Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/444

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for even "the proud and mighty" to ensure their last resting-place from oblivion or desecration. But better this surely than the fate of certain great Egyptian kings, lordly despots in their day, whose mummified bodies have been exposed to the vulgar gaze, and knocked down at auction in London to the highest bidder! But what matters it? it will all be the same in a million years hence more or less—when this planet with others "may roll round the sun with the dust of a vanished race!" Here in the moat we were told was found a very curious object in decorative earthenware, which proved to be a chrismatory, presumed to have belonged to the oratory; the vessel is provided with two wells for the oil and salt as used in the Roman Catholic Baptismal rite, so our learned guide informed us. This ancient and very curious chrismatory is now carefully preserved in Langton church by Horncastle, and, with permission of the rector, may be seen there by the curious.