Bernard Barton, known, like John Greenleaf Whittier, as "the Quaker poet," was born in England on this date in 1784. Here is Barton's hymn on the text of Psalm 119:105: Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.



Lamp of our feet whereby we trace

Our path when wont to stray;

Stream from the fount of heav’nly grace,

Brook by the traveler’s way.



Bread of our souls whereon we feed,

True manna from on high;

Our guide and chart wherein we read

Of realms beyond the sky.



Pillar of fire, through watches dark,

Or radiant cloud by day;

When waves would break our tossing bark,

Our anchor and our stay.



Word of the ever living God,

Will of His glorious Son;

Without Thee, how could earth be trod

Or heav’n itself be won?



Yet to unfold thy hidden worth,

Thy mysteries to reveal,

That Spirit which first gave thee forth,

Thy volume must unseal.



Lord, grant us all aright to learn

The wisdom it imparts

And to its heavenly teaching turn

With simple, childlike hearts.

One rapid but fairly sure guide to the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of its army. … The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face.



George Orwell, in his essay "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" (1941).



Quoted in Mark Scheffler's perceptive Goose-stepping, the Dance Craze of Tyrants.

...... the apostle Paul, speaking in the context of the very same altars to unknown gods in Athens, said, . . . . Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you [Acts 17:23]. And again, writing to the Corinthians not far away, However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived' but God has revealed it to us [I Corinthians 2:9, 10]. This claim is common to the whole Bible. God has not waited for us to stumble to Him in the dark (which would be impossible anyway), but has revealed Himself to us. The word revelation in Greek is apokalupsis which means literally “unveiling”; so God has “unveiled” to us the things we could not know because of our finiteness and sin.



This revelation or unveiling to finite and sinful people is the Bible as the written Word. This is the claim of the whole Bible. Moreover, through the Bible we learn of the life and teaching of the Second Person of the Trinity, who became man at a point in history and so became the Living Word of the Godhead: For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form [Colossians 2:9].



In this claim the dilemma of all humanistic systems is overcome at a stroke. The infinite God has spoken. None of the many finite attempts to define truth, doomed to failure as we have seen, is necessary. God has communicated to man, the infinite to the finite. God has communicated, in addition, in words that are understandable to us. The One who made man capable of language in the first place has communicated to man in language.



Francis Schaeffer, in his book Whatever Happened To The Human Race?



The powerful Evangelical voice and founder of L'Abri Fellowship was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1912.

This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized and still others to hope for God's mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.



Friday is the memorial of Saint John Bosco, patron of apprentices, schoolchildren, editors, laborers, and boys. He is also among the most popular choices to be designated the patron of the Internet. A story on the subject from the Washington Post is here. You can learn more about the patronal candidates and join in the choice here.

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt. ________ (Jane Austen, Persuasion)



Naomi Chana at Baraita, fresh from her contribution to the public reading of the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas, posts The First Lines of One's Ten Favorite Novels Meme. There'd be at least one of Jane Austen's works on everyone's list, of course.

We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.



President George W. Bush

Donna Marie Lewis of the very fine Quenta Narwenion kindly posts the original of Cwm Rhondda, the Welsh hymn I posted in its English version, in the Comments box of the post below. I'm grateful to her as well for the reminder that St. Francis de Sales, whose memorial is today, was the author of the motto taken by John Henry Newman for his arms as Cardinal. In his honor, and as an aspiration, they were the first words that I recorded on this site. Cor ad cor loquitur.

And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light. Exodus 13:21



We're given occasional intimations of what must have been the grandeur, comfort, and holy awe manifest in those signs of deliverance.



You may remember this hymn, on the text of Exodus 13:21, being sung in Welsh in the film How Green Was My Valley.



Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,

Pilgrim through this barren land.

I am weak, but Thou art mighty;

Hold me with Thy powerful hand.

Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,

Feed me till I want no more;

Feed me till I want no more.



Open now the crystal fountain,

Whence the healing stream doth flow;

Let the fire and cloudy pillar

Lead me all my journey through.

Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,

Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;

Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.



Lord, I trust Thy mighty power,

Wondrous are Thy works of old;

Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom,

Who for naught themselves had sold:

Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer,

Sin, and Satan and the grave,

Sin, and Satan and the grave.



When I tread the verge of Jordan,

Bid my anxious fears subside;

Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan’s side.

Songs of praises, songs of praises,

I will ever give to Thee;

I will ever give to Thee.



Musing on my habitation,

Musing on my heav’nly home,

Fills my soul with holy longings:

Come, my Jesus, quickly come;

Vanity is all I see;

Lord, I long to be with Thee!

Lord, I long to be with Thee!

As I write these words, a friend of mine is out on the highway, counting down the hours to the death of his unborn child. Before leaving, he wrote his (now former?) girlfriend a check for half the price of the procedure. He said it made him nauseous.



Philip Gold wrote the essay called How Many Ghosts? It was published in The Washington Times August 23, 1999. I hadn't seen it before. My thanks to Orrin Judd for the reference and link.

John Bacchus Dykes, canon and precentor of Durham Cathedral, Anglican vicar of St. Oswald's, Durham, died on this date in 1876. An accomplished organist from an early age, he is best remembered for his composition of more than 300 hymn tunes. Lux Benigna, the music for the Venerable John Henry Newman's Lead, Kindly Light is his, as is Nicaea, the music for Reginald Heber's great hymn for Trinity Sunday, Holy, Holy, Holy.



On this grim and sorrowful anniversary, we entreat mercy, wisdom, and guidance from the Author of life. We pray for the turning of hearts to Him, to the Lord, to Jesus, our Good Master.



Jesu, Magister Bone, the music of Rev. John Dykes, is the tune for Samuel Stone's hymn O Thou, Before Whose Presence.



O Thou before Whose presence naught evil may come in,

Yet Who dost look in mercy down on this world of sin,

O give us noble purpose to set the sin bound free,

And Christlike tender pity to seek the lost for Thee.



Fierce is our subtle foeman: the forces at his hand

With woes that none can number despoil the pleasant land;

All they who war against them, in strife so keen and long,

Must in their Savior’s armor be stronger than the strong.



So hast Thou wrought among us the great things that we see!

For things that are we thank Thee, and for the things to be.

For bright hope is uplifting faint hands and feeble knees,

To strive beneath Thy blessing for greater things than these.



Lead on, O Love and Mercy, O Purity and Power,

Lead on till peace eternal shall close this battle hour:

Till all who prayed and struggled to set their brethren free,

In triumph meet to praise Thee, most holy Trinity.

The land was ours before we were the land's.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England's, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.



Blinded by the bright sun reflecting off the snow and the United States Capitol, unable to read the poem Dedication that he had written for the occasion, Robert Frost recited his poem The Gift Outright at the inauguration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on this date in 1961.



And from President Kennedy's Inaugural address:



.... the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

The knowledge of divine glory, reflected in the face of Christ, shines in our hearts; however, we carry this treasure in clay jars, that is, in the frailty of our human condition, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.



The reconstruction of the unity of all the baptized is, in effect, a gift from God, and our effort alone is not sufficient to bring it about. But when Christians come together, see themselves as brothers, collaborate to alleviate sufferings, and pray for unity, they contribute to make the face of Christ and his glory shine.



Pope John Paul II, speaking on The Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, which began last Saturday on the Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter and concludes on Saturday, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.



Ut Unum Sint

I've mentioned a couple of times before the aspects of the rural that still survive near the publishing company office where I work, not far from the Schuylkill River. It's a cold Monday here outside Philadelphia, but with a sparkling clarity, and bright sun slanting through the trees. I looked up from the desk a few minutes ago and on the hillside not twenty yards away a golden fox was trotting by. An unexpected sight, a gracious gift, a great morning.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.



Those words are taken from the speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace on December 10, 1964. Dr. King was born on this date in 1929, although the holiday celebrating his birth won't come until Monday.



I've always found 28 August, the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and of Rev. King's great "I Have A Dream" address, a more moving and evocative date, a more fruitful time to remember the man and his work. Reflections on that date are made even richer by the fact of its being the feast of Saint Augustine, bringing echoes of his writing on the City of God.



So the unitive and noble dream of Martin Luther King is again in my mind. But how frequently the world (and we) forget the foundation of that dream, the inspiration of King's ministry, the Lord whose Spirit makes it possible for young men to see visions and old men to dream dreams. How gracious is the Lord. And how comforting it is -- what another reminder of the cloud of witnesses by which we're surrounded -- to quote Luke quoting Peter quoting Joel.



There's a gracious coincidence of birth dates today, too. Eleanor Henrietta Hull was also born on this date, in 1860. Passionate in her devotion to Gaelic culture and literature, one of the fruits of that devotion is her verse rendering of an 8th century poem that, married to the folk melody "Slane," is the glorious hymn Be Thou My Vision.



Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art

Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.



Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;

I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.



Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;

Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;

Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:

Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.



Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.



High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

La vérité est en marche et rien ne l'arretera.



Truth is on the march. Nothing can stop it.



Émile Zola published J'accuse, his open letter to the President of the Republic of France in defense of the disgraced Captain Alfred Dreyfus, in L'Aurore on this date in 1898.



Here are the powerful closing words of that epochal letter.



Quant aux gens que j'accuse, je ne les connais pas, je ne les ai jamais vus, je n'ai contre eux ni rancune ni haine. Ils ne sont pour moi que des entités, des esprits de malfaisance sociale. Et l'acte que j'accomplis ici n'est qu'un moyen révolutionnaire pour hâter l'explosion de la vérité et de la justice.



Je n'ai qu'une passion, celle de la lumière, au nom de l'humanité qui a tant souffert et qui a droit au bonheur. Ma protestation enflammée n'est que le cri de mon âme. Qu'on ose donc me traduire en cour d'assises et que l'enquête ait lieu au grand jour !



J'attends.







Update: I should have linked to a translation of the letter.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.



Helen Howarth Lemmel

1863-1961

William Pierson Merrill was born on this date in 1867. A graduate of Rutgers College and Union Theological Seminary, he was for many years the pastor of The Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and was the author of several hymns, including the stirring anthem Rise Up, O Men of God.



Rise up, O men of God!

Have done with lesser things.

Give heart and mind and soul and strength

To serve the King of kings.



Rise up, O men of God!

The kingdom tarries long.

Bring in the day of brotherhood

And end the night of wrong.



Rise up, O men of God!

The church for you doth wait,

Her strength unequal to her task;

Rise up and make her great!



Lift high the cross of Christ!

Tread where His feet have trod.

As brothers of the Son of Man,

Rise up, O men of God!

Josh and Chris left comments in the state nickname's quiz post below, which causes me to linger on related topics. Like fight songs. Chris's current adoptive state has the estimable "Fight, Tiger" and I'm partial to "V for Villanova" and "Fight On, Pennsylvania" and Virginia's "Good Old Song" and Michigan's "The Victors" and "On, Wisconsin" and "Anchors Aweigh" and "On, Brave Old Army Team". And a lot more. But is there another state that can match Indiana's 1-2-3 punch of the "Notre Dame Victory March," "Indiana, Our Indiana," and "Hail, Purdue"?

We are admonished to ponder daily the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.



William Luse at Apologia has an excellent post called Dying by Degrees. A spare beauty, and rich in meaning. A witness to His grace.

Crying is a precious gift from God, and every tear is precious in His eyes.



Craig writes those words today. Many of you know how deep has been his pain and worry. Please continue in prayer for him and his family.

The engraving for January on the Calendar of the Christian Year from The Fellowship of St. James is The Prodigal Son Returns by Gustave Doré, who was born on this date in 1832. It's a wonderful image to contemplate at the beginning of the year, as the example of fatherly patience, forgiveness, and liberality in the parable of Luke 15 is a promise that fills the heart and transcends any alienation. It also, I think, forbids any morbid wallowing in the sins and faults of the past.



Here is the quotation from Saint John Chrysostom that Rev. Patrick Henry Reardon chose to accompany the engraving.



The prodigal son returned to the father, who could not remember what had happened; or rather, who could remember only as many of those things as were capable of moving him to sympathy, mercy, affection, and compassion.



The feast of the Doctor of Preachers is now celebrated on 13 September, but the traditional date in the Roman calendar was 27 January.



There's another reason that it's good to remember the Doctor of Preachers today. January 6 is also the anniversary of the conversion experience of that great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon in 1850. He records that it came during a sermon on the text of Isaiah 45:22 — Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else. Spurgeon describes the aftermath in his Autobiography: And as the snow fell on my road home from the little house of prayer, I thought every snowflake talked with me and told of the pardon I had found, for I was white as the driven snow through the grace of God.



All of us prodigal, all of us broken, all of us bereft and longing. But his mercies are new every morning. And, as Rich Mullins sang in Growing Young (Copyright 1992 - Edward Grant, Inc., 1992 - Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing),



I've gone so far from my home

I've seen the world and I have known

So many secrets

I wish now I did not know

'Cause they have crept into my heart

They have left it cold and dark

And bleeding,

Bleeding and falling apart



And everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry

Well I've been around enough to know that that was the lie

That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons

Well we are children no more, we have sinned and grown old

And our Father still waits and He watches down the road

To see the crying boys come running back to His arms

And be growing young

Growing young



I've seen silver turn to dross

Seen the very best there ever was

And I'll tell you, it ain't worth what it costs

And I remember my father's house

What I wouldn't give right now

Just to see him and hear him tell me that he loves me so much



And everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry

Well I've been around enough to know that that was the lie

That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons

Well we are children no more, we have sinned and grown old

And our Father still waits and He watches down the road

To see the crying boys come running back to His arms



And when I thought that I was all alone

It was your voice I heard calling me back home

And I wonder now Lord

What it was that made me wait so long

And what kept You waiting for me all that time

Was Your love stronger than my foolish pride

Will You take me back now, take me back and let me be Your child



'Cause I've been broken now, I've been saved

I've learned to cry, and I've learned how to pray

And I'm learning, I'm learning even I can be changed

And everybody used to tell me big boys don't cry

Well I've been around enough to know that that was the lie

That held back the tears in the eyes of a thousand prodigal sons

Well we are children no more, we have sinned and grown old

And our Father still waits and He watches down the road

To see the crying boys come running back to His arms

And be growing young

Growing young

Growing young





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My younger brother Vince was also born on this date.



Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine.

Et lux perpetua luceat ei.

Requiescat in pace. Amen



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We must pray without ceasing, in every occurrence and employment of our lives - that prayer which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him.



The memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is celebrated on 4 January. Her quiet, vibrant, and heroic holiness was recognized even in her lifetime and was proclaimed when she was beatified by Pope John XXIII on March 17, 1963, the feast of Saint Patrick, patron of her diocese of New York. Hers is fittingly one of the great bronze figures on the central doors of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. Pope John spoke of her as "the first officially recognized flower of sanctity which the United States offers to the world."



Mother Seton was canonized by Pope Paul VI on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in 1975, the first native-born American to be so honored. Pope Paul spoke of her as "wholly American," and urged "the great nation of the United States of America" to be proud of her.



We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.

Spain's UN Ambassador Arias Speaks His Mind



Some very interesting aspects to this interview, not least the frank and straightforward language where others holding similar office prefer misdirection and pompous circumlocution. I'd not have seen the interview absent the link at Jesus Gil's Ibidem, and I'm in his debt.

State nicknames range from dignified to amusing to downright mysterious. Together they pay proper tribute to the vivid patchwork of geography and culture that makes the United States so fascinating.



Spend a couple of minutes with MSN and Encarta's What's a Hoosier? A State Nicknames Quiz.



It's been rumored that the first question is a tribute of sorts to Josh Claybourn.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Philip Freneau (1752-1832), "the poet of the American Revolution" and one of the first great figures in American literature. I like his tribute to a group of soldiers who fell in action against the British in South Carolina in 1781, which closes softly



Now rest in peace, our patriot band,

Though far from nature's limits thrown,

We trust they find a happier land,

A brighter sunshine of their own.



Freneau would almost certainly have produced more and better work had he been less involved in political controversy and he might have felt, as did Hilaire Belloc, that he had been called out of his proper medium into prose, "because one fights with prose." Here is the text of one of Freneau's finest poems.



The Wild Honey Suckle



FAIR flower, that dost so comely grow,

Hid in this silent, dull retreat,

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,

Unseen thy little branches greet:

No roving foot shall crush thee here,

No busy hand provoke a tear.



By Nature's self in white arrayed,

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,

And planted here the guardian shade,

And sent soft waters murmuring by;

Thus quietly thy summer goes,

Thy days declining to repose,



Smit with those charms, that must decay,

I grieve to see your future doom;

They died--nor were those flowers more gay,

The flowers that did in Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power

Shall leave no vestige of this flower.



From morning suns and evening dews

At first thy little being came:

If nothing once, you nothing lose,

For when you die you are the same;

The space between, is but an hour,

The frail duration of a flower.