almost as they were first designed and made. Side by side stand “Ye Olde Pilgrim’s Inne” and the Tribunal, or Court House, built by Abbot Beere, for the trial of petty offenders against the law. Unexplored dungeons are reported to exist underground, together with subterranean passages communicating with the Abbey from the “Inne” and the Tribunal. In the neighbourhood is a conspicuous building once used for collecting the tithes, called the Abbey Barn, dating from 1420, in some respects the best preserved of all the ancient memorials. But the pride and glory of Glastonbury centre in the wondrously beautiful remains of the oldest, richest, and stateliest of English Abbeys--an Abbey whose reputed founder was Joseph of Arimathæa, that Joseph who had seen the face and heard the voice of the Saviour of mankind. It was the only church of first rank in England standing as a monument of British days which escaped the scath and wreck which followed the storm of Norman conquest. [Illustration: THE OLDE PILGRIM’S INN, GLASTONBURY [_To face p. 222_] To what dim epoch the earliest history of Glastonbury belongs is more or less conjectural, though the discovery of some sixty low mounds by archæologists led to the discovery that a prehistoric lake-village in remote times occupied the site. Excavations revealed the remains of human habitations and of successive occupation by the same race--a race which hunted the boar, the roebuck, and the deer, and whose sole accomplishment was the making of coarse, rude pottery. But this people has passed away and not even a tradition of its existence is extant. It was at a much later period, though, looking backward, the time seems far distant, that the first legend of Glastonbury took root and flowered. So pure, fragrant, and beautiful is that treasured blossom that it would seem ruthless to attempt to pluck it by the roots from the ground, and to cast it aside as a worthless weed of ignorance and superstition. It brings to us the memory of that time when the Son of Man was on earth; it is a seed blown from that land which His presence sanctified. Nearly two thousand years ago the crucified Nazarene was watched by agonised crowds upon Calvary. Joseph of Arimathæa, “a good man and a just,” begged the dead body from Pilate and buried it in his own garden, thereby incurring the fierce resentment of the Jews. He fled from Palestine, fearing for his life, and so enraged were his enemies at his escape that they expelled his friends also--Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and Philip among others--putting them out to sea without oars or sail. “After tossing about many days,” says one writer, “they were driven in God’s providence to Marseilles, and from Marseilles St. Joseph came to Britain, where he died at a good old age, after having preached the Gospel of Christ with power and earnestness for many years.” This was about A.D. 63. “The happy news of the Saviour’s resurrection, and the offer of the only assured means of