There is another argument--or an illustration--in favor of the antiquity of some church, rude or not, upon this place. I advance it as an illustration, though to myself it appears to be an argument: I mean the long list of relics possessed by the Abbey at the Dedication of the year 1065. We are not concerned with the question whether the relics were genuine or not, but merely with the fact that they were preserved by the monks as having been the gifts of various benefactors--Sebert, Offa, Athelstan, Edgar, Ethelred, Cnut, Queen Emma, and Edward himself. A church of small importance and of recent building would not dare to parade such pretensions. It takes time even for forgeries to gain credence and for legends to grow. The relics ascribed to Sebert and Offa could easily have been carried away on occasion [Illustration: TOMB OF KING SEBERT, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] of attack. As for the nature of these sacred fragments, it is pleasant to read of sand and earth brought from Mounts Sinai and Olivet, of the beam which supported the holy manger, of a piece of the holy manger, of frankincense presented by the Magi, of the seat on which our Lord was presented at the Temple, of portions of the holy cross presented by four kings at different times, of bones and vestments belonging to apostles and martyrs and the Virgin Mary and saints without number, whose very names are now forgotten. In the cathedral of Aix you may see just such a collection as that which the monks of St. Peter displayed before the reverent eyes of the Confessor. We may remember that in the ninth and tenth centuries the rage for pilgrimizing extended over the whole of Western Europe: pilgrims crowded every road; they marched in armies, and they returned laden with treasures--water from the Jordan, sand from Sinai, clods of earth from Gethsemane, and bones and bits of sacred wood without number. When Peter the Hermit arose to preach it was but putting a match to a pile ready to be fired. But for such a list as that preserved by history, there was need of time as well as credulity. Then the same thing happened to the Saxon church which had been done by Saxon arms to the British church. It was destroyed, or at least plundered, by the Danes. The priests, who perhaps took refuge in London, saved their relics. After a hundred years of fighting, the Dane, too, came into the Christian fold. As soon as circumstances permitted, King Edgar, stimulated by Dunstan, rebuilt or restored the church, and brought twelve monks from Glastonbury. He also erected the monastic buildings after the Benedictine Rule; and, as Stanley has pointed out, since in the monastery the church or chapel is built for the monks, the monastic buildings would be finished before the church. [Illustration: THE FUNERAL PROCESSION OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR]