City, what was behind it originally was the mass of houses built to
accommodate those who could no longer find room on the riverside. It
is now a narrow, dark, and dirty street; its south side is covered
with quays and wharves; narrow lanes lead to ancient river stairs; its
north side is lined with warehouses, the streets which run out of it
are also dark and narrow lanes with offices on either side. It is no
longer one of the great arteries of the City. Those who come here use
it not for a thoroughfare but for a place of business. When their
business is done they go away; the churches, of which there were once
so many, are more deserted here than in any other part of the City Let
me give you a little--a very little--of its history.

Two thousand years ago, or thereabouts, the City of London was first
begun. At that time the Thames valley, where now stands Greater
London, was a vast morass, sometimes flooded at high tide, everywhere
low and swampy, studded with islands or bits of ground rising a few
feet above the level--such was Thorney Island, on which Westminster
Abbey was b