Jtonu SUnmorfcefc iDeans of SHimborne 



By the Rev. Canon J. M. J. FLETCHER, M.A., R.D. 



(Read llth December, 1917.) 



1HOSE of us whose privilege it has been to spend 

 some time in " the Eternal City " will have 

 noticed that the Egyptian Obelisks, which once 

 graced the entrance of heathen temples, now 

 that they are transplanted in Rome, are 

 surmounted by the Cross, the symbol of our 

 Christian faith. 1 The Pantheon, too, striking in 

 its rooflessness, where, in Rome's heathen days, 

 the hosts of heaven were worshipped, has been transformed 

 into a Christian Church. Similarly, it was by no means 

 an uncommon practice, in olden days, when a nation embraced 

 Christianity, to convert the sites of its former heathen super- 

 stition into places of Christian worship. 2 An instance of 



1. These huge four -sided monoliths, quarried from the red granite 

 of Syene, originally stood in pairs at the entrances of the temples . They 

 were, in a sense, reproduced in the brazen pillars, Boaz and Jachin, 

 which were erected in the porch of Solomon's Temple ; and, in all 

 probability, suggested the twin towers which stand at the west end of 

 many of our Gothic Cathedrals. 



2. Cf. Gregory's Letter to Mellitus. Bede'e Ecclesiastical History, 

 Book I., Chapter 30. 



