There, too, is an
Elizabethan chalice and paten of the sixteenth century.
Thus nothing at all remains at Selsey, not even the landscape as it was
in St Wilfrid's day. Till yesterday, however, one might realise in the
loneliness and desolation of this low, lean headland something of that
far-off time in which the great bishop came here and had to teach that
barbarous folk even to fish. Now even that is going, or gone, for the
new light railway from Chichester is bringing a new life to Selsey,
which, after all, it would ill become us to grudge her.
By that railway indeed I returned to Chichester, and then at once set
out westward for Bosham, where I slept. Bosham is perhaps the most
interesting place in all this peninsula as well as probably the most
ancient. That Bosham was a port of the Romans seems likely, but that it
was the earliest seat of Christianity in Sussex after the advent of the
pagans is certain. There, as Bede tells us, St Wilfrid, when he came
into Sussex in 681, found a Scottish (most probably Irish) monk named
Dicul, who had, in a little monastery encompassed by the sea and the
woods, five or six brethren who served God in poverty and humility.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313