From this beginning, St. Davids justly claims to be the oldest Cathe-Gral in the British Isles. St. David's Church was built about the year 550, or 40 years before Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine to convert England. When it was built, it is probable that the only other Christian Church in Britain was a little daub and wattle chapel, built by a British or Welsh anchorite at Glastonbury. The present Cathedral is the fourth on the site. The primitive one, St. Davids, was destroyed in 645, another in 1088, and there was an earlier Norman building before the erection of the present one, a building of great architectural interest and beauty, as befits the oldest Diocesan See in the British Isles. Tradition tells us that in due course when he was raised to the opate, David journeyed to Jerusalem;—a notable journey in the 6th century—to receive consecration at the hands of the Patriarch John IL the successor of the first Bishop of Jerusalem, St, James. And the portable stone Altar, now 5 Thomas's Chapel in the Cathedr is said to be one he brought back s a gift from the Patriarch. St David is reputed to have been a great theologian, and is particularly Temembered for his refutation of the Pelagian heresy. which troubled the Church, not only in Britain where it was born, but throughout ihe world. The heresy. named after the British monk who promulgated it, denies the doctrine of Original Sin, and limits the working of the Grace of God. It is the subject of our nineth article. Tradition tell us that aў ap important council at Brevi, before a great concourse of people, David eloquently, and convincingly, refuted the heresy. A Church stands on the site, a hill which is supposed to have been miraculously raised beneath his feet on this occasion. David is supposed to have died on the first day of March in the year 588, hence St. David's Day. He was canonized the year 1126 by Pope Calixtus One does not like to admit it, but spiritual revival does not seem to team with an established Church.
Often the spiritual awakening comes, but as the returning tide of a flood that has overpassed the bounds set Church formulas and established practise, So Wesleyianism passed outside the Church of England, and while we trace a revival in the Church to him and his associates, one wishes that the whole force might have remained within the plished Church. And the Welsh vival of the middle of the 18th century was in like manner, largely outside the Church which looks to St. David as its founder and primate, in a long and unbroken line of Archbishops and Bishops.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.