The Liturgy Laid Down - 6 June 1858

First after Trinity

The type of morning when the sleepy gain rest, the spiritual refreshment, and the intellectual gnaw their own hands off in frustration.

After all those years of making liturgy up every time, today we had it enforced upon us. The Book of Common Prayer, ancient even now, imposing its cadences upon every heart - even long after the power of the faith is lost, the power of the religion continues. It quite spoke to my heart.

Another thing that inspires me - the number of children! Say what you like about birth control (and in these mid-nineteenth century days, people don't say much about it) - so many children in one place lifts the heart. The thought that many of these children, so full of brightness (on the inside, at least - they're pretty grubby on the outside) will live to mourn their own children and grandchildren, mown down in the Somme and such like places - that soon returns my heart to its more usual minor key.

Now to Mr Maybold's sermon. My considered view is that it would have been a very good sermon, had he been able to get it out from his pen nib. It could well have been a very guessable sermon, if I had any idea what he was talking about. But I doubt it will have much benefit for we mortals, either here or hereafter, whether his sermon is any good at all.

Now I must rest awhile. This morning's worship was two and a half hours long.  Longer even than Burton Dasset's much-lamented (by those who were there) "300 interesting spiritual conclusions to be drawn from double entry book-keeping", in which he drew attention to the way the credit and debit columns are like the Yin and the Yang.  And we said the Lord's Prayer, if I did not miss one somewhere, four times.  Not at Burton's do - at Church this morning.  My Sunday luncheon is now heavy upon me, and we've got to be out for Evensong in an hour or so. A landed gentlewoman's work is never done.