St Margaret's Church, London

Much of my day was spent at Hatchards, a rather jolly looking bookshop, making the claim to be the oldest one in the country. Such assertion may be true, or it may not be true, but, actually, I do not believe it matters that much at all. Time has the propensity to affect beings with a very unique dynamic that escapes mere chronology. That's as true of bookshops as it is of people. Apparently, the enterprise in question has once been saved from bankruptcy by a gentleman who had earlier committed forgery on securities, which one way or another contributed to a collapse of share prices on the London stock exchange just a month before the infamous Wall Street crash of 1929. Said fellow was convicted, sentenced to prison and released a decade later, when he proceeded to rescue Hatchards with a buy-out. I suppose a reformed Great Depression fraudster saving, in 1939, the oldest book shop in Britain would have received more recognition if this edifying story hadn't had to compete for attention with all the other events of that annus tremendus. The last floor of the bookshop features an antiquarian room that I took the liberty to visually inventory almost book by book.

The evening Epiphany service at the Westminster Abbey was truly magnificent. Beauty in liturgy is vital, because, as Hermann Sasse would say, it is all about speaking back to God what He has spoken to us. And if that heavenly speech is beautiful – and it is – so must be our services. One may be concerned with the possibility of falling victim to liturgical aestheticism that does not treat the truths conveyed in the services with much seriousness at all, and only delights with the sensual. Such a risk exists, but it is better to tame it than to do away with all the historical richness of the liturgical, as so many traditions have, indeed, done.

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles: Mercifully grant, that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles