PAUL'S CROSS.
(For the Mirror.)
"——Friers and faytours have fonden such questions
To plese with the proud men, sith the pestilence time,[4]
And preachen at St. Paul's, for pure envi fo clarkes,
That praiers have no powre the pestilence to lette."
Piers Plowman's Visions.
The early celebrity of Paul's Cross, as the greatest seat of pulpit eloquence, is evinced in the lines above quoted, which give us to understand that the most subtle and abstract questions in theology were handled here by the Friars, in opposition to the secular clergy, almost at the first settlement of that popular order of preachers in England.
Of the custom of preaching at crosses it is difficult to trace the origin; it was doubtless far more remote than the period alluded to, and Pennant thinks, at first accidental. The sanctity of this species of pillar, he observes, often caused a considerable resort of people to pay their devotion to the great object of their erection. A preacher, seeing a large concourse might be seized by a sudden impulse, ascend the steps, and deliver out his pious advice from a station so fit to inspire attention, and so conveniently formed for the purpose. The example might be followed till the practice became established by custom.