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