Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/117

 This record further states that he preached at Whalley, and, as a consequence of his ministry, a parish church was erected, which was dedicated to All Saints, and denominated the "White Church under the Leigh." It was then, also, that the three tall crosses were formed and erected at Whalley in honour of Augustine's mission; and that "after seven centuries these continued to be called the crosses of Augustine." After quoting the Status, Dr Whitaker very justly requires his readers to suspend their assent to "this ancient ecclesiastical story," since the "account is merely abstracted from a monkish manuscript of the fourteenth century." In his opinion there is no evidence whatever, nor even a probability, that St Augustine ever visited Whalley; whilst there is much to show that Paulinus is really the person intended. We know, from the authority of the venerable Bede, that Paulinus, under the auspices of Edwin of Northumbria, his illustrious convert, passed through Deira and Bernicia, preaching the gospel to the inhabitants, and baptizing great numbers of them in the rivers which intersect these provinces. His presence at Dewsbury was attested by an inscription on one of these stately and beautiful Saxon crosses. There is another of these relics at Burnley; and tradition "assigns with one voice" that the three crosses now standing in the churchyard at Whalley were erected to commemorate the same events. The writer of the Status, or some transcriber, must therefore have transferred the labours of Paulinus to Augustine, and thus in some degree has done injustice to the zealous missionary. The "obeliscal form and ornaments of fretwork," which distinguish these crosses, are characteristic of the state of art among the Saxons, Norwegians, and Danes; and the period of their erection