Of Dartmoor and its Borderlarid, 5 g^reatest care. Not only did the wayside and village cross suffer at a time when men's mistaken zeal caused them to commit acts of destruction in and around our churches, but in quite recent years they have received, in too many instances, but little consideration. In the one case the guiding influence 'was bigotry ; in the other, ignorance or apathy. The latter, it is pleasing to know, are being removed ; the former we can pity, without being so uncharitable as to blame. There is, in truth, no room for blame. The men who cast out the graven images from the churches, and overturned and shattered the sculptured stones by the wayside and on the village green, warred not against the cross, but against idolatry. Apart from the interest attaching to the cross as a symbol of Christianity, it has other claims on our attention. No object in our island belonging to historic times is older. It existed before the earliest churches, for without doubt the latter came to the cross — the cross did not come to them. Where it was reared, people gathered for worship, and be- lievers had before their eyes that which would cause them to remember the great work accomplished for mankind, as in days remote the stones set up in the sacred river reminded the Israelites of their deliverance from bondage. There is a tradition connected with the church and cross at North Lew, a parish to the north of Dartmoor, which tells us that the latter was anciently a preaching station of the monks of Tavistock. After a time a church was commenced to be built. First one aisle, then a second and a third, and so the structure was gradually completed. But the cross, though no longer needed for its original purpose when each parish had its church, remained still an object of veneration, while within the sacred building its place was supplied by the great rood. And as it had been during long years the one point to which the little community were drawn for worship, so it came to be looked upon as the common centre of the village, and from it tidings were pro- claimed in which the people were interested, and much took place around it that affected the common weal. An object that could turn the thoughts to an event of such importance as the great sacrifice once ofiered for mankind, was peculiarly fitted for setting up in such places as the wayfarer might pass, for it became a guide to him in a double sense.
