Around the City - thoughts on Exeter’s Past 3

The Gates to the City - South Gate by Rev’d Paul Collings

St Nicholas Methodist Church Topsham Online worship for 09/08/20

Around the City - thoughts on Exeter’s Past

Revelation 21:14-15 Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the [a]names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall.

Exeter’s South Gate was built by the Romans, altered by the Saxons and rebuilt by the Normans, the gate acquired its final form in the Late Middle Ages and remained little altered until it was pulled down at the beginning of the 19th century.

The noble gateway in the south

Stood sentinel at city’s mouth

Into it’s bustling alleyways

Those dark and dingy passageways.

With constant flow of tramping feet

Each age has marched to it’s drumbeat,

And though the gate, though long time gone

Still into city comes teeming throngs.

I wonder Lord, how to compare

The city’s founding, how it fares

With that envisioned long time past

Of future glory you recast.

Where now apostles name enshrined?

Where to detect that grace divine?

Where the measurement of gold?

Where can I find your way, behold?

Yet, there again I hear your word

“When cup of water you have shared

With one in need,  who hungers, thirsts

It is as if you serve me first.”

Help me to see those by the way

Who hunger for their new life’s day;

To stop, to stoop with real concern,

Reflect your love,  your will discern.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. Anne Franks