It is interesting to remember that the great Cathedral Church of Paris, Notre Dame, is also built on an island,—a little island in the river Seine. In those days, when there were so few roads, it was a great matter to be near a big river, where boats and ships could go up and down, and so we find that most important cities, like Rome, Paris, Vienna, and London, are built on the banks of rivers. The island on which the Abbey stands was called “Thorney Isle” in those old days, and it is described in a charter of King Offa as “the terrible place,” probably because of its wild forests and fierce beasts. The little streams which once separated Thorney Isle from the mainland still run underground, but in those early days the island was also surrounded by a great marsh, which stretched out to Chelsea on the north bank of the Thames, and to Lambeth and Battersea on the south bank. The early stories of the foundation and building of the church on Thorney Isle have been handed down from far-off times, and although they cannot all be proved to be quite true, we may be sure that there is a great deal of truth deep down in them, as there is in most of the tales that people have loved and told to their children through all the ages. To begin with the oldest story of all. We are told that in the second century after Christ, while the Romans were still in Britain, a certain Lucius, a British King, became a Christian. His people also became Christian, and Lucius built a church at Thorney, where a temple of Apollo had once stood. Lucius is also said to have built a church where St. Paul’s now stands, on the site of a temple of Diana. Another very interesting story is that of the rebuilding of the church at Thorney in the Saxon times. The Venerable Bede tells us that Sebert, King of the East Saxons, and nephew of Ethelbert, King of Kent, was converted to Christianity by St. Augustine in A.D. 603 or 604. The Norman monks said that this King Sebert built a church and founded a monastery at Thorney Isle, and a very beautiful story is told about the consecration of this church of King Sebert’s.