world events

Every so often, I depart from the religious theme of the blog for something in the world. This citation from Winston Churchill in volume 1 of his work "The World Crisis", which looks at the conflict we call World War I, seems eerily prophetic in speaking to our battle against Islamofascism in the 21st century after the end of the Cold War.

The growth of the great antagonisms abroad was accompanied by the progressive aggravation of party strife at home. The scale on which events have shaped themselves, has dwarfed the episodes of the Victorian Era. Its small wars between great nations, its earnest disputes about superficial issues, the high, keen intellectualism of its personages, the sober, frugal, narrow limitations of their action, belong to a vanquished period. The smooth river with its eddies and ripples along which we then sailed, seems inconceivably remote from the cataract down which we have been hurled and the rapids in whose turbulence we are now struggling.

Walk by the Light

"Don't you know that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord?"
"But so many follow their own fancies--that you must allow, Laird! And what comes of your candle then?"
"The fact that such men never look where the light falls, but always in some other direction, doesn't mean the light's not there just the same. They just don't care to walk by it. But them that order their ways by what light they have, there's no fear of them. Even should they stumble, they shall not fall."

--George MacDonald, The Laird's Inheritance, orginally published as Warlock O' Glenwarlock

Why the World Does Not Believe

Many who from Sunday to Sunday, read the poems of a certain king brought up a shepherd lad, never stop to bring the truths of those poems into their daily lives. They read, "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord only makest me to dwell in safety." Yet these readers never think that such a feeling ought to rule in their own hearts in consequence. Therefore, such might consider it preposterous that Cosmo should have such a feeling of absolute trust in God as he did. Such men and women build stone houses, but never a spiritual rest. And they may never believe it before they begin to do it.

I can hardly wonder that so many reject Christianity when they see so many would-be champions of it holding their beliefs at arm's length--in their Bibles, in their theories, in their churches, in their clergymen, in their prayer books, in the last devotional page they have read--all things separate from from their real selves--rather than in their hearts on their beds in the stillness.

--George MacDonald, The Laird's Inheritance, originally published as Warlock O' Glenwarlock

Body & soul

The material part of us ought to keep growing gradually thinner, to let the soul out when its time comes, and the soul ought to keep growing bigger and stronger every day until it finally bursts the body as a growing nut does its shell. If instead the body grows thicker and thicker, lessening the room within, it squeezes the life out of the soul, and when such a man's body dies, his soul is found a shriveled thing, too poor to be a comfort to itself or to anybody else.

--George MacDonald, The Laird's Inheritance

Testament or covenant?

For it was not sufficient that it was called "law," since it was also called a "testament." For no law is called a testament, nor is anything called a testament, except that which is made by someone about to die. And whatever is within the testament is sealed until the day of the death of the testator. And therefore rightly is it unsealed by the Lamb who, as a lion, destroyed death and fulfilled that which had been foretold of him, and had freed man, that is, flesh, form death, and had received as a possession the property of him who was dying, namely, of the human race. For as through one body all people had come into the debt of death, so through one body all who believe might rise to eternal life. Now the face of Moses is uncovered; now it is revealed, and therfore the apocalypse is called a "revelation"; now his book is unsealed; now the sacrifices of the victims is understood; now the offerings and the duties of the Anointed, the building of temple and the prophecies are clearly understood.

--Victorinus of Petovium, Commentary on the Apocalypse (of John in the Bible).

GCS: In other words, the Good News, the Gospel, the adoption into the family of God, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ, brings salvation as the inheritance. We receive His Life, through His will (double entendre); thus it is called a Testament. Believe and receive.

Famous Last Words

"I prefer Lee to Johnston," George McClellan said on hearing of Lee's appointment to command the CSA Army of Northern Virginia. "The former is too cautious and weak under grave responsibility. Personally brave and energetic to a fault, he yet is wanting in mormal firmness when pressed by heavy responsibility, and is likely to be timid and irresolute in action."

Then came the Seven Days.

The Horse and His Boy

"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."

C.S. Lewis, in his third Chronicle of Narnia, "The Horse and His Boy"

Two Rules to Secure the Fruits of Victory

Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible. And when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number.

The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.

Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, 1862, to one of his officers

The application, and thus the reason for the post, is not to discuss actual warfare, but to ponder on the application of these "rules" to the great campaigns we undertake in life: career, ministry, mission, charity, and such, because great endeavors always bring great opposition. Sampson

The Beast Cometh (666)!

For the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God.

Christ is a lion, so antichrist is also a lion. Christ is a king, so antichrist is also a king. The Savior was manifested as a lamb; so he too, similarly, will appear as a lamb, though within he is a wolf. The Savior came into the world in the circumsion, and he too will come in the same way.

The Lord sent apostles among all the nations, and he similarly will send false apostles. The Savior gathered the sheep that were scattered abroad, and he too will bring together a people that is scattered abroad.

The Lord gave a seal to those who believed on him, and he too will give one in like manner. The Savior appeared in the form of a man, and he too will come in the form of a man. The Savior raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple, and he too will raise a temple of stone in Jerusalem.

--Hippolytus, On the Antichrist

It seems so close, and so real. Antichrist is in the world, and working hard to bring us all down.

"Who is worthy to open the scroll?"

(Revelation 5.2)
To open the testament is to suffer and to conquer death for humanity. NO one was found worthy to do this, netiher among the angels in heaven, nor among ment on the earth, nor among the souls of the saints who are at rest; only Christ, the Son of God, whom he says that he saw as though a lam slain, having seven horns.

What had been prophesied of him, whatever the law had mediated of him through oblations and sacrifices, it was necessary that he fulfill.

And because he himself was the testator who had conquered death, it was just that he himself be appointed God's heir, so that he might possess the property of the one who was dying, that is, the human race.

--Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse (Revelation in the New Testament)

On writing

Anybody can write a short story--a bad one, I mean--who has industry and paper and time enough; but not every one may hope to write even a bad novel. It is the length that kills. The accepted novelist may take his novel up and put it down, spend days upon it in vain, and wirte not any more than he makes haste to blot. NOt so the beginner. Human nature has certain rights; instinct--the instinct of self-preservation--forbids that any man (cheered and supported by the consciousness of no previous victory) should endure The miseries of unsuccessful literary toil beyond a period to be measured in weeks. There must be something for hope to feed upon.

The beginner must have a slant of wind, a lucky vein must be running, he must be in one of those hours when the words come and the phrases balance of themselves--even to begin. And having begun, what a dread lokking forward is that unti lthe book shall be accomplished! For so long a time, the slant is to continue unchanged, the vein to keep running, for so long a time you must keep at command the same quality of style: for so long a time your puppets are to bealways vital, always consistent, always vigorous! I remember I used to look, in those days, upon every three-volume nomel with a sort of veneration, as a feat--not possibly of literature--but at least of physical and moral endurance and the courage of Ajax.

--Robert Louis Stevenson, "How This Book Came To Be," Treasure Island

To My Books

As one who, destined from his friends to part,
Regrets his loss, but hoeps again erewhile
To share their converse and enjoy their smile,
And tempers as he may affliction's dart;

Thus, loved assoicates, chiefs of elder art,
Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,
I now resign you; nor with fainting heart;

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore;
When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,
MInd shall with mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.

--Washington Irving

The American People

All the writers of England united, if we could for a moment suppose their great minds stooping to so unworthy a combination, could not conceal our rapidly growing importance and matchless prosperity. They could not conceal that these are owing, not merely to physical and local, but also to moral causes,--to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, the prevalence of sound moral and religious principles, which give force and sustained energy to the character of a people; and which, in act, have been the acknowledged and wonderful sporters of their own national power and glory.

--Washington Irving, Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

A Clear Midnight (Walt Whitman)

This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent [never at middle school when the dismissal bell rings!], gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best . . .

Walt Whitman

School reform

To A Pupil

Is reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the Personality you need to accomplish it.

You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a body and soul that when you enter the crowd an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impress'd with your Personality?

O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend, if need be give up all else, and commenct to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, eleavated-ness,
Rest not till you rivet and publish yourself of your own Personality.

---Walt Whitman, Autumn Rivulets

Eyes of faith

Those among whom this event occurred in their presence [watching David defeat Goliath] saw with their own eyes, not by faith. However, through faith we see God at work today, not as they did but in a marvelous way.

--Tyconius

T. Roosevelt on writing

You touch on one of what I believe to be the most serious obstacles in the way of doing good literary work in the present generation, when you speak of the press and bustle of city life, and especially of the tendency to write "timely" articles, and the like. It is not necessary to be a mere recluse in order to do good work as a poet, a novelist, or even as a historian or a scholar; but it is absolutely necessary to be able to have the bulk of one's time to one's self, so that it can be spent on the particular study needed. Nowadays it is rather difficult to get such leisure, and indeed it can be gotten only ba a man of some means and of great determination of character, if he has any widespread popularity.

Even more important and more harmful is the fact that the enourmous increase in the half-educated reading public, and in the half-educated caterers to this reading public, tends to divert every manh capable of doing good work from that good work; because as my own experience tends to show, one's literary work is very apt to be remunerated in inverse proportion to its value.

Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter to George Dewey, February 1898

Character and maintaining poprulation

An easy, good-natured kindliness, and a desire to be independent, that is, to live one's life purely according to one's won desires, are in no sense substitutes for the fundamental virtues, for the practice of the strong racial qualities without which there can be no strong races--the qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of scorn of what is mean, base, and selfish, of eager desire to work or fight or suffer as the case may be, provided the need to be gained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance of toil and worry.

I do not know whetehr I most pity or most despise the foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that the only things really worth having in life are those the acquirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man or woman, thorugh no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only form home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy; . . . But the man or woman who deliberately avoids marriage and has a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish asto dislkie having children, is in effect a crimianl against the race and should be an object of contemptuous abhorence by all healthy children.

--Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter to Bessie Van Vorst, October 1902
Roosevelt was appalled by the European population trends of his time which led him to think that many of the nationalities were declining in numbers. GCS

What makes a man?

I was fortunate enough in having a father whom I have always been able to regard as an ideal man. It sounds a little like cant to say what I am going to say, but he really did combine the strength and courage and will and energy of the strongest man with the tenderness, cleanness and purity of a woman. He not only took great care of me . . . but he also most wisely refused to coddle me, and made me feel that I must force myself to hold my own with other boys and prepare to do the rought work of the world. I cannot say that he ever put it into words, but he certainly gave me the feeling that I was always to be both decent and manly, and that if I were manly nobody would long laugh at my being decent.

--Theodore Roosevelt, in a November 1900 letter to Edward Martin