Upton, Oct. 19, 1904

________________________________________________
_ DEAR HERBERT,--I am at present continuously liturgical, owing to my Committee; but you must have the benefit of it.

I have often wondered which of the compilers of the Prayer-book fixed upon the Venite as the first Canticle for our Morning Service; wondered, I say, in the purposeless way that one does wonder, without ever taking the trouble to find out. I dare say there are abundant ecclesiological precedents for it, if one took the trouble to discover them. But the important thing is that it was done; and it is a stroke of genius to have done it. (N.B.--I find it is in the Breviary appointed for Matins.)

The thing is so perfect in itself, and in a way so unexpected, that I feel in the selection of it the work of a deep and poetical heart. Many an ingenious ecclesiastical mind would be afraid of putting a psalm in such a place which changed its mood so completely as the Venite does. To end with a burst of noble and consuming anger, of vehement and merciless indignation--that is the magnificent thing.

Just consider it; I will write down the verses, just for the simple pleasure of shaping the great simple phrases:--

"Oh come let us sing unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation."

What a vigorous and enlivening verse, like the invitation of old song-writers, "Begone, dull care." For once let us trust ourselves to the full tide of exaltation and triumph, let there be no heavy overshadowings of thought.

"Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.

"For the Lord is a great God: and a great King above all Gods.

"In his hand are all the corners of the earth; and the strength of the hills is his also.

"The sea is his and he made it; and his hands prepared the dry land.

"Oh come, let us worship, and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

"For he is the Lord our God; and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand."

What a splendid burst of joy; the joy of earth, when the sun is bright in a cloudless heaven, and the fresh wind blows cheerfully across the plain. There is no question of duty here, of a task to be performed in heaviness, but a simple tide of joyfulness such as filled the heart of the poet who wrote:--

"God's in His Heaven;
All's right with the world."

I take it that these verses draw into themselves, as the sea draws the streams, all the rivers of joy and beauty that flow, whether laden with ships out of the heart of great cities, or dropping and leaping from high unvisited moorlands. All the sweet joys that life holds for us find their calm end and haven here; all the delights of life, of action, of tranquil thought, of perception, of love, of beauty, of friendship, of talk, of reflection, are all drawn into one great flood of gratitude and thankfulness; the thankfulness that comes from the thought that after all it is He that made us, and not we ourselves; that we are indeed led and pastured by green meadows and waters of comfort; in such a mood all uneasy anxieties, all dull questionings, die and are merged, and we are glad to be.

Then suddenly falls a different mood, a touch of pathos, in the thought that there are some who from wilfulness, and vain desire, and troubled scheming, shut themselves out from the great inheritance; to them comes the pleading call, the sorrowful invitation:--

"To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.

"When your fathers tempted me: proved me, and saw my works."

And then rises the gathering wrath; the doom of all perverse and stubborn natures, who will not yield, or be guided, or led; who live in a wilful sadness, a petty obstinacy:--

"Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said: It is a people that do err in their hearts for they have not known my ways."

And then the passion of the mood, the fierce indignation, rises and breaks, as it were, in a dreadful thunderclap:--

"Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest."

But even so the very horror of the denunciation holds within it a thought of beauty, like an oasis in a burning desert. "My REST"--that sweet haven which does truly await all those who will but follow and wait upon God.

I declare that the effect of this amazing lyric grows upon me every time that I hear it. Some Psalms, like the delicate and tender cxix., steal into the heart after long and quiet use. How dull I used to find it as a child; how I love it now! But this is not the case with the Venite; its noble simplicity and directness has no touch of intentional subtlety about it. Rather the subtlety was in the true insight, which saw that, if ever there was a Psalm which should at once give the reins to joy, and at the same time pierce the careless heart with a sharp arrow of thought, this was the Psalm.

I feel as if I had been trying in this letter to do as Mr. Interpreter did--to have you into a room full of besoms and spiders, and to draw a pretty moral out of it all. But I am sure that the beauty of this particular Psalm, and of its position, is one of those things that is only spoilt for us by familiarity; and that it is a duty in life to try and break through the crust of familiarity which tends to be deposited round well-known things, and to see how bright and joyful a jewel shows its heart of fire beneath.

I have been hoping for a letter; but no doubt it is all right. I am before my time, I see.--Ever yours,

T. B. _

Read next: Upton, Oct. 25, 1904

Read previous: Monk's Orchard, Upton, Oct. 12, 1904

Table of content of Upton Letters


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book