Hymns and Old Liturgies

The list of hymn tunes I can provide has gone up again. Harvest festival hymns were added (use them next year?) and a number of others like 63 and 302/ 303. The list is updated and service takers at Hull should use it. Some hymns, like 207, seem impossible to fill. I hope to get most of the book covered eventually. Only the list is uploaded: the music is for church use.

The hymn book rather well describes the range of active Unitarian views. I hope soon to return to my liturgy writing (two so far [one two]) in which I want a set of services available so that people don't have to spend so long finding and writing a service (unless this is desired). Anglicans of course just pick up the book, and it is so much easier (other than finding your way around it); the written liturgical tradition has died out in Unitarianism.

I am spending meal moments re-reading the nine-part 'The Later History of the English Presbyterians that appeared in the Hibbert Journal between 1966 and 1968 by H L Short that is quite comprehensive. With the exception of the later nineteenth century (and that was an evolving liturgical time), Unitarianism and its English Presbyterian forebear has always been in decline: it has simply revived by adding on others. The sober Puritans liberalised, and then along came the ideological liberals, and attached were many denominational offshoots from elsewhere, to be replaced by the more romanticist period, and then a denominationalist and generalist divide was replaced by a Christian and religious humanist/ pluralist divide. Now the decline is critical regarding the future, and one wonders whether the controversies elsewhere - the fundamentalism and sectarianism elsewhere - will benefit the Unitarians again. The general rule, however, is that Anglicans stay stuck unless in effect expelled. Usually it is the extremity that is expelled, not the liberal end. It's why Theophilus Lindsey and John Disney never produced an independent non-credal Anglican Arianism (called "Unitarian") but became part of the English Presbyterian drift.

Otherwise I try to sort out the accommodation space!

In the new home a bookshelf's ledges (little metal holders for loose shelves) have been found and so it is now in the entrance area, with more books added. A resourceful friend has got the old workhorse washing machine running so I have washed waiting clothes once back from the pub. I have still to buy a cooker, so will do without for some time. Curtains purchased in a charity shop turned out to be not long enough for the intended window but will do elsewhere. I need to get on with attaching the expensive curtain rails. We also now know why there is no TV - the coaxial from the communal aerial just ends up as an unconnected loop of wire in the loft. Apparently the Freeview signal isn't very good in Hull, and was much better in New Holland - closer to Belmont and on an unshielded flat. Barton is terrible in part because the Wolds act as a block whereas they are much gentler down to the alluvial plain where I used to live. However, before the wideband aerial for Freeview, and some boosting through equipment, I did purchase a superb directional aerial because of the cranes that caused such ghosting in New Holland. I wouldn't bother today given the poverty of so many programmes. It's why I left the satellite dish behind and a friend has passed on my Sky box. I simply didn't want it any more. In fact I am tempted to keep only the Freeview boxes for sound equipment: these are allowed licence-free when they deliver radio. Programmes can be watched licence free if not live via the Internet. This sort of decision will be made later.