In the midst of life.

When you are Dying A Personal Exploration of Life, Suffering, and Belief, Philip Wetherell, Foreword by Bishop Tom Butler, 228pp, Gilead Books, Malton, North Yorkshire, 2011, £7.95; ISBN – 13: 978-0-9568560-0-5

When I came across this arresting title I realised that I knew who the author was and wished that I had known him better. Philip Wetherell, was an Anglican priest with a worldwide perspective on Christianity through his active involvement in development organisations. He was struck down with motor neuron disease in 2007 and for most of his last three years was dependent on his wife Gaby and carers for all his day to day physical needs. With the help of amazing computer technology he wrote about his life and the challenging and important issues that he grappled with during this debilitating illness. Gaby has done well to have his reflections published in what has turned out to be a very thoughtful, stimulating and honest book. Philip had doubts about many aspects of traditional Christianity so I sensed that we would sometimes agree to disagree. Nevertheless, I was impressed by his discussion of suffering and his balanced approach to assisted suicide. His very sensible treatment of human embryology research contrasts markedly with the hysterical reactions of some Christians. I liked his careful study of Mark’s gospel to find the Principles behind Jesus’ life and teaching.

In 2010, a few months before he died Philip wrote an Easter sermon for a prison chaplain to read to the prisoners. The sheer physical effort involved must have been enormous. He aired some of his uncertainties and pointed out that seeing the light is for most of us ‘a gradual growing and understanding, just as it was for the disciples’ [p223]. I think he was mistaken in describing Mary Magdalene as a former sinner but I’m sure he would have liked my idea that if an apostle is one sent with a message then Mary Magdalene was certainly an apostle for she was sent to tell the men about the living Jesus.

The Burial Service of the Book of Common Prayer reminds us that, ‘In the midst of life we are in death:’ so this is a book for anyone to read and with Professor Keith Ward ‘I hope that it will be widely read.’

Toplady and Broadhembury

The Toplady Trail; A visit to Broadhembury, Devon; 13 July 2011.

A few months ago I heard someone mention that Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78) ministered at Blagdon in Somerset. I think the speaker had Blagdon near Taunton in mind which is the wrong Blagdon because Toplady from 1762 to 1764 was a curate at Blagdon in north Somerset. The legend is that while taking a walk in Burrington Coombe not far a away he was caught in a storm and took shelter in a cleft in the rocks and jotted down the famous hymn, ‘Rock of Ages’. That may be how the hymn began though scholars debate its historicity. It seems that Charles Wesley had written something similar in 1759 and Toplady certainly had the idea at the time because he used the expression ‘Rock of Ages’ in his farewell sermon at Blagdon in 1764. However, he didn’t actually publish the hymn until 1776 when he was well established at Broadhembury in Devon and had published many other hymns. That may not be relevant because we know he delayed publishing other things that he had written. It was, and is, a wonderful hymn.

The fact that he had been vicar of Broadhembury for most of his ministry prompted us to go there on 13 July for it is only about 15 miles from where we live. We turned off the main road from Cullompton to Honiton and after a mile along a very narrow lane crossed the 15^th century bridge and went up a wide street with many thatched cottages. Broadhembury is a very picturesque village. All those thatched houses must help to keep thatchers in business as well as preserving the charm of this village. We were puzzled that there were so many cars around the centre of the village but managed to park near the delightful tea room www.broadhemburytearoom.co.uk/ which is part of the Post Office cum village shop. We enjoyed cake and hot chocolate at very reasonable prices and then headed for the church. With all the parked cars we wondered whether there was a funeral but no it was the sports day in the school field just beyond the church and families had come to support the children.

St Andrew’s Church dates from at least 1259 but most of it is from the 15^th century. The tower has 6 bells and is about 100 feet high. There is a 15C font and many memorials to members of the Drewe family who were prominent in the village for about 300 years. In 1903 the unrelated Julius Drewe bought most of the village. He made his fortune by founding the Home and Colonial stores and built Castle Drogo which is about 15 miles west of Exeter near Drewsteignton and also has a Drewe Arms.

Toplady was at Broadhembury for 10 years though ill health forced his eventual withdrawal and death in 1778. Sheldon, a few miles away was part of his parish and he would walk there on a Sunday morning and return for later services at Broadhembury. He did not like horse riding which he thought was dangerous. He was a brilliant scholar, speaker and hymn writer and usually courteous and polite. Unfortunately he rather lost his cool in the controversy with John Wesley and his followers over the issue of predestination. Toplady believed in predestination and other Calvinistic teaching and Wesley and others opposed him and the exchanges became vitriolic and did not reflect credit on any of the parties concerned. Toplady had a ‘vocabulary-exhausting’ gift for words which was employed to the full in this controversy. Strangely, when he met Thomas Olivers one of Wesley’s staunchest supporters, the discussion was cordial and friendly but when went back to print the bitter invective returned. That was all very unfortunate and I think it best to remember him as the writer of ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘A debtor to mercy alone’ or these lines:

Happiness, thou lovely name,

Where’s thy seat, O tell me, where?

Learning, pleasure, wealth and fame,

All cry out, “It is not here:”

Not the wisdom of the wise

Can inform me where it lies,

Not the grandeur of the great

Can the bliss I seek create.

Object of my first desire,

Jesus, crucified for me!

All to happiness aspire,

Only to be found in thee:

****************************

On Toplady:

Wright, Thomas, The Lives of the British Hymn Writers, Volume II, Augustus M. Toplady and contemporary hymn-writers, London: Farncombe & Son, 1911.

Golitha Falls

Golitha Falls

Last week we stayed with our son in Cornwall and visited the Eden Project. That, of course, has become famous and we enjoyed going there again. However, Golitha Falls is not as well known and we have enjoyed seeing it for more than 20 years. It is on the edge of Bodmin Moor where the river Fowey flows down from beyond Jamaica Inn. The narrow road from the A30 at Bolventor follows the river for much of the six miles to the Falls. Then, a right turn leads to a substantial car park with public toilets on the other side of an old bridge. Alternatively, one can come from the A38 at Doublebois or Dobwalls and after about three miles a left turn and another left after ¼ mile leads to the bridge and car park mentioned above.

The river was flowing gently when we went there last week. It has been very dry for several weeks but last November there were floods and the car park was under water. The bridge was not washed away, though, and all was calm and pleasant as we made our way along the path lined with beech trees beside the river. This area is heavily wooded but cows were grazing in a field on the other side of the river. The field is fenced off except for a short section where the cows are allowed to come into the river to drink. The river makes a big pool as it turns sharply to the right and soon heads into the wooded gorge cut out of the granite hills as the river rushes down a long series of waterfalls and splashes over and round granite boulders.

We had to scramble over rocks and tree roots to get down the river bank again. Some keen photographers were there with their tripods and experimenting with a variety of filters. Other people were clambering over the rocks or paddling in the pools that formed here and there.

We walked back from the river along higher paths through the woods. There were many birds around. We heard chiffchaffs and I heard and then saw a buzzard gliding over the treetops. It was warm – about 25C; exceptional for this time of the year and we were glad of a cup of tea when we got back to our son’s house.

Thomas Young

As far as I know I am not related to Thomas Young (1773-1829) who was born in Milverton in Somerset and became such a remarkable man that the District Council has put a plaque on the Young home, The Old Bank House in North Street.

Thomas was a child prodigy, he could read by the age of two and a couple of years later had read the Bible through twice. His parents probably realised that their brilliant child would have better opportunities elsewhere and Thomas stayed with his teacher aunt at Minehead and later went to a Quaker school in Dorset. He learnt many languages and became interested in science. From the age of 12 his voracious thirst for knowledge continued at the home of a rich Quaker at Ware, Herts. After recovery from illness he resolved to become a doctor and found a willing sponsor in a great-uncle, Dr Richard Brocklesby.

In London he studied the eye and was elected to the Royal Society at the age of 21. His medical education continued at Edinburgh, Gottingen and Cambridge but he had to wait several years for his qualifications to be recognised. During that time he concentrated on physics and made significant discoveries. He showed that the eye lens changes shape to focus at various distances, suggested that 3 kinds of receptor are responsible for colour vision and his two slit experiment established the wave theory of light. The latter was controversial at the time because most physicists followed Newton’s theory that light consists of particles. From 1801 to 1803 he was the Professor of Physics at the Royal Institution and his lectures covered all aspects of many topics along with their applications and history. I found the printed lectures fascinating when I read them recently and was reminded that he is the Young of Young’s modulus. In acoustics he worked out Young’s temperament for proper tuning of organs and this features in some new organs to this day.

After publishing his lectures Young concentrated on his medical career. He had a small summer practice at Worthing, gave lectures in London which surveyed the whole subject and in 1811 was elected to a post at St George’s Hospital. He was too aware of the deficiencies of medicine in those days to be a popular physician but continued his hospital visits for two decades. Nevertheless, Young’s rule for calculating the dose of medicine for children was used long after his time.

In 1814 he was distracted by the Rosetta Stone with its inscriptions in three scripts and tried to decipher its hieroglyphics. He made some important breakthroughs but the hieroglyphic translation was completed by Champollion, a brilliant Frenchman. Young, however, worked out the demotic script on another part of the Stone.

Young was called on for articles by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and among his 63 contributions there were notable pieces on Egypt, languages, bridges, tides and many biographies included one on Porson, a great classical scholar. He was the first scholar to identify Indo-European languages as a distinct group.

He was secretary to the committee that made recommendations on weights and measures and, among other things, standardised the Imperial Gallon which lingers on to this day. For the last decade of his life he was superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, an onerous task with its intricate calculations and the need to iron out errors that had crept in before he took over.

Altogether, he was a very remarkable man and what I have written above just gives a taste of his abilities and achievements. He died in 1829 at the age of 55 and his wife, Eliza, a great supporter, made sure that there was a memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey and after much badgering from her a biography was produced in 1855. The excellent 1954 biography by Alexander Wood and Frank Oldham is now superseded by The Last Man who Knew Everything by Andrew Robinson (2006). Here is the conclusion of this splendid book:

‘Thomas Young really did approximate to “the last man who knew everything” – however much he himself would have denied this - and we can safely say, with the endless expansion ... of knowledge, that no one will be able to stake this awesome claim ever again.’ (p. 239)