[Illustration: THE READING CROSS, ST. PAUL'S, LONDON.] Amongst the incidents of a secular character which centred in this time-honoured erection, we find a pleasing illustration of the friendly relations which subsisted between the King and his subjects in bygone days; for it seems to have been customary for the monarch, before going abroad, to come down to S. Paul's Cross, and there to bid them farewell. So came, at any rate, Henry III., both in 1257 and in 1261, before passing into France. The gatherings round the spot were not always of so friendly a nature. Under Queen Mary, religious feeling ran so high as to lead to serious disturbances. Dr. Bourne, chaplain to Bonner, was interrupted by shouting and uproar for attacking Ridley in a sermon on August 13th, 1553, and a dagger was flung at him, which stuck into a post of the Cross. On the following Sunday, about one hundred and twenty halberdiers were present, and peace was preserved; but in June of the next year, Dr. Pendleton was fired on whilst preaching and nearly struck by a pellet "of tyne." No other preaching cross attained to the name and fame of that of S. Paul's, yet they were not uncommon in the country. In the Green Yard at Norwich was one of wood, with leaded roof and a cross of the same metal; Worcester also had one. Remains of a preaching cross may be seen near the church in Iron Acton, in Gloucestershire, a graceful structure originally, now lamentably mutilated; and at Disley, in the same county, is another, also in ruins. A still better example is the Blackfriars' preaching cross at Hereford, a hexagonal enclosure with open arches, above which is the stump of what was once the sacred emblem. The Puritans, although such advocates of preaching, evidently had a strong prejudice against these open-air pulpits. That at Iron Acton bears to this day marks of the violence used in the attempt to destroy it, and most of our English preaching crosses have, like our most famous example, wholly disappeared. In this last half century, the English people have woke up once more in a wonderful way to an appreciation of life in the open air. Never were outdoor sports and games so generally followed; and "garden-parties" and "garden-meetings" are amongst our most modern inventions. Parks and pleasure-grounds are now demanded almost as a public right; and no "exhibition" can look for success that does not provide ample accommodation for its patrons to listen to music under the open skies. In the face of all these signs of the times, is it too much to hope that the Church may be touched with the same feeling--surely a healthy and a desirable one; and that we may yet see on summer's evenings the congregations choosing to sit or stand about the preaching cross in the churchyard, rather than sit, involuntarily listless, at the best with difficulty attentive, in the heat of a crowded, and often ill-ventilated church? CHAPTER VI. Memorial Crosses.