All Heaven and Earth

‎"When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean." Christopher Morley

God's Victory

Three days after French troops under the command of Jean Baptiste de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette helped George Washington's ragged forces defeat the British Army, the men celebrated the formal surrender of Lord Cornwallis.  The British band played the popular song "The World Turned Upside Down" as they stacked up their arms. 

The last major fighting of the American War for Independence had somehow ended in a resounding American victory.  Washington and the others could not help but recognize God's hand in the victory. Indeed, it was when the American forces were at their weakest, that victory had finally come.  Accordingly, Washington issued orders to the army that "Divine service is to be performed in the several brigades and divisions. The commander-in-chief recommends that the troops not on duty should universally attend with that seriousness of deportment and gratitude of heart which the recognition of such reiterated and astonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us."

That celebration of God's good providence occurred on this day in 1781.

Texas: A Whole Other Country

On this day in 1836, former Tennessee congressman, senator, and governor, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.

Let There Be Light

On this day in 1878, Thomas A. Edison invented a practical incandescent lamp in his laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey.  "The longer it burned," he said, "the more fascinated we were…there was no sleep for any of us for forty hours."

On the Nightstand

Johnson's Latest

In 2003, when Paul Johnson published his massive and magisterial Art: A New History, he announced it would be his last book.  Since then, he has published by my count, eleven new books.  Thanks be to God.  The new books have mostly been shorter biographies--in his Brief Lives series.  This morning I finished the most recent of these: Socrates.  Since I'm lecturing on the world of Antiquity this year, this new contribution from my favorite living historian is most welcome.  And as always, Johnson is witty, insightful, and provocative.  This is the application of the old discipline, Moral Philosophy, at its best. I am so glad that Johnson just couldn't help himself from writing--long after he'd decided to stop writing! We're all the better for it.

The Louisiana Treaty

The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty by a vote of 24-7 on this day in 1803.  The vast region encompassed more than 800,000 square miles of territory and comprised present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, nearly all of Kansas, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River as well as the city of New Orleans.  At the time of purchase, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about the constitutionality of making a land acquisition without adding a covering amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The law of the land, however, did give the president treaty-making power, and the Louisiana Purchase was ratified into law as a treaty by the U.S. Senate. The Louisiana Purchase stands as the largest area of territory ever added to the U.S. at one time.

From Depths of Woe

William Cowper (1731-1800), the pastoral English poet, collaborated with the curate John Newton in publishing the Olney Hymns—a classic collection of Evangelical and Reformed hymns.  Cowper who generally wrote about simple pleasures of country life and expressed a deep concern for human cruelty and the suffering of the innocent, was born in Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire.  Though he suffered periods of acute depression he lived with the evangelical cleric Morley Unwin and his wife, Mary. In 1773 Cowper was seized by a severe despondency, rooted in religious doubts and fears that plagued him all his life. It was apparently the care of Mrs. Unwin, who encouraged him to compose poetry, that enabled him to recover. 

And thus, out of the depths of woe was the church given the great gift of his verse.

Better to Be Underestimated

Known for his witty style, the amazingly prolific author G. K. Chesterton wrote in many genres, including fiction, biography, poetry, theology, history, as well as a myriad of essays. He was one of the most beloved writers in England during the first part of the 20^th century.

On this day in 1912, biographer Hugh Lunn interviewed Chesterton for the Hearth and Home magazine.  He began with a description of the great man, “Everyone knows Mr Chesterton's appearance, a good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulence, like Falstaff. His writings, too, have become familiar, winning many disciples, especially among the young. At Oxford the Chestertonian and the Shavian are well-known types: the Shavian enthroned above human emotion is clever, but a prig; the Chestertonian, less brilliant, is more likeable. He doesn't care for advanced ideas, but he would like to combine wit and probity. So he welcomes a writer who defends old modes of thought with humor, and attacks modern thinkers on the ground that they are antiquated bores in disguise.”

Lunn was soon to discover that, with Chesterton, there was much more than met the eye—despite the fact that his rotund figure was sufficient to fill the eye.  With a glint of good humor, Chesterton began with characteristic words, “I am always ready to be interviewed, for I hold the theory, nowadays completely forgotten—as forgotten as this matchbox was still this moment (fishing a box out of a bowl on the mantelpiece)—the theory that the Press is a public agora. I should not refuse an interview even to a paper owned by one of those capitalist millionaires, whom I hate. Nowadays the Press merely echoes the powerful; its real aim should be to give the public a chance to state its views.”

Lunn could hardly get a word in edgewise, so the interview turned into something of a monolog—a forum for the great man to hold forth on all manner of ideas, much like his writing, “And now what do you want me to talk about? I am ready to give my opinion on any question, whether I know something about it or not. No, I'm not an Imperialist in the modern sense; the only theory of Imperialism that seems to me sound is Dante's. He defended the Roman Empire as the best human government, on the definite ground that the best human government would probably crucify God. Caesar had to be lawful; because Christ had to be killed by law.”

With that, he paused with a smile to ask Lunn what questions he really wanted to put upon the table. He should not have bothered, before he could reply, Chesterton was off again, “I do not believe in Cosmopolitanism, you know: nowadays it's either run by financiers for their own profit, or it's the product of Atheistic Socialism, as in Germany. Christ didn't come to bring peace among the nations. When He said that a man should turn the other cheek, I fancy He meant that a man, when attacked, should humiliate his enemy by treating him with sudden and unexpected contempt.”

And so it went for nigh on an hour.  Lunn had to admit afterward, “I had altogether underestimated the tornado of thought and creativity and imagination that the jolly figure of Chesterton contained.”  To which Chesterton later retorted, “It is always better to be underestimated than overestimated—that way, all good things are taken as if by surprise and are therefore all the more appreciated.”  Appreciated, Chesterton surely is.

New AFA Documentary: Divorcing God