Alban

“ Alban ate his dinner without uttering a single remark.
And last night it had been supper in the caves! There must be no charge of inconsistency brought against him if a momentary shudder marked this recollection of an experience. A man may bridge a great gulf in a single instant of time. Alban had no less affection for, no less interest to-night in those pitiful lives than yesterday, but he understood that a flood of fortune had carried him for the time being away from them, and that his desire must be to help but not to regret them. ”

“ Alban, a Tale of the New World, is a novel combining an unctuous melange of sensual description and religious discussion, by an enthusiastic neophyte of the Roman Catholic Church. It has some lively pictures of modern Puritanic character in New-England villages, which are a grateful relief to its pervading tone of speculative voluptuousness. ”

“ Let a man find employment upon the deck of one of those splendid ships and henceforth the whole world would be open to him. Alban debated this as a possible career, and as he thought of it the spell of the craving for new sights and scenes afar mastered him to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Who was to forbid him; who had the right to stand between him and his world hunger so irresistibly? When a voice within whispered a girl's name in his ear, he could have laughed aloud for very derision. ”

“ Alban's honour, and from generation to generation vast building operations had been going on almost without interruption, and the old Abbey still held up its head proudly, its Abbot taking precedence of every other in the land; any man might be excused for thinking that to become a monk of St. Alban's Abbey was to become a personage of no small consideration. ”

“ Alban saw little lads of ten and twelve years of age carried bleeding from the streets—he beheld gentle women cut and lashed until they fell dying upon the pavement—he heard the death-cry from many a human throat. ”

“ Albanus refused, and the Roman judge ordered him first to be scourged and afterwards to be beheaded on a hill just outside the town. The legend runs that so eager was Alban for the honour of martyrdom that, the little bridge being too narrow to admit the crowds which flocked to the place of his execution, the waters of the Ver were parted at his entreaty, just as the waters of the Red Sea had been parted by the rod of Moses, and that the executioner, converted by the miracle, threw away his sword, and fell at Alban's feet, praying to he allowed to become a Christian and to die with him. ”

“ While he—there was light in his eye, there was a ring of victory in his voice, and no wonder that the executioner refused to perform his office, and died with Alban rather than see him die by his hand. I say, there must be something grand and noble in the faith which can give a man courage not only to meet death, but to welcome it, to court it, and to see beyond it, instead of darkness, light.”
“Yes,” said Claudius, “but remember, my good Casca, that thousands of Romans, tens of thousands of Greeks, aye, and of our own poor Britons also, have met death as bravely as this man Alban did. ”

“ Alban's, a peculiar character of writing which is not recognizable in any other religious house in England during that period; but which is traceable in some foreign manuscripts, and even in private deeds executed in England in the neighbourhood of St. Alban's during the 12th and 13th centuries. These facts lead me to the inference, that the schoolmaster who taught the art of writing to Matthew Paris and the other members and scholars of the establishment at St. Alban's was a foreigner ”

“ For life here without Him is darkness, and life there without Him is a dread void. What did stripes and persecution weigh in the balance, when the future exceeding glory and joy were on the other side! Then he went on to speak of Alban, and the soldier who died with him, rather than live without him, and to bid all those present to encourage each other in steadfastness and courage. ”

“ Alban answered him: ' Your sacrifices to the gods,
which ye offer to devils, cannot help you,
nor profit your cause, but ye shall receive as your meed
everlasting punishments in the wide-reaching hell,'
Lo! then the judge became fiendishly irate,
and commanded men to scourge the holy martyr,
weening that he might bend the steadfastness of his mind
to his (own) forms of worship by means of the stripes ”

“ Then asked the judge immediately, and said,
'Of what family art thou, or of what rank among men?'
Then Alban answered the wicked man thus:
'What concerneth it thee, of what family I may be?
but if thou desire to hear the truth, I tell thee quickly
that I am a Christian, and will ever worship Christ.'
The judge said to him: 'Tell me thy name,
without any delay, now that I thus ask.'
The champion of God said to the murderer thus,
'I am hight Albanus, and I believe in the Saviour,
who is the true God, and made all creatures ”

“ If it be experience, what becomes of the Poet? If the Poet be born, not made, is it not because he is born to sympathise with what he has never experienced?”
“I see! There are born Preachers!”
Darrell reseated himself, and began Alban’s letter. He was evidently moved by the Colonel’s account of Lionel’s grief, muttering to himself, “Poor boy!—but he is brave—he is young.” When he came to Alban’s forebodings on the effects of dejection upon the stamina of life, he pressed his hand quickly against his breast as if he had received a shock! ”

“ Alban knew nothing of Italy, he [80] had never set foot out of England in his life, but the peace and the beauty of the picture impressed him strangely, and he wondered that he had so often visited the Caves when such a fairyland stood open to his pleasure. Let it not be hidden that he would have been easily pleased this night. Youth responds quickly to excitements of whatever nature they may be. ”

“ Ethelbert of East Anglia had been treacherously murdered by his father-in-law, Offa, King of Mercia, who now sought to salve his conscience by building a monastery in honour of St Alban. Of this second church (the first was only a temporary shelter for the relics of the saint, which were supposed to have been miraculously discovered by King Offa) there are now but few traces. The town of St Albans lies on a high hill, while the Ver, a stream supposed to have burst forth miraculously to assuage the thirst of Alban the martyr, flows along the peaceful valley below. ”

“ Scarce any thing affords one a better proof of Mr. Alban's eminent spirit of piety and great understanding, discretion, and light in spiritual matters, than his familiarity and friendship with M. Jean Baptiste de Villérs, president of the seminary des Evéques in the university of Douay, who died October the 7th, 1746, the death of a saint, after having lived the life of one for seventy-eight years. ”

“ County Guy, you have not left school yet; leave it with credit; win the best prize.” And Alban plunged at once into THE CRISIS. He grew eloquent; the Party, the Country, the Great Measure to be intrusted to Darrell, if he would but undertake it as a member of the Cabinet; the Peerage, the House of Vipont, and immortal glory!—eloquent as Ulysses haranguing the son of Peleus in Troilus and Cressida. ”

“ The blessed Alban suffered death on the twenty-second day of June, near the city of Verulam,55 which is now by the English nation called Verlamacaestir, or Vaeclingacaestir, where afterwards, when peaceable Christian times were restored, a church of wonderful workmanship, and altogether worthy to commemorate his martyrdom, was erected.56 In which place the cure of sick persons and the frequent working of wonders cease not to this day. ”

“ Alban’s finishing school for young gentlewomen was a famous institution of its kind. For she had been born to the manner of courts and of people of high degree; and when evil fortune met her, she very wisely turned her inherited social advantages into a means of honest livelihood. Aspatria was much impressed by her noble bearing and fine manners, and by the elaborate state in which the twelve pupils, of whom she was one, lived.
Each had her own suite of apartments; each was expected to keep a maid, and to dress with the utmost care and propriety. ”

“ Alban's shrine.
33. In 1451 Abbot John of Wheathampstead, though over eighty years of age, was re-elected. Soon after his election he gave his church a "pair of organs," surpassing all others in England in size, tone, and workmanship.
In 1455 the Wars of the Roses began with the first battle of St. Albans (May 23rd) , fought to the east of the town. In this the White Rose party were victorious; the King was taken prisoner and lodged for the night in the Abbey. The victorious army plundered the town, but the Abbot by sending out plenty of wine and food saved his monastery. ”

“ The aforesaid clergyman having been some days entertained by him, it came to the ears of the wicked prince, that this holy confessor of Christ, whose time of martyrdom had not yet come, was concealed at Alban's house. Whereupon he sent some soldiers to make a strict search after him. When they came to the martyr's house, St. Alban immediately presented himself to the soldiers, instead of his guest and master, in the habit or long coat which he wore, and was led bound before the judge. ”

“ Alban’s Road, Kensington, one may still find the family name Oliff which, like Ayliffe and Iliffe, is the same as alif, aleph, or alpha, the letter “a” the first or the beginning.
Panku, the great giant of the universe, is entitled by the Chinese the first of Beings or the Beginning, and it is claimed by the Christian Church that St. Alban was the first of British martyrs. Eastward of Kensington Gardens is St. Alban’s Place and also Albany, generally, but incorrectly termed “The Albany”. ”

“ THE quiet little town of St Albans in Hertfordshire has sprung up on the site of the Roman city Verulamium, the ruined walls of which are still to be seen. Here, according to the legend, Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain, was born. Converted to Christianity by the priest Amphibalus—to whom he had given shelter—he refused to renounce his faith, and was beheaded. The martyrdom took place{162} outside the walls of the town, on the exact site on which now stands the cathedral—formerly the abbey—of St Albans. ”

“ Alban's, where he lived and worked unofficially for the rest of his life. In December 1887, being in weak health, he went on a visit to the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles at Ballachulish, and, going out for a walk over the hills, was found dead, 17 Dec. ”

“ Alban’s from 1088 to 1119, made a present to his monastery of a suit of hangings which contained the whole history of the primitive martyr of England, Alban.
Croyland Abbey possessed many hangings for the altars, embroidered with golden birds; and a garment, which seems to have been a peculiar, and considered a valuable one, being a black gown wrought with gold letters, to officiate in at funerals. The enigmatical letters which were worked on ecclesiastical vestments in those days, were various and peculiar, and have given abundant scope for antiquarian research. ”

“ Even in the time of Pliny, Albion, as the name of the island, had fallen out of use with Latin authors; but not so with the Greeks, or with the Celts themselves, at any rate those of the Goidelic branch; for they are probably right who suppose that we have but the same word in the Irish and Scotch Gælic Alba, genitive Alban, the kingdom of Alban or Scotland beyond the Forth. Albion would be a form of the name according to the Brythonic pronunciation of it. ... ”

“ The ground was therefore opened, and, in the presence of the king, the body of Alban was found. Offa is said to have placed a golden circle round the head of the St. Alban's body found after a lapse of 494 years; a golden circle placed round his head. deceased, with an inscription, to signify his name and title, and immediately caused the remains of the saint to be conveyed to a small chapel, without the walls of Verulam, as the town was then called, until a more noble edifice could be raised for its reception. ”

“ As a parallel to this cannibalism it is thus quite conceivable that while some of the MacAlpines were lauding Albani, others were larding their weaker brethren for the laird’s table: but the whole trend of Alban custom and Alban literature renders the supposition unlikely. There is extant a British Triad inculcating the three maxims for good health as “cheerfulness, temperance, and early rising”. There is another enunciating the three cares that should occupy the mind of every man as: “To worship God, to avoid injuring any one, and to act justly towards every living thing”. ”

“ Alban's is not only an old town, but an old-fashioned one; and it will be doing it no injustice to confess that, as towns now go, it does strike the visitor as somewhat behind the age. The straw plaiting, it is true, keeps the hands of its young women and its children busy ”

“ Alban's, and speedily gained a reputation for learning and holiness of life, which secured for him the confidence of Henry V and Henry VI. The former appointed him the first confessor of his new foundation of Brigetine nuns at Syon, established in 1414, and he filled the delicate and responsible office of confessor and spiritual counsellor to his son (Godwin, de Præsul.) ”

“ Perhaps the most we can say for the history of the Alban kings is that their names may well be genuine, and that some general features of the monarchy, together with a few events which happened to strike the popular imagination, may have survived in the memory of the people till they found their way into written history. ”

“ William accordingly ravaged the possessions of the monastery. After the Conquest, when William was accepted as King, Frithric administered to him the oath that he would keep inviolate all the laws of the realm, which former kings, especially Edward, had established. Needless to say, William soon began to disregard this oath, and despoiled the Abbey of St. Alban's more and more, till Frithric in despair resigned his office as Abbot and retired to Ely, where he soon died. The monks of Ely pretended that he took with him to their monastery the precious relics of St. Alban the Martyr. ”