oundations of Edward the Confessor's great
Norman Church. We learned how Henry the Third built the new and noble
Abbey which is standing at this day. We saw how he crowned his long and
troubled reign by the translation of the Confessor's body to the
gorgeous shrine he had prepared for it. Let us now, standing for a
moment beside this shrine, talk of a little boy whose memory is closely
bound up with an important event in the history of Great Britain.

Yet first, for the sake of those who have not been to Westminster, I
will try to explain the general plan of the eastern end of the Abbey.
Imagine a narrow horseshoe of which the points are straight instead of
being bent inwards. The space inside the horseshoe represents Edward the
Confessor's Chapel; the shoe itself the ambulatory, a wide passage where
the monks used to walk, and processions passed round to the shrine; and
outside this passage are built, on the south the chapels of St. Edmund,
and St. Nicholas; on the north the chapels of St. Paul and St. John the
Baptist; while on the east of the horseshoe curve are the steps up to
Henry the Seventh's Chapel. These chapels all lie behind the grand
screen that runs right across the choir at the back of the altar, and
are not used for service any longer, with the exception of Henry the
Seventh's. All the congregation sit in the choir in front of the altar
rails, and in the north and south transepts, which spread out right and
left from the choir like two broad arms of a cross.

I know few more overpowering sights than the vast Sunday congregation of
between three and four thousand people. The Sacrarium black with men.
The wide altar steps closely packed with people who have often been
waiting for more than an hour outside the doors to secure a good place.
Men and women and children wedged together in the densely crowded
transepts, standing willingly throughout the long service because there
is not a seat left. The privileged few coming in by the comparatively
empty nave from the cloisters, and taking their places in the stalls or
in the seats of those connected with the Abbey; well-known faces there
are among them--princes and statesmen, men of letters and foreigners of
note. Then the hush as the clock strikes three in Poets' Corner, and a
faint harmonious "amen" is sung in the distant Baptistery by the choir,
at the end of the prayer which is always said before they come in to
service. The organ plays softly, so softly th