THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

THE OLD FONTS OF WIRRAL
This very common and regrettable
treatment of fonts leads one to enquire
how it is that the reverence usually paid to
church fabric and furniture has been
denied to this particular ornament.
It is, of course, to be expected that the
harsh treatment meted to all ecclesiastical
things at the time of the suppression of
the monasteries would have been extended
to fonts. They, like the images, crosses,
and so forth, were exposed to the iconoclastic
fury of the Puritans, who further
showed their contempt by wilful desecration
comparable to the historic attempt of
Caligula to sacrifice swine upon the altar
of the Temple of Jerusalem. Thus at
Yaxley, in Huntingdon, and in St. Paul's
Cathedral the Puritans baptized colts in
the fonts, while at Lostwithiel, Cornwall,
a horse was brought to the font and
christened " Charles " in contempt of His
Sacred Majesty.
These outrages read painfully to us now,
yet there was some extenuation for the
offences committed, since they were a
protest against the abuses of the pre-
Reformation church. History also records
the destruction of at least one font,
that at Marden, in Kent, which was
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