Page 76 - BV18

76 The House of Israel

The village church is dedicated to St. Alkelda, and while small Parish Church, two such powerful connections
legend describes her as a Saxon Christian, strangled for with our Identity. Who knows what else may lie, as yet
her faith by the Danes, the name in old English would have undiscovered, in other churches across this green and
been “Haeligkeld,” a reference to the local well, which pleasant land of ours.
ebbs and flows.
-- John F. Battersby
There is much to interest the visitor, including two drums
and a base fiddle, which were used in the days before the A Dominion That Stretches “from
church had an organ. However, attention will be focused Sea To Sea”
first on the pulpit and the reading desk alongside it. The
latter was once the base of the pulpit, making it three stor-
Just as Canaan was the ancient name for Western Pal-
eys high, the top section being a canopy or sounding board
estine, the land promised to Israel in the early days, so
to amplify the preacher’s voice.
Canada is the modern name for the western part of that
“nation and company of nations” promised to Israel in
Looking at the panels of the pulpit it-
the latter days (Genesis 17:4-6).
self one will see there the carved em-
Here indeed, is a land of great
blems of the twelve tribes of Israel,
promise, for with an area of
while on the front of the desk are in-
3,694,900 square miles, Canada
scribed words which, when translated
occupies one-quarter of the total
into modern English, read: “Here are
area of the Commonwealth of Na-
the standards of the Israelites when
tions, of which it is by far the larg-
they came out against the
est single geographical and
Canaanites.”
political unit.
The pulpit is Jacobean, dating from
Canada, the senior Dominion, has
1680, and on the back panel are the
become one of the most important
initials (G.W.) of George Winship,
commercial centres of the world
who was the vicar at the time, and
and a list of her vast exports in-
surely an early Christian Israelite.
cludes virtually every product
known to man. In addition to be-
There is something even more signifi-
ing the “granary of the world,” Canada is now one of
cant to be seen on the north wall of the church, almost op-
the principal producers of paper, wood, furs, fish and
posite the entrance doors. Here the visitor will find a large
all types of minerals, and her great industrial plants add
painted wooden panel in the form of a square of about six
every type of manufactured article to the formidable
foot wide, surmounted by a slightly smaller triangle. On
list of her exports.
this panel is the Royal Coat of Arms, dating back to 1716,
and incorporating the White Horse of Hanover, thus show-
Canada’s virile population has grown to over
ing the loyalty to George I after the Jacobite rebellions of
31,000,000 and is basically of Celto-Saxon stock
1715. And, behold, round three sides of the triangle above
drawn from Great Britain, France and many other Eu-
are displayed again the twelve emblems of the tribes of Is-
ropean countries. Nearly a quarter of her people still
rael, thus linking them with the Royal House of Britain!
speak the language of their hardy forefathers who
came from Brittany and other French provinces to set-
In incorporating these on the same panel the artist was
tle in Canada in the eighteenth century.
surely demonstrating the awareness, in those days, of the
origins of our people. It must indeed be rare to find in a

The Berean Voice November-December 2002