ANNUAL “STORM" SERMON

Hawera Star, Volume L, 21 February 1931, Page 9

ANNUAL “STORM" SERMON

'J'HE strangest serhxon in England is also tlio oldest —it was iirst preadied 220 years ago. It is tlie “Storm Sermon," commemorating the hurricane which ravaged England in the last weekjof. November, 1703. A trust deed in Chancery requires the little chapel in Wild Street (between Kingsway and Drury Lane) to continue it for ever. The terror of that storm was recorded by the man who twenty years later wrote “Robinson Crusoe." Defoe's father was a prosperous butcher in St. Giles, and with his family attended Wild Street when the first storm sermon was preached in 1704. ■Sheet-lead roofing of Westminster Abbey and other churches and buildings was stripped off and rolled up like bales of cloth. Slates and tiles were blown 30 to 40 yards and driven a foot into the earth; brick walls and chimneys collapsed; people hid in cellars. - In the Thames over 700 ships were driven ashore in piles between Shadwell

“For Ever” Bequest of 1704

and Limekousc. Over 500 wherries were lost or smashed, and 120 barges between London Bridge and Hammersmith. The Meditteranean Fleet, returning home under Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, lost 12 ships and 600 lives.

On land, at Penshurst, over 500 trees were felled, and at Cranbrook the grass was so salted by the sea wind that cattle refused to eat. At Wells, the bishop and his wife were killed in bed by the roof.

Those days of howling terror and miraculous escapes were recalled by admonitory sermons on the anniversary in 1704; and at the Wild Street Meeting House a continuance was provided by one of the congregation. Tins was John Taylor, a bookseller, of Paternoster Row, who, in gratitude for the safety of his family, bequeathed £SO in Government stock, the income (now £1 10sY to pay for a storm sermon on the Sunday nighest to November 26 in every year.