Try to forget for a few moments that pile of splendid and richly decorated buildings, majestic and dignified in its beauty, which to-day stands out so clearly against the grey of London skies as if conscious of its right to be regarded as the most wondrous treasure belonging to London City, and come back with me a journey of many hundred years, to make the acquaintance of the Abbey as it appeared to the boys and girls who lived under Saxon and Danish, English and Norman, Plantagenet and Tudor kings. For only so will you come to understand how the history of the Abbey has been interwoven with the history of England; how, in days gone by, kings and nobles, commons and people gathered beneath its shadow, making it not only the centre of the nation’s life and activity, but also the starting-point from which set out every English sovereign called to the throne, the resting-place to which so many of them were borne back, when they had received their summons to the high court of the Great King. Then you will feel something more than a sense of wonder as your eyes rest on its beauties. It will speak to you in a language of its own, as it tells you of that past which you must learn to know aright if you are to play your part nobly in present or in future days. It will open your ears so that you will catch echoes of the melodies which float down the ages. It will bring to your heart a thrill of reverence and a thrill of pride, as you realise that this treasure-house of memories is a national inheritance in which you have a share. It will make you familiar with that company of men and women who, by reason of their goodness or their greatness, or their many gifts, so won the respect of their fellows, that in death they were deemed worthy to lie within walls "paved with princes and a royal race." And it will teach you, as no book can teach you, the story of the land we love, the land which all the great men of history—kings, soldiers, statesmen, poets, workers, and thinkers have helped to build up, that it might be ours to inherit and then to pass on to coming generations in unsullied greatness.