Growing up attending Church services yields surprising snippets of information. This is because during seemingly interminable sermons and sometimes prayers, and lacking the multiple resources of mobile phones, the hymnbook became a permissible and available distraction. So, for example, I always know (but never need to know) that Charles Wesley lived from 1707 to 1788 because on so many pages a hymn ended;
Charles Wesley 1707-88
More mysteriously an occasional hymn hinted at more exotic origins: Scottish Psalter or Latin 4th Century. And then, in a riddle I have only solved in very recent years, Foundling Hospital Collection.
This Mothers' Day at Church we thought about the story of London's foundlings, children who were taken in to the Foundling Hospital when a mother could or would no longer care for them. Great chapel services at the Hospital demanded a hymnbook and this hymn, anonymously written, first appeared there.
We reflected on Psalm 27:10 - Though my father and mother forsake me, Yahweh (the Lord) will receive me. No human being needs to be entirely abandoned, whatever the vagaries of family or city life may inflict upon them. It was part of London's story then. Praise God that in very many ways it remains part of London's story in the 21st century through countless agencies of Christian goodwill to the needy of this metropolis.
This Mothers' Day at Church we thought about the story of London's foundlings, children who were taken in to the Foundling Hospital when a mother could or would no longer care for them. Great chapel services at the Hospital demanded a hymnbook and this hymn, anonymously written, first appeared there.
We reflected on Psalm 27:10 - Though my father and mother forsake me, Yahweh (the Lord) will receive me. No human being needs to be entirely abandoned, whatever the vagaries of family or city life may inflict upon them. It was part of London's story then. Praise God that in very many ways it remains part of London's story in the 21st century through countless agencies of Christian goodwill to the needy of this metropolis.
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