And now, having told you a little about the life of the monks in those far-off days, we must come back to these buildings on Thorney Isle, which as I have said were called the Monastery of St. Peter. It is not known when this particular monastery was first founded; but it is said that St. Dunstan, who lived in the reign of King Edwy, found there some half-ruined buildings. He repaired them, and then brought twelve monks to live in company with him. But probably the Danes, who were often invading England at that time, destroyed this little monastery, for when Edward the Confessor came to the throne, many years afterwards, it had almost, if not quite, disappeared; and when he rebuilt it he added this great church of St. Peter, about which I told you in the first chapter.
There is a pretty story told of how this came about. An old monk was one day lying asleep, and in his sleep he was commanded by St. Peter, who appeared visibly to him, to acquaint the king that it was his pleasure he should restore the monastery. “There is,” said the apostle, “a place of mine in the west part of London which I choose and love. The name of the place is Thorney.... There let the king by my command make a dwelling of monks, stately build and amply endow; it shall be no less than the House of God, and the Gates of Heaven.” When he woke up, the old monk went to the king and told him his vision. Upon hearing it Edward journeyed to “the west part of London;” there he found Thorney Isle, and there he built the monastery and church, which he called after the apostle.
And now at last we have finished all the explanations. In the first chapter I told you how the Abbey came to be built, and in this one I have shown you how to find your way about it. In the next I shall begin telling you the stories, the first being about Lord Shaftesbury, whose monument is in the nave, where you see No. 1 on the plan.
CHAPTER III.
Very likely you have never even heard the name of Lord Shaftesbury; but as you will be sure to read and hear of him by-and-by, I will tell you a little about what he did, and why a monument was put up in his memory. He was born in 1801, and died in 1885, and so was an old man of eighty-four when he died. He spent all his long life in trying to make other people—especially the poorest and most miserable he could find—more happy and more comfortable. He was a great nobleman, and very rich, and he gave most of his time to finding out the cause of the suffering of the poorest people in England, and, when he had found it out, he helped to make laws to improve things for them, and, if money was wanted, he gave that too. But he gave away his money wisely and well; he never was taken in by idle people and beggars who would not work for themselves; his motto seems to have been to “help those who help themselves,” and one name by which he was known was “The Working Man’s Friend.” But especially may he be remembered by all children for what he did for children. More than fifty years ago, when first machines (spinning machines and weaving machines) were invented in the great cotton factories in England, it was found that children could work them just as well as men and women; and as children would not have to be paid so much as men, the masters of the mills began to employ them. Quite tiny children, sometimes not more than five years old, and so small that they often had to be lifted up on stools to reach their work, were made to toil in the mills and factories all day, and sometimes all night too. They were treated like little slaves. If they did not work fast enough, they were beaten and kicked by their masters; and they spent all their days in hot rooms, hearing nothing but the whirring of the machines, and stopping their work only for about half an hour in the middle of the day for their dinner, which was generally only black bread and porridge, and sometimes a little bacon. They had no time for play, and they had no time to rest, except on Sundays, and then they were too tired to move from the berths (or shelves) where they slept, for they did not even have proper beds.
Then, again, there were the children who worked in coal-mines, who spent all their days in damp, dark mines, who never saw the sun, and who had to draw the trucks filled with coal, or carry great baskets full of it on their backs. And all this they began to do before they were six years old.
When Lord Shaftesbury saw these things—for he went into the mills and the factories, and he went down into the mines—he made up his mind that something must be done for such children. So he made speeches in Parliament, in which he told of the cruelty with which thousands of English children were treated; and at last laws were made by which it was forbidden to let such little children work in mines and factories at all, and by which older children were given shorter hours to work and more time for rest and fresh air. All this and much more Lord Shaftesbury did during his long life, and when at last he died, this monument was put up in Westminster Abbey with these words on it, so that people who had never known him might be always reminded of the way he spent his life:—
LORD SHAFTESBURY,
BORN 1801; DIED 1885.
ENDEARED TO HIS COUNTRYMEN BY A LONG
LIFE SPENT IN THE CAUSE OF THE
HELPLESS AND SUFFERING.
“LOVE—SERVE.”
Close to Lord Shaftesbury, there is a monument to a great soldier, General Gordon,[5] who was killed in Egypt in 1885—the same year that Lord Shaftesbury died. He fought in the Crimean War and in China, and was often called “Chinese Gordon.” All the soldiers who served under him were so fond and proud of him that they would have done anything for him. He was very brave, and it was well known that he would always be in the front rank to lead his men when there was a battle, and this, more than anything else, made him popular. He himself never was armed except with a little cane, which his soldiers called “the wand of victory.” Once when he was wounded his men wanted to carry him out of the battle, but he would not allow it, and went on leading them till he fainted from pain and weakness.
Lord Shaftesbury, the great statesman, died in England, with all his many friends near him, and General Gordon, the great soldier, was killed by savages while he was shut up in Khartoum, a town in Africa, where he was besieged; but their two monuments are close together in Westminster Abbey, and they were alike in one thing—they both did all they could to help other people. Of course, Gordon had not time to do so much as Lord Shaftesbury,[6] but when he was not fighting he lived in England, and then “his house,” said a gentleman who knew him,[7] “was school and hospital and almshouse in turn. The poor, the sick, and the unfortunate were all welcome. He always took a great delight in children, but especially in boys employed on the river or the sea. Many he rescued from the gutter, cleansed them and clothed them, and kept them for weeks in his house. For their benefit he established reading classes. He called them his kings, and for many of them he got berths on board ship. One day a friend asked him why there were so many pins stuck into the map of the world over his mantelpiece. He was told they marked and followed the course of the boys on their voyages; that they were moved from point to point as his youngsters advanced, and that he prayed for them as they went night and day. The light in which he was held by those lads was shown by inscriptions in chalk on the fences. A favourite one was ‘God bless the Kernel,’” which was their way of spelling “colonel,” for he was at that time Colonel Gordon.