167 



that could be devised for people too poor to build a church, and 

 worshipping in the open air. And let me add one word more. Not 

 only was this word Church made in this island ; but it reflects in 

 a remarkable manner the condition and circumstances of our 

 people in the first age of our national Christianity. Before this 

 time there never had been in Christendom but one word of 

 general acceptance to express the idea which that word expresses. 

 We, the English nation, made a second. To the old word 

 "Ecclesia" we added an equivalent, a new word, Church. And 

 we not only used this word ourselves, but we propagated it. We 

 carried it across seas to our kindred who were still heathen, and 

 we converted them and brought them into the Church. And 

 this is the true explanation why the German and the Scan- 

 dinavian nations use the same word as we do, and speak not 

 of the Ecclessia but of the Church. 



We stand in Christendom on a pinnacle in this respect, that 

 when Christianity seemed to have grown old, to be worn out, 

 when no extension had taken place for generations in the area 

 of Christendom, then it was that our people embraced Christi- 

 anity, and embraced it with such ardour and passion as caused 

 them to become in the second generation missionaries, to convert 

 the people in the old Mother Country, and to found Churches 

 calling them naturally by the new name which reflected the 

 circumstances of their own conversion, and the manner of their 

 earliest Christian ceremonial. 



Letters Ulusirating the Battles of Claverton and Lansdown. By 

 H. D. Skrine, M.A. 



(Bead January 11th, 1887.) 



Some years ago I read a Paper to this Club giving an account 



of the Skirmish at Claverton during the Civil War. My main 



object was to elicit information on the subject, as the only 



historical records which I had then the opportunity of consulting 



