1709

The British Chancellor of the Exchequer warned us today that we were entering the worst economic time since 1709. In that year we saw The Great Frost in Europe when the River Thames froze over.

In the same year Alexander Selkirk was rescued off his desert island and his story famously told by Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe. Meantime in China the old Summer Palace in Beijing was completed in all its beauty.

Across in American the Quakers were allowed their first meeting house in Boston as allowances were made to permit different denominations to enter the nation. In considering all these events we can take comfort that nothing really stays the same and we can take comfort from History of that fact. Hindsight is fine but foresight better,

The virus Covid 19 has clearly changed our world but it needed that change as we all saw what our real priorities are. Lives have been lost yet for all we will all lose our lives at some point despite best efforts to prolong our lives with exercise and diet. Therefore we can consider that scripture of Hebrews 13 v 14 that we should not look for any permanent City here, in London , Beijing or Boston but look for that permanent City where then we shall truly live.

In that City there will be no more pain, no more suffering and no more need or neglect. The rivers may freeze but we shall have abundance and we shall thrive. No more desert islands of fear and loneliness, no more recession or shortages.

For us all we will never see 300 years ahead in 2320 and look back on 2020 but we know that everything we be different and everything will have come to pass.