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ST. LEONARD'S CHAPEL.
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Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
HEARD you ever of the Chapel of St . Leonard ' s , shrouded in ivy , through which a gothic arch just peeped , looking centuries older than even the venerable green which clothed and crowned the edifice ? It was the prettiest work of nature ' s fancy , for the ivy branches had confederated against the flfrchitect , determined to rear up a pile of their own , and to hide every vestige
of the building that supported them , and around which they gTew . Part of the gothic arch I mentioned had resisted the encroachment of the travelling vegetation ; but for that , the whole might have been deemed an ivy-bower , grotesque and gigantic . Above the chapel rose enormous elms with an air of protecting majesty . Ruthless hands have torn away the ivy , and St . Leonard's Chapel is become a heap of brick and stone , but the elm-trees are waving still ( and , blessings be on his head , he was a kinsman of mine who
saved them from perdition ; he shall want no monument while they live ) and they are high and glorious , St . Leonard ' s has had many a narrow escape from fatne , but happily it lives—and long may it live !—in its sweet seclusion . The other day it was about to be elevated to the Peerage , for Lord Gifford , some of whose family dwell on one of the rising spots of the village , had a fimcy to become the Lord of St . Leonard ' s—but St . Leonard's is no place for Lords * It is a quiet spot , where peace and devotion had of old their sanctuary . It has its crystal spring , of miraculous virtue once ,
of marvellous virtue still , where to this day , at early dawn , some stragglers come ; for though no visible " angel moves the waters" now , there is some tKiysteriotis influence , an overshadowing from the past , which lingers round the water-drops as they fall . In my boyhood it was said , and said truly , thfet neither parson nor jpaoper , doctor nor lawyer , publican nor shopkeeper , dwelt in the parish . The vicissitudes of time—and to St . Leonard ' s all its visitations have been melancholy ones—have brought all the professions in abundance—and where they come they stay .
The churchyard of St . Leonard ' s is full of touching moralities . Nowhere shall you find a greener sod , nowhere a more undisturbed sanctuary . There is * a tomb , a quiet tomb , on the right hand . I looked on its slab , it was covered with variegated lichens—brown and gold—but not a Word was there . Around the place a few separated and solitary spikes of grass
towered over the turf like sentinels , higher than the stone itself , and there they bowed their heads in gentle prostration and reverence . One single branch of ivy was creeping up the tomb , from whose chinks the most beautiful festoons of the wild white convolvolus were suspended . From one end , where they were most luxuriant , I softly removed them , and I found written beneath , the
words" Mr . James Peircb ' s Tomb , 1726 . " Then did the history of this excellent man , whose sleeping-place time had so exquisitely garlanded , rush into rny thoughts . He was one of the best of the good men of his time , who fought the holy fight of religious free * dom , in the days of darkntse and sorrow . For his honesty he was
calumniated * persecuted , excommunicated ; and when he died , and those who k > v € d him desired to record their affection on his tomb , the Priest of St . Leonardo declared that the totob of Mr . Pteirce should bear no praiaes , and denied to his memory that eulogium which no man ever better deserved . The name of the bigot is forgoUen- ^ or remembered only to be stigmatised ,
St. Leonard's Chapel.
ST . LEONARD ' S CHAPEL .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1830, page 450, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2586/page/18/
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