112 The Ruthwell Cross and the Story it has to Tell. 



Rome was, even thus early, making to expel the Church of lona 

 and its saintly bishops from Northumhria, and to establish her 

 undisputed supremacy over the whole realm of England. It was, 

 we believe, the work of the Scottish and not of the Roman 

 Church, and was, during the first centuries of its existence, a 

 standing protest against Roman usurpation. So eminent an 

 archceologist as the Bishop of Bristol lends the weight of his 

 authority to this theory when he makes the bold and generous 

 assertion that " the insular and isolated Scotic Church, before it 

 was driven back by Wilfrid's influence to its own home, in the 

 Western Isles, had won to Christianity by far the largest part of 

 the land of England. The land of England must never cease to 

 be grateful to its memory." It was, we venture to affirm, just 

 when Colman, Bishop of Tindisfarne (who, like his predecessor, 

 Aidan, had been sent forth from lona), was compelled to 

 relinquish as hopeless the task of holding his own against 

 Wilfrid and the other Roman bishops, after the epoch- 

 making decision of the Synod of Whitby in 664, that he and his 

 fellow presbyters, on their journey homewards, raised the Ruth- 

 well Cross and probably other similar "preaching crosses" 

 which were designed to mark the consecrated spots on which the 

 worship of God was to be conducted in its primitive simplicity 

 and purity for many centuries to come. 



Dr Duncan's Valuable Work. 



The next date in the chequered history of the Cross to 

 which our attention must be directed is the year 1823. In this 

 year, Dr Henry Duncan, the minister of the parish, collected all 

 the broken fragments of the original cross which he had been 

 able to find, pieced them together with great skill and ingenuity, 

 added a new cross beam, and re-erected the pillar in the Manse 

 garden. In his handling of the ancient monument, from first to 

 last, Dr Duncan gave abundant evidence of his full appreciation 

 of its value as a precious relic of the earliest and most 

 devout Christian art in these islands. In one respect only 

 can the slightest exception be taken to his action in the 

 matter. To me at least it has always seemed that the addi- 

 tion of the new cross beam was a mistake. It had been much 

 better left as a tall and shapely pillar as the Bewcastle one is 

 to-day. A period of 180 years had now elapsed since an over- 



