Page:Pleasures of England (1888).djvu/46

 of the great abbey of St. Augustine, where Christian learning and civilization first struck root in the Anglo-Saxon race; and within which now, after a lapse of many centuries, a new institution has arisen, intended to carry far and wide, to countries of which Gregory and Augustine never heard, the blessings which they gave to us. Carry your view on—and there rises high above all the magnificent pile of our cathedral, equal in splendour and state to any, the noblest temple or church that Augustine could have seen in ancient Rome, rising on the very ground which derives its consecration from him. And still more than the grandeur of the outward buildings that rose from the little church of Augustine and the little palace of Ethelbert have been the institutions of all kinds of which these were the earliest cradle. From Canterbury, the first English Christian city,—from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom—has by degrees arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England which now binds together the whole British Empire. And from the Christianity here established in England has flowed, by direct consequence, first the Christianity of Germany; then, after a long interval, of North America; and lastly, we may trust, in time, of all India and all Australasia. The view from St. Martin's Church is indeed one of the most inspiriting that can be found in the world; there is none to which I would more willingly take any one who doubted whether a small