Service at St. Paul's Cathedral

Abstract

On Sunday 24 July 1960, Fellows of die Royal Society and guests attending the Tercentenary Celebrations were present at 10.30 at the Morning Service in St Paul’s Cathedral. The congregation was approximately 1500 and 400 seats under the Dome were reserved for the President and other Officers together with Fellows, their friends and Tercentenary guests. The service was Mattins which was sung by the Minor Canons and the Cathedral Choir. A prayer for the Royal Society was included in the order of service, and the hymn before the sermon was, ‘From thee all skill and science flow’ (English Hymnal 525), and the Psalm was VIII ‘O, Lord our Governor how excellent is thy Name in all the world’. For his sermon the Dean, the Very Reverend W. R. Matthews, took as his text the third verse of the forty-third psalm: O send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. and said: ‘We welcome today members of the Royal Society of London and many distinguished friends and visitors who are attending the celebration of 300 years of work in the cause of science. Nowhere could they be more welcome, and no church could be more appropriate as the place where thanksgivings should be offered for the past and prayers for the future success of this world renowned learned society. For we remember with pride that Christopher Wren, the architect of this Cathedral in whose masterpiece we are assembled today, was a founder member of the Royal Society. In a lecture at Gresham College, not far from here, he suggested the formation of a select group of learned men to pursue the quest of the knowledge of nature by experiment.