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Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 144, 16 June 1909, Page 7

Bishop Thornton, vicar of Blackburn, who is recovering from a severe attack of influenza, writes in his parish magazine on the capability of influenza robbing the sufferer of all his natural power, his self-control, and almost his self-respect. Dr. Thornton adds :—''One needs to pass into the depths of influenza- to understand some of the verses in Job, Lamentations, and the Psalms ! I have sometimes been conscious of an almost comical incongruity in watching, say, on a sunny morning in a crowded church, a heaithy, well-fed, brightfaced choir-boy warbling from his cushioned stall: 'I am as a sparrow alone on the housetop;' 'I am withered like grass;' 'My days are consumed like smoke;' 'By reason of groaning my bones cleave to my flesh;' 'I have mingled my drink with weeping;' 'Why abhorest Thou my j soul?' And, indeed, the fitness of i parts of the Psalter for congregational worship may, not unreasonably, be questioned. But the exhaustions of the sick bed can eliminate all sense of exaggeration in some such phrases I as I have quoted!" j