" Yet in my
heart I heard again those tremendous words, "Were all the swords of
England hanging over my head you could not terrify me from my obedience
to God and my Lord the Pope." They who slew him fled away, and their
title, shouted in the winter darkness that filled the church, was heard
above the thunder and has echoed down the ages since: Reaux! Reaux!
King's men! King's men! Is it not they who now sit in Becket's place?
But to-day I am content with a judgment less bitter and less logical.
Who may know what is in the heart of God? Perhaps after all, after this
age of ice, Canterbury will rise again and my little son even may hear
them singing in the streets, gay once more and alive with endless
processions that noble old song:
Laureata novo Thoma,
Sicut suo Petro Roma,
Gaude Cantuaria!
[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRISTCHURCH GATE]
For though St Thomas be forgot in Canterbury, he is on high and
valiant, and one day maybe he will return from exile as before, to
accomplish wonderful things.
And indeed dead as she is and silent, Canterbury is worthy of
resurrection if only because she is as it were a part of him and a
part, too, of our origins, the well, though not the source from which
the Faith was given us.
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