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



we learn that the Cross was from three to four centuries old 

 when the Xorman first set foot in Britain ; that it is in fact more 

 than 1200 years since this splendid and costly monument of 

 early Christian art first passed from the hands of the great, but 

 unknown, artist who designed and executed its simple but eloquent 

 sculptures of Scripture scenes and its beautiful vine-tracery, and 

 who carved upon its sides some of the finest stanzas of 

 Caedmon's "Lay of the Holy Rood." 



A Preaching Cross. 



At the time when the Cross was first set up — towards the 

 end of the seventh century — there were few, if any, stone build- 

 ings in the country, either north or south of the Tweed. We do 

 know of one, but one only, the primitive little church or cell 

 which St. Ninian had built at Whithorn in the year 402, and 

 which was called, from the colour of its walls, the " Candida 

 Casa," or White Kirk. Almost two centuries later, in the year 

 597, the memorable year in which St. Columba completed his 

 great work in lona, and St. Augustine commenced his work at 

 Canterbury, the Abbey in which Columba died, on his beloved 

 lona, was neither more nor less than " a humble kirk of clay and 

 wattles " (styled in our neighbourhood a " clay-dabbin' "), which 

 had been reared by his own monks thirty years before. We are 

 farther told by the venerable Bede that Colman, the great 

 Northumbrian Bishop, " built a church in the Isle of Lindisfarne 

 about the year 650 ; but after the manner of the Scots he made it 

 not of stone but of hewn oak, and covered it with reeds." Even 

 the little oratory which first stood on the site of what is now the 

 great Minster of York was " built of timber " as late as the year 

 630. We may take it as certain, therefore, that in such a remote 

 and thinly-peopled district as our own must have been twelve 

 centuries since, there was to be found no semblance of a per- 

 manent church. The Cross itself would, we doubt not, for 

 centuries mark the consecrated spot on which service was to be 

 held, and at which the celebration of the Sacraments would take 

 place. The tall and noble shaft, crowned wiih its Celtic wheel 

 or its Roman Cross head, was really a "preaching cross " — the 

 church, unenclosed and roofless, but none the less sacred on that 

 account. It marked also the hallowed spot in which, even then, 



