Lift Up Your Hearts

A Saturday evening thought to take into Sunday.

From The Christ of the Synoptic Gospels by Edwin Hoskins (Tr 1865) in Essays Catholic and Critical ed E Selwyn 1926.

[In the Gospels] 'The petitions of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," indicate that the phrase "The Kingdom of God," or "of Heaven," is more than a poetical representation of an ideal. It presumes the Kingdom of God exists in heaven. In the immediate presence of God His sovereignty is complete and absolute, and heaven is the sphere in which that sovereignty operates perfectly and eternally. The genitives which qualify the word "Kingdom" are primarily genitives of origin. If the Kingdom is to be established on earth, it musty come from God or from Heaven. Thus the salvation of men, that is their incorporation into the sphere in which the sovereignty of God operates, is only possible either by their ascension into the heavens or by the descent and extension of the supernatural order from Heaven to earth. Salvation is therefore conceived of as necessarily dependent upon an act of God. The conception that the human order can be transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven by a process of gradual evolution is completely foreign to the New Testament.

The Synoptic Gospels assume throughout that the supernatural order has descended to earth. The Kingdom has come.'

More minibi

Here are some more minibi. They are parked in what was the swimming pool, which has been filled in and is now a car park.

View looking up to the deep end

The edge of the pool is still clearly visible. 

The edge of the pool

The Sadness of Winter

Alison Stephens (Aby & Ha 86) died this week. She was an immensely talented mandolin player. Here she is playing a piece called La Tristezza D'Inverno - the Sadness of Winter.

Bi?

When I was a CP I had a duty for a little while making sure that the school mini busses were kept clean.

Smart modern minibus on the new car park outside Batten

But what is the plural of bus? The Master i/c in those days said that it should not be busses.

His logic was impeccable. 'Bus is a contraction of Omnibus. The plural of omnibus would be omnibi. The Plural of minibus should therefore be minibi and the plural of 'bus? 'Bi.

Bye…

Toko

The internet is full of message boards on which weird and wonderful knowledge is shared. This is not new. A very odd nineteenth century journal which you can read here for free on line, and which is still published is called "Notes and Queries." Learned men send in questions and answers for what seems simple enjoyment of the odd and and quizzical. Its 1895 edition mentions a Haileybury slang word of which I had never heard before. On Page 14 the question is posed by Edward Belben (C 1884) who seems to be replying to an earlier comment by one M R Lloyd. On Page 98 it is answered.

" Toko " was a very general slang word at Haileybury ten years ago, and is probably so still. M R. LLOYD need not have gone back " at least sixty years " to find its use among the vulgar, including schoolboys." Why " including " ? It may be general in other public schools. Can any of your correspondents record it ? 

The correspondence is picked up with the explanation as follows:

In D. C. T.'s note on this subject a most amusing blunder is made in deriving toko from Gr. TOKOS. The word is really the imperative of the Hindi word tokna, to hammer; and to " give toko to " means to give a sound hammering or drubing to. The word was no doubt brought to England from the East by our soldiers and sailors who had 
served there. MELANCTHON MADVIG. 

It is unsurprising that a Haileybury slang word should be derived from Hindi. The signature on this entry shows that the business of odd pseudonyms for message boards is by no means something that came in with the internnet. 

Autumnal Fecundity

It is the last week before half term and the sloes are fruiting in abundance on the edge of the Heath and on the fringes of Goldings Wood. Christmas will be jolly if they make nice sloe gin. It is supposed to taste best if the fruit is pricked with a silver fork. Can any chemists (or cooks) say why?

Seven minute (half) mile

It is all the fault of a tree. A rather magnificent tree, but a tree which the Hertfordshire planning officers said could not be felled. It rises majestically from the clutter of huts and garages which deface the area between College Road and the kitchens, and it prevented the Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) block being built there. Even a design which would have curved round the tree was rejected as the footings would have disturbed its roots.

This living but stationary obstacle has thus required of the smallest members of the Haileybury community that they learn to scuttle about as quickly as the squirrels who leap about in the branches. If the time-table with imperious command requires them to zoom from Lower School to French or Spanish, the regulation five minutes between lessons seems hardly enough. 

Last week the new Head of Lower School spent a morning shadowing a class, being a pupil for a day. My Lower School spy was ecstatic. "She believes us - it isn't long enough! We will get seven minutes between lessons." We shall see. If they do, it is the fault of a tree.