Westminister Abbey– Part Two

One can get either depressed or impressed by walking around on the top of the names and dates of famous writers, musicians, politicians whom you have admired but whom now are all dead. I will give pride of place to a person who has most influenced me….. I love the quote on it: “I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Below is another person I have been deeply impacted by, not only by his music but by his witness. The story about the epiphany he had when he had finished writing the Hallelujah chorus and runs out of his run and tells the landlady ‘I did think I saw the Lord in his glory’. Despite his great works of music, his career went up and down like so many musicians– a failure at opera at first in Italy, he moves to England because the king of England is from Hanover in Germany was Handel, and gets patronage for his Royal Fireworks and Water Musick pieces. His Messiah (note the oratorio is not called ‘The Messiah’, is performed in various places while John Wesley’s revival is rolling on, and he is riding around the country and sees it. He found parts of it deeply moving as did the rest of the audi...