Spirit of Britain: A Pilgrimage of Faith and Pride

Winifred M. O'Rourke was a writer and journalist in Saskatoon.

“A Pilgrimage of Faith and Pride,” subtitle of the book Spirit of Britain, aptly describes the way author Charles Wilkinson brings to the reader an important part of Britain’s heritage. That heritage is the Christian faith which with many ancient places of worship have endured for 15 centuries. In this book Wilkinson explains this heritage by taking the reader (or tourist) to view the many ancient cathedrals and parish churches which tell their own history. Some of the buildings are venerable ruins but many have survived and with restoration work will continue to be a source of interest to many tourists although the majority are still used for public worship.

Wilkinson served for a number of years both in Britain and Canada as a newspaper editor. He then changed direction and has been writing feature articles with a religious theme for some time (many have been published in the Hamilton Spectator). It is these essays, expanded, that are included in Spirit of Britain.

There are six parts to the book. In “Early Days” the author takes the reader first to the cradle of Christianity in Britain — Iona, a small island off the west coast of Scotland where St Columba landed in AD 563, and then to southeast England where St Augustine came in 597 AD to evangelize England. There were Christians from 200 AD in England, but many had scattered north and west as invaders advanced. The book’s second section deals with the stories associated with many cathedrals and abbeys noting especially the bombing of Coventry Cathedral in 1940 and its subsequent rebuilding — a new building completed in 1962.

The author goes on to refer to a number of “martyrs and rebels” who died for their beliefs in what probably would be referred to now as freedom of conscience or basic human rights. Continuing down the centuries, Wilkinson notes that Roman Catholics had to “wait three and a half centuries before they could worship in their own cathedral,” referring to the building of Westminster Cathedral in London which was consecrated in 1910. Mention is also made of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Norfolk, where pilgrimages began again about 50 years ago. The area had been a place of pilgrimage since the eleventh century until the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century.

Also included in this book are references to the homes of the eighteenth-century “reformers” — John and Charles Wesley, and Bunyan — and to the royal chapel at Sandringham and a church used by Queen Victoria. Wilkinson concludes the book by taking the reader to the Cotswolds and to the town of Malvern where, he writes, he first learned as a boy about the Christian faith.

There are three forewords to this book — by the publisher of the Hamilton Spectator, by Peter French-Hodges, British Tourist Authority, London (U.K.), and by Dr. John H. Trueman. In addition, the back cover carries a tribute to Charles Wilkinson by the Rt. Rev. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury 1974-80, who commends the author as a pilgrim, not merely a visitor, to the “great historic buildings.”

The only comment this reviewer would make is that this is a book which, handy as it is for a “pilgrim tourist,” would do well in a “fine” edition, hardcover, with the illustrations and photographs in colour.