Organized Crime

King's Meadow Curriculum

The first installment of the all-new King's Meadow Humanities Curriculum is at long last available. This course surveys the history, art, literature, philosophy, music, theology, architecture, science, technology, sociology, and civics of Modernity—an epoch focusing primarily on the 19th and 20th centuries, but with roots extending as far back as the early Enlightenment. The curriculum includes more than forty hour-long audio lectures, student outlines, teacher notes, project ideas, exams with answer keys, literature planning guides, timelines, and various additional teacher resources.

In the next few weeks we will also have the audio edition of the Christendom series. We are recording (audio and video) for the American Culture series this year and Lord willing, we will record the Antiquity series next year.

You can get your copy of the Modernity series today at the King's Meadow Study Center online shop.

A Song Composed in August

And this, a bit of Scots verse from Robbie Burns. If so inclined, sing it to the old folk tune, "I Had a Horse, I Had Nae Mair."

Now westlin winds and slaught'ring guns
Bring Autumn's pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night,
To muse upon my charmer.

The partridge loves the fruitful fells,
The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells,
The soaring hern the fountains:
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves,
The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
The spreading thorn the linnet.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine,
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,
The flutt'ring, gory pinion!

But, Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear,
Thick flies the skimming swallow,
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of Nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And ev'ry happy creature.

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
Till the silent moon shine clearly;
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs,
Not Autumn to the farmer,
So dear can be as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely charmer!

Something as Simple as a Spire

"Catching sight of something as simple as the spiritualized beauty of the church spire brought to mind a twinge of regret at our modern loss: representative of something in the village more difficult to define than the social function symbolized by the pharmacist, the retired tobacco-inspector and the optician, but something which is, nevertheless, not unworthy of respect, were it only for the perception of it's meaning--pointing upward into the sunset where it loses itself so lovingly in the rose-colored clouds; and which, all the same, at first sight, to a stranger alighting in the village, looks somehow better, nobler, more dignified, with more meaning behind it, and with, what we need, more love than the other buildings, however sanctioned they may be under the latest laws." Marcel Proust

Courage and Tradition

"In literature as in love, courage is half the battle. Likewise, in virtue as in fashion, tradition is the surest guide to the future."
Sir Walter Scott

'Nuff Said!

Education and Life

"The most important fact about the subject of education is that there is no such thing. Education is not a subject, and it does not deal in subjects. It is instead the transfer of a way of life." G.K. Chesterton

Fast of Ab

On the Hebrew calendar this day—Ab or Tisha b'Av—is recognized as one of mourning and memorializing of the destruction of the first and second temples in Jerusalem (586 BC and AD 70).

Lammas Day

In early English history, August 1, the first day of harvest for the Celts, was called Lugnasad. Christians observed the day by baking bread from the first corn harvested and dedicating it to God. They called this day the Festival of the First Fruits. With the same concept in mind, Saxons called this day hlaf-maesse (loaf-mass) which eventually became Lammas Day.

Holiness: The Ordinary Christian Life

In his Lectures on Moral Philosophy, Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) regularly reminded his students that, “In bygone days when God’s covenant people sought to strengthen their piety, to sharpen their effectual intercessions, and give passion to their supplications, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting. When intent upon seeking the Lord God’s guidance in difficult after-times, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting. When they were wont to express grief—whether over the consequences of their own sins or the sins of others—they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting. When they sought deliverance or protection in times of trouble, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting. When they desired to express repentance, covenant renewal, and a return to the fold of faith, they partook of the means of grace in all holiness with humble prayer and fasting. Such is the call upon all who would name the Name of Jesus. Such is the ordinary Christian life.”

Chalmers didn’t just preach such notions to others—he faithfully proclaimed the Gospel of grace and holiness to his own heart. As his daughter later testified, “His ambition was to know Christ, and this one aim simplified his life. His obedience in the smallest details was very striking. It was not so much that he did not do wrong, but he seemed always to do the things that pleased God. Those who lived with him can hardly recall a single unworthy action in his life of which he was not quick to repent. Step by step he walked with God, doing everything as in his sight. ‘You are not very holy if you are not very kind,’ he used to say, and this spirit of love characterized his actions.”

Chalmers not only attempted to live a righteous life marked by genuine sanctification, his message was marked by an uncompromising call to holiness. His books and sermons were filled with the theme—his Commentary on Romans was concerned with little else; his compilation of Sabbath Readings aimed at accenting matters of sanctification; and his preaching would admit little else.

How different is the temperament of the modern church and her churchmen. The erosion of the distinctiveness of the Gospel and the subversion of the idea of holiness has wrought an avalanche of decadence. The moral practices of the average Christian today are not discernibly different from the average non-Christian. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a social ethicist to figure out: that does not bode well for the church. What we do or don’t do, how we act or don’t act, what we want or don’t want, are all likely to be practically identical to what our unbelieving neighbors do, act, or want.

Perhaps that is why the experience of Chalmers seems so remote to us; to our modern ears, the painful self-examination of his Letters seems overwrought; his fierce denunciations of sins we hardly notice seems wildly exaggerated in light of his disciplined attention to holiness, “I lament the sins of coldness and earthliness; wandering in prayer; seeking to benefit others without being benefited myself; something of discontent at little annoyances; chagrin and envy; opportunities lost; sick persons ill-advised; my class of young people too little taught of Christ; and in all my preaching very inadequate setting forth of Christ and the Spirit.”

Oh, that we might regain even a modicum of his passion for this, the “ordinary Christian life.”