GKC and the Bible “The Greatest of Texts”

12 The Rolling Road Too Much History for Such a Small Place 12 Tremendous The Signature Trifles of Man 2 29 2 Art and the Bible 29

SPECIAL ISSUE GKC and the Bible “The Greatest of Texts”

VOL . NO.

21 06 $ 00 7 JULY/AUGUST 2018 THE COMPLETE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

✦ TWO WINGS ✦ CHANCE OR THE DANCE? ✦ AFTER THE NATURAL LAW Integrating Faith & Reason A Critique of Modern Secularism John Lawrence Hill Brian Clayton & Douglas Kries omas Howard his work traces the natural law ased on the e orts of two college his new edition of a modern classic Ttradition from Plato and Aristotle Bprofessors to explain to their new Tcontrasts the Christian and secular to Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth students how believing and reasoning worldviews, refreshing our minds with century. It describes how modern phi- are integrated to form a complete Chris- the illuminated view of Christianity as it losophers such as Descartes and Locke tian view of our existence, this work imbued the world in times past—show- began to chip away at this foundation. shows how the human spirit rises on ing that we cannot live meaningful lives This tradition holds that the world the two wings of faith and reason without this Christian understanding is ordered, intelligible and good, that to stretch toward truth. It addresses of things.Howard explains in clear and there are objective moral truths which arguments supporting and opposing its beautiful prose the way materialism robs we can know and that human beings can own viewpoint, and abounds in analo- us of beauty, depth, and truth. With la- achieve true happiness only by follow- gies designed to speak to non-special- ser precision and lyrical ponderings he ing our inborn nature, which draws ists. Today all Christians need to be takes us through the dismal reduction- us toward our own perfection. i s familiar with such clear philosophical ist view of the world to the shimmering work argues that natural law is a neces- and theological arguments. significance of the world as sign and sary foundation for our most important TWWP . . . Sewn So cover, $18.95 sacrament. is is an inspiring apology moral and political values—freedom, “A powerful, wide-ranging response to the view for Christianity, and a stirring critique human rights, equality, responsibility that faith and reason are mere opposites—and not of secularism. and human dignity, among others. both vital powers of a well-formed heart, mind, COD2P . . . Sewn So cover, $15.95 Without a theory of natural law, these an d s ou l .” values lose their coherence — we liter- — Robert Royal, President, Faith & Reason “Simply among the very best books of the latter half Institute; Author, A Deeper Vision of the 20th century.” ally cannot make sense of them given — Eric Metaxas, NY Times Best-Selling, Author, the assumptions of modern philosophy. “ is thoughtful introduction to the integration Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy ANLP . . . Sewn So cover, $22.95 of Christian faith with human reason is illuminat- ing without being dogmatic, exploratory without “If I could have everyone read just ten books, this “A stimulating and erudite book.” being indecisive, simple without being simplistic.” would be one of them!” — J. Budziszewski, Ph.D., — Michael Augros, Ph.D., — Peter Kree , Ph.D., Boston College; Author, What We Can’t Not Know Author, Who Designed the Designer? Author, I Burned for Your Peace

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P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018

TREMENDOUS TRIFLES...... 2 THE DISTRIBUTIST ...... 30 THE FLYING INN...... 22 THE COMPLETE Spiritual Over-Production Chesterton and the Bible, and BY G. K. CHESTERTON the Novel Manalive “The Greatest of Texts”...... 3 BY DAVID BERESFORD CHRISTIAN VIEW OF BY DALE AHLQUIST ROLLING ROAD...... 12 Too Much History for VARIED TYPES...... 23 LETTERS FROM OUR READERS ...... 4 HUMAN EXISTENCE Such a Small Place Rabbit Holes, Rabbit BY DALE AHLQUIST Trails, and Drinklings FEATURES BY VICTORIA DARKEY CHESTERTON’S MAIL BAG ...... 31 STRAWS IN THE WIND...... 5 The Bible CHESTERTON’S GREAT The Great Translation BY G. K. CHESTERTON CHARACTERS...... 24 BY G.K. CHESTERTON Kalon LETTER TO AMERICA...... 32 BY CHRIS CHAN NEWS WITH VIEWS ...... 8 The New Pharisee Compiled by Mark Pilon BY G. K. CHESTERTON ALL I SURVEY...... 25 Words Are Not Enough BALLADE OF GILBERT ...... 8 CHESTERTON’S SKETCHBOOK. . . . . 32 BY DAVID W. FAGERBERG Ecclesiastes BY G.K. CHESTERTON THE GOLDEN KEY CHAIN ...... 16 CHESTERTON UNIVERSITY ...... 26 GKC on Scripture First Hand Accounts TRUTH IN THE STATE OF CONDUCTED BY PETER FLORIANI TRANSMISSION ...... 10 REVIEWS The Soul of the Story ALL IS GRIST ✦ TWO WINGS ✦ CHANCE OR THE DANCE? ✦ AFTER THE NATURAL LAW BY SOPHIA FAVORITE The New War of Gods and BOOK REVIEW...... 28 John Lawrence Hill Integrating Faith & Reason A Critique of Modern Secularism Demons...... 20 MISCELLANY OF MEN...... 11 A Chestertonian’s Vade Mecum . Brian Clayton & Douglas Kries omas Howard his work traces the natural law BY JACK BARUZZINI Constantly Increasing REVIEWED BY CHUCK CHALBERG ased on the e orts of two college his new edition of a modern classic tradition from Plato and Aristotle T Gusto and Excitement The Wonder of Mail...... 20 professors to explain to their new contrasts the Christian and secular to Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth CHARLOTTE OSTERMANN B T BY DAVID P. DEAVEL COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: students how believing and reasoning worldviews, refreshing our minds with century. It describes how modern phi- DALE AHLQUIST are integrated to form a complete Chris- the illuminated view of Christianity as it losophers such as Descartes and Locke THE SIGNATURE OF MAN...... 29 COLUMNS tian view of our existence, this work imbued the world in times past—show- began to chip away at this foundation. shows how the human spirit rises on This tradition holds that the world Art and the Bible ing that we cannot live meaningful lives BY G.K. CHESTERTON SCHALL ON CHESTERTON ...... 6 the two wings of faith and reason without this Christian understanding is ordered, intelligible and good, that “The Jesus Of The New Testament” to stretch toward truth. It addresses of things.Howard explains in clear and there are objective moral truths which JAMES V. SCHALL, S. J. arguments supporting and opposing its beautiful prose the way materialism robs we can know and that human beings can own viewpoint, and abounds in analo- us of beauty, depth, and truth. With la- achieve true happiness only by follow- gies designed to speak to non-special- ser precision and lyrical ponderings he ing our inborn nature, which draws ists. Today all Christians need to be takes us through the dismal reduction- us toward our own perfection. i s familiar with such clear philosophical ist view of the world to the shimmering work argues that natural law is a neces- PHOTO CREDITS: p. 2 Eighth Day Books, Vatican News Agency; p. 10 Sophia Favorite; p. 12-14 Dale Ahlquist; p. 23 Matthew Elam and theological arguments. significance of the world as sign and sary foundation for our most important Illustration: p 13: TWWP . . . Sewn So cover, $18.95 sacrament. is is an inspiring apology moral and political values—freedom, Virginia de la Lastra “A powerful, wide-ranging response to the view for Christianity, and a stirring critique human rights, equality, responsibility All other images to the best of our knowledge are in the public domain. that faith and reason are mere opposites—and not of secularism. and human dignity, among others. both vital powers of a well-formed heart, mind, PUBLISHER and EDITOR: Dale Ahlquist, President, ACS ART DIRECTOR: Ted Schluenderfritz MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR: Linda Phillips SENIOR WRITER: Art COD2P . . . Sewn So cover, $15.95 Without a theory of natural law, these an d s ou l .” values lose their coherence — we liter- Livingston CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: David Beresford, Joe Campbell, John C. Chalberg, Christopher Chan, Victoria Darkey, David Paul Deavel, David — Robert Royal, President, Faith & Reason “Simply among the very best books of the latter half SUBSCRIPTIONS & RENEWALS: CREDIT CARD ORDERS: ally cannot make sense of them given W. Fagerberg, Mark Pilon, James V. Schall SJ (See form p. 29) call 1-800-343-2425 or fax 1-952-831- Institute; Author, A Deeper Vision of the 20th century.” 0387 E-MAIL: [email protected] LETTERS AND ARTICLES: [email protected]; Letters to the editor may be edited for length or clarity. — Eric Metaxas, NY Times Best-Selling, Author, the assumptions of modern philosophy. “ is thoughtful introduction to the integration Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy ANLP . . . Sewn So cover, $22.95 Gilbert! Magazine is published every eight weeks by The American Chesterton Society, a non-profit corporation established under Paragraph 501(c)(3) of the of Christian faith with human reason is illuminat- U.S. Tax Code. Donations to the American Chesterton Society are tax-deductible in the United States. Your contributions help support the publication of Gilbert ing without being dogmatic, exploratory without “If I could have everyone read just ten books, this “A stimulating and erudite book.” being indecisive, simple without being simplistic.” would be one of them!” — J. Budziszewski, Ph.D., Magazine. Please send your donations to: The American Chesterton Society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437. The views expressed by Gilbert — Michael Augros, Ph.D., — Peter Kree , Ph.D., Boston College; Author, What We Can’t Not Know Magazine contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher, the editors, or the American Chesterton Society. Author, Who Designed the Designer? Author, I Burned for Your Peace Copyright ©2018 by The American Chesterton Society. www.ignatius.com Donate to the American Chesterton Society • www.chesterton.org P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 (800) 651-1531 The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 1 TREMENDOUS TRIFLES by Dale Ahlquist

elcome to our special issue on GKC and the Bible. We are introducing a new feature put together by Dr. Peter Floriani: The Golden Key Chain. (Note the acronym you get from those initials.) Peter will be taking us through the Bible, offering commentary from Chesterton’s Wwritings, and making amazing connections that you never thought of. We start in this issue with Genesis. Where else would we start? Peter, a 2013 recipient of the American Chesterton Society Lifetime Achievement Award, is one of the most phenome- nal Chestertonians on the planet. He was written 34 books in the past ten years, and all of them have something to do with Chesterton because so does everything else. However, he also writes about science, technology, the rosary, hospitals, herald- • Another Book Meeting: I was recently in Wichita, Kansas, ry, virtues, computers, and Scripture. Add to that a 12-part saga and• took the opportunity to visit the legendary Eighth Day (or is it more?) of wonderful adventure stories, one of which Books. Owner Warren Farha does everything just right. is a tale about a Pope going to the moon. All of Peter’s books Besides having a charming old building stuffed with irresist- are listed on Page 18. ible titles, he offers beer or wine to his customers while they • We will have a future special issue on GKC Behind Bars, browse. Can you imagine anything better? I can’t believe I’m a look• at the fascinating Prison Ministry of the American not still there. How did I manage to leave? Chesterton Society. We have dozens of prisoners who receive • New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently listed his Gilbert! thanks to the support of our members. We are going six •favorite books on religion. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man to hear some of their stories. In the meantime, do you want to made the cut, about which Mr. Douthat writes: “Chesterton’s help out a prisoner with a gift membership? It is a great op- somewhat loosey-goosey outline of history doubles as the best portunity to give hope and joy to one of most neglected seg- modern argument for Christianity I’ve ever read. You have to ments of our society. Go to chesterton.org or give us a call at give in to the Chestertonian style, but if you do, be careful— 800-343-2425. you might just be converted.” ••Do you have your copy of Fr. Paul Rowan’s The Scrappy • The subject of this issue’s Miscellany of Men [see page Evangelist yet? Pope Francis has one! Pictured below, Chris 11]• Rev. William Lyon Phelps, of Yale University, hosted GKC Beirne, headmaster of Beaulieu School on the Island of Jersey during both his 1921 and 1931 visits to the campus. We had (where Fr. Rowan teaches) presents the Holy Father with the this trifle: In a sermon at Huron City Methodist Episcopal book published by the American Chesterton Society. Church in Michigan on July 16, 1933, Rev. Phelps preached on the Lord’s Prayer. He described how he once discussed this great prayer with G.K. Chesterton and pointed out that there is not a word of thanks in it. According to Phelps, Chesterton re- sponded that the prayer was dictated by the Lord and it would have been conceit on His part to ask thanks of Himself.

• Next issue: There will be a report on the 37th Annual Chesterton• Conference, and I also plan to report on my trip to England to do some lobbying on behalf of a potential saint.

Cecil Chesterton, still in France serving in the 100 Great War as a member of the Light Infantry, YEARS AGO announced that he would run for Parliament as an Independent candidate in the next election following the War, which everyone believed would end soon. The war indeed ended, but Cecil would not return from it, dying in a French military hospital a few months later.

2 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 “The Greatest of Texts” by Dale Ahlquist

Chesterton rightly called the Bible something good. It’s not hard to figure out where “the greatest of texts.” It was a text he Chesterton’s sympathies lie in this matter. However, knew well because, if for no other rea- he would lean towards neither of the two kinds of ex- son, he knew English literature. Not tremists whom he identifies as the Bible-Smashers on only is English literature complete- the one hand, and the Bible-Worshippers on the oth- ly dependent on the Bible, but one of er. As with most extremists, they are remarkably alike, GKthe greatest works of English literature is the Bible, that even though they seem to be opposites. They miss the is, the translation of the Bible during the reign of King point in two different directions, but they are wrong James I, published at the dawn of the 17th century. for the same reason. Chesterton says, “The English Bible is something They are both guilty of idolatry. One extreme re- like the big bones of English Literature.” He calls it a gards the Bible as an idol to be worshipped, the other “masterpiece of verbal music.” But it is a translation. as an idol to be destroyed. And a translation that has more than a few flaws in it. What is idolatry? Chesterton defines it as “the ele- There is no question that 16th century English sounds mentary mathematical and moral heresy that the part more dignified than modern English. But, as Chesterton is greater than the whole.” points out, this has lead to certain American Protestants Chesterton argues that the Protestants were guilty believing that a bound copy of the King James Version of this heresy when they “separated the Bible from fell from heaven “exactly as the golden plates of the the Church,” and then made the Bible more import- Book of Mormon fell out of the sky.” ant than the Church. The result was that they opened On the other hand, there are those who attack the up themselves and their faith to a fundamental weak- Bible with such violence that they would almost have ness. By what authority is the Bible the only authority? you believe the Bible was written by the Devil himself— And what happens if the authority of Bible is under- if they believed in the Devil. mined? For the answer, take a look at the last five hun- Those who attack the Bible are attacking some- dred years, which has culminated in a quarrel where thing good. Those who defend it are defending both sides miss the point.

It is in vain to tell them of the staring outstanding historical facts; that the Catholic Church existed before there was any Bible; that the Catholic Church decided what books were a part of the Bible; that the very earliest Catholic theologians, like St. Augustine, admitted from the first the mysterious and possibly symbolic character of some of the divine oracles. It was not until the Bible was distributed loosely that it was taken literally. If you treat a Bible as a Railway Schedule, and hand it to every chance person as a safe and sufficient guide, it must obviously be taken literally. Nobody ever -at tempted to take the Railway Schedule allegorically. The great authorities of the Church have said that normally a story should be taken as it stands, that we should not look for allegories merely to suit our fancy; but that things in Scripture, notably the first Hebrew books, are in their nature capable of several interpretations, some being symbolical; that they must be supposed to be symbolical if ever they really conflict with reason and fact when accepted as literal; and that in the case of Genesis, the story whether literal or symbolical must be taken as committing us to the real occurrence of the Fall of Man. To say that the Fall does not merely mean a garden and a snake, to say that it is something much more than any garden or any snake, is not even the same as saying there was no garden or no snake. It is simply saying what is of primary and what of secondary importance. It is unworthy of a philosopher to think more about the snake and less about the sin. The point about the proportion between the Fall and the Garden is simply this. With the first coming of the Cross there came whole schools of discussion about an idea called Sin... of Original Sin, traced to a mystical change called the Fall. The Greek Fathers, followed by Augustine and Anselm and Albertus and Aquinas in a long line down the ages, were the heads of schools disputing this moral and metaphysical question. They all believed in it; they thought in terms of it; it was a view of life. Among a thousand other things that the Church possessed, along with a baptismal font to counteract original sin, a confessional to counteract individual sin, and so on, was a sacred book in which there was a story about the particular nature of the first sin. But out of a whole library the Puritans saved only this one book; and read it as if it were a spelling-book. They lost the old controversial culture of theology and philosophy; and concentrated only on their own translation and traditional explanation of this Scripture record. The translation, though very fine, was very faulty.

It is not the Bible that unites us, it is the Creed.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 3 LUNACY AND LETTERS hard to imagine one. What possible motive could any doctor, or anyone at any level in that hospital have, for making the difficult and hugely unpopular decision to change Alfie’s treatment and allow him to die? They knew (and increasingly so as the Dear Editor. paediatric experts in the country. And story built) that such a decision would n answer to Aidan Mackey’s letter he had been getting that care for most only lead to terrible publicity for them, in last issue, my folks came over af- of his short life. for their work and for their hospital. ter WWI, my granddad from the You said that the doctors ‘insisted on Why would they put themselves through I Levinshulme area and my gradmum a patient dying, rather than releasing him that hell—death-threats, riots outside the from Manchester (not sure where). My to be treated at another hospital to try to hospital which affected other patients, granddad was a RSM specializing in bay- save his life’. accusations of murder—when it would onet fighting, and got a job in Douro, That is simply factually wrong and so I have been so much easier just to leave Ontario on a farm. Apparently after hope you will publish a retraction, because the poor child hooked up and intubated, WWI, he joined a club that was involved that is a very serious allegation to make. suffering until he eventually died anyway, in setting fires in Manchester factories be- The doctors did not ‘insist on’ Alfie which—with a rapidly advancing degen- cause nobody could get work, this provid- dying. He was dying already, of a de- erative disease and over 70% of his brain ed the impetus to come to Canada, that generative neurological disease (‘degen- already destroyed—he was certain to do? and the fact that he became a Catholic erative’ as in getting worse, no matter What possible motive could they due to his family being Orange. In WWII what)—a disease which had already de- have for an action that was so utterly and he joined up but was not allowed to go stroyed most of his brain and was con- absolutely counter to their own interests? overseas, and was asked to train officers tinuing to destroy it. None—except for one: their total, selfless in Brockville, Ontario. I have been told he The doctors did not refuse to release commitment to the best possible care for used to sing “On Ilka Moor Baht’at.” him to be treated at another hospital ‘to their patient. David Beresford try and save his life.’ They refused to let I have the advantage of some expe- Douro-Dummer, Ontario him get unhooked and re-hooked and rience of the NHS. I worked in the NHS go on a plane—and all the other huge for ten years, volunteered for another ten, Dear Editor, things that would have had to have been and my two closest friends from school- aving received the May/June done to him—to move him to a hospital days are both now eminent NHS consul- Gilbert! just this morning, I was in another country. And the only reason tants (and both committed Catholics). struck by the cover, with its pho- the doctors refused to allow that was be- Both of these men, by the way, are also H to of John C. H. Wu—but more so cause they all judged that such an action quite certain that the hospital’s decisions by the article about the man. Now I look would certainly cause their patient suffer- for Alfie were correct. Neither of them forward to reading his works, especially- ing, but had no hope of bringing their pa- is an uncritical fan of the NHS—they’ve Beyond East and West. tient any benefit. worked in it for long enough to become Venerable Fulton J. Sheen—who so The hospital in question was the jaundiced with box-ticking middle-man- often proclaimed his debt to Chesterton— Bambino Jesu hospital. And yes, initial- agement and the endless tussle for funds. once made a seemingly offhand com- ly the Italian doctors thought it might be But both of these eminent, Catholic doc- ment that perhaps a future Aquinas good to bring Alfie out there—although tors—men whose integrity and expertise might “baptize” the thought of Confucius even at the start, they never offered any I can personally vouch for—were certain in a way similar to St. Thomas’s use of hope of a cure or even sustained amelio- the treatment Alfie got was the best and Aristotelian ideas. Both pagan philoso- rative treatment, just further assessment. only treatment possible for him. phers recognized Natural Law. Wu, ap- However, what you clearly missed is that I am absolutely certain that you had parently, thought similarly. later on, the Italian doctors did actually only good motives in writing your orig- Matthew Riley fly out here. They—just like many oth- inal piece and that chief amongst these John Paul II Junior College, Belize er independent doctors already had—ex- was the noble and generous desire to pro- amined Alfie and his medical records in tect the common man from the horrible Dear Editor, Alder Hey. And the Italian doctors from machinery of state bureaucracy. I ap- ou used the word ‘murdered’ to Bambino Jesu—just like every other doc- plaud you and your passionate devotion describe what happened to a pa- tor who saw him—concluded that there to that cause. It’s just that —in this case — tient, the child Alfie Evans, in an was absolutely nothing that they could what you described really wasn’t remote- Y English, NHS hospital. I think do to save Alfie. ly what was happening. that was a horribly mistaken thing to do. I noticed that you never managed Emma Thompson He was not murdered. He was getting to say clearly what the motive was, for Birmingham, England world-class care from some of the top this supposed murder. That’s because it’s

4 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 STRAWS IN THE WIND There comes a perfect moment when An Essay by G K. . Chesterton there is no difference between language and literature. Prose is poetry without knowing it; it is as if an absent-minded poet always said good morning in me- tre, or asked us to pass the potatoes in impromptu and unconscious rhyme. Imagine that we all talked poetry all day long; suppose we asked for a ticket with a The Great Translation triolet; suppose we used a poet-card only for the purpose (which its shape obvious- By G.K. Chesterton ly suggests) of writing a sonnet. Suppose, whenever we talk about the weather, we e are just now celebrating no mere Englishman could have done so. talk as Shelley wrote about the weath- the tercentenary of the “How beautiful upon the mountains er. Suppose, whenever we use a term of English Bible [King James are the feet of him that bringeth good affection, it is like one of the great love Version], not (as some news.” That is a light and as leaping and songs. If we fancy some such condition, seem to suppose) the ter- as classically pure as Spenser. But Spenser we may begin to imagine what really centenary of the Bible. had nothing to do with it; some ordinary happens when a language is in its per- WThose grand and mysterious Scriptures parson wrote it. fection. Everything said goes to an inau- need not now be traced through the elab- “And his driving is as the driving of dible tune; as to a march of totally muf- orate selections of them or the numerous Jehu, the son of Nimahi; for he drives fu- fled drums. The poetry has got inside the translations of them that have marked riously.” That is far more vigorous than prose of life, and moves all its limbs into Church history from the beginning. Chapman or Ford. But Chapman and a rhythm and beat of beauty. What we are celebrating is a triumph of Ford had nothing to do with it; it was TheEnglish of the English Bible is not our own language. done by some common clergyman. merely splendid about splendid things; The English translation of the Bible “Where there is no vision the peo- it is splendid about everything. In any has one real claim to be English. Many ple perish.” That is as plain and pictur- modern leading article we might see of the eulogies about its Protestant puri- esque as Bunyan. But Bunyan had noth- the words “We cannot understand why ty and its Anglo-Saxon empire-building ing to do with it; in fact, he was not born. English watering-places like Bath or are partisan and fantastic. But it is in this It may seem a strange matter that these Brighton are not as adequate as foreign immense sense national, that it is anon- pompous big-wigs summoned by so stiff watering-places like Baden or Dieppe; ymous. The translation, as a translation, a Scotch pedant as James I should be ul- nor why those who seek the one should is as English as the ballads about Robin timately urged as an argument for pop- not as reasonably seek the other.” And Hood, which were written by everybody ularism and the populace. And yet they that would be perfectly good modern and nobody. It is true that the learned are one of its strongest arguments. They English. It is not mere religious associa- bishops and dons who translated it were show how well quite commonplace peo- tion that makes us see better English in far from regarding themselves as nobod- ple can write when they are writing about “Are not Pharpar and Abanah, the waters ies. But in the history of English literature something that is not commonplace. of Damascus, better than all the waters they are nobodies; only they are immor- That is the plain element of patri- of Jordan, and may I not wash in them tal nobodies. It is impossible to point to otic importance in the translation. It is and be clean?” It is really the perfection a single great man who is responsible for the last collective creation of our peo- of style; it is poetry inside prose. this masterpiece of verbal music. At the ple. It is the last case in which everybody Any magazine article might contain very time when the translation was be- reads the book and nobody asks the au- the paragraph: “The enthusiast must al- ing made there were in England great- thor. After thatEngland left off writ- ways be discouraged by a certain perish- er literary men than she is ever likely to ing. Englishmen rushed into the breach ability in all popular things. The mass of see again. But by no conceivable trick and tried to write, not altogether with- mankind seems so plainly a mere part or turn of circumstance can Bacon or, out success. Milton, Dryden, Addison, Dr . of nature, that it is hard to believe that Burton, Jonson or Shakespeare, have had Johnson, made a very good show of it. all their ideas are not at once as monot- anything to do with the translation of the But almost at once they were flooded by onous and as fickle as the physical uni- Bible. It was done by a mob of bishops; forces not English; by Irishmen like Swift verse; nevertheless, the best philosopher that is, a mob of simple and well-mean- and Goldsmith, by Scotchmen like Hume will always return to the idea of an or- ing men. The enemies of the Bible have and Scott. We are right to treat this book, der and a reason in things.” That would been heard to describe it as Jewish folk- even as an English book, as authoritative. be perfectly sound, intelligent modern lore; of course, in a bad sense. In any case, It may or may not record the real origin English. our translation is English folk-lore—and of the Jews; but I am sure that it records It is not mere religious tradition that that in the best sense. England wrote it; the real end of the English. makes us think that this is better: “The

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 5 STRAWS IN THE WIND voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall of the prophets speaks of the perfect time reactionary, is in our time saying that do- I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the good- as a time when all the vessels shall be as mestic things must be dull, that common liness thereof is as the flower of the field. vessels before the altar, and on every pot things must be commonplace. Everyone The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: in Jerusalem shall be written “Holy unto is saying, though with much less literary because the spirit of the Lord bloweth the Lord.” That is what theEnglish trans- brevity, “Surely the people is grass.” But upon it: surely the people is grass.” lation, by a literary accident, really man- in our sterile time we have never guessed And then, as in an answer across an aged to achieve. The phrase “verbal inspi- how tall the grass can grow. abyss: “The grass withereth, the flower -fa ration” may be orthodox or unorthodox From Daily News, March 25, 1911 deth: but the word of our God shall stand about the Bible in its supernatural sense. fore v e r.” But it is very nearly true about the English [In America are] the simple tribes It is not the glamour of an ancient translation in a secondary and merely who believed that a bound volume language. It is simply a much better use human sense. The dull parts of the narra- of James the First’s Bible fell out of of the modern one. tive are not dull; the trivial details are not the sky, exactly as the golden plates In one of those tremendous passag- trivial, because they are all lifted up on of the Book of Mormon fell out of es that pierce through all languages and this last great wave of the poetical English the sky. —G.K.’S WEEKLY, SEPT. 5, 1925 belong to the sacred Scripture itself, one language. Everyone, revolutionist and

SCHALL ON CHESTERTON II. Timely Essays on Chesterton’s Timeless Paradoxes “The Jesus of the New Testament,” Chesterton writes, seems “to have in a great many ways the note of something superhuman, of something human and more than human.” Aquinas formulat- ed this principle in this way: Homo nat- uraliter non humanus sed superhuanuus “The Jesus Of The est—Man is naturally not human but superhuman. Here, however, Aquinas was New Testament” referring to the elevation of human nature from its beginning to be able to par- James V. Schall, S. J. ticipate in the inner life of the Godhead. In the News Testament, Christ’s status as I. falsity of certain vague and vulgar as- true man and true God was central to its One of the chapters in Chesterton’s sumptions,” he wrote. What do peo- drama. Men are “adopted” sons; Christ is Everlasting Man is entitled “The ple assume? It is that “all religions are the true Son, begotten not made. Strangest Story in the World.” This equal because all the religious found- What struck Chesterton in his read- strange story is about “the Jesus of the ers were rivals, that they are all fighting of the New Testament was the fact New Testament.” Chesterton had the ing for the same starry crown.” It is sim- that Jesus really did not seem to come ability to read the New Testament with ply “false”, however, to maintain that among us primarily to teach. From the fresh eyes. After thousands of scripture all religious founders are dealing with moment that He told His mother that His scholars up to his time read and reread the same things. Neither Mohammed, time had not “yet come”, it seemed that the Gospels in hopes of finding either Micah, Confucius, Plato, nor Marcus He was following a “plan” not wholly of that Christ was not God or not man, Aurelius made a claim to be doing the His own devising. Certain things fit in Chesterton read the New Testament to same thing. “Buddha never said he was with this plan; others did not. Christ was see that it was not a philosophy book. Brahma.” None of these figures claims not a philosopher like Socrates, however It was more like a story with a begin- to be literally gods, let alone the Son much their respective trials both indicat- ning, middle, and ending. It took place of God. Once in a while, we have odd ed the limits of civil power. in a short period of time during which and crazy people making such a claim. It is sometimes said that Christ was Christ seemed ever aware that He was “Normally speaking, the greater a man a wayfarer, a kind of vagabond roaming sent into the world to die. is, the less likely he is to make the very aimlessly through Palestine in His days. Chesterton was most impressed greatest claim.” What is striking about “It is fitting that the New Man or the with Christ’s capacity for analogy, how Christ is that He does make this claim. Second Adam should repeat in so ring- He saw the higher things in the lower There are no indications that, in making a way and so arresting a gesture the things, eternity in the lilies of the field. ing it, He is in any way disordered in great fact that came first in the original “The purpose of these pages is to fix the soul or body. story; that man differs from the brutes by

6 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 Schall on Chesterton

III. cataract.” No one came to Christ’s res- “The story of Christ is the story of a jour- cue, not even his disciples. This is what ney.” Christ’s journey is, like Ulysses, not Chesterton sees in this drama of the just a story of travel but a story of “re- Crucifixion: “It is the wisdom of the turn” from travels. In the case of Christ, world that is turned to folly.” when He appeared before Pilate, He did Chesterton specifies who is there. “In not vanish by magic to save Himself. This this story of Good Friday, it is the great was His hour. He endured through it. He things in the world that are at their worst. did not escape it. This is the strangest sto- It was, for instance, the priests of the true ry. Who was there? “All the great groups monotheism and the soldiers of an inter- that stood about the Cross represent in national civilization, Rome, the legend, one way or another the great historical founded upon fallen Troy and trium- truth of the time; that the world could phant over fallen Carthage, had stood for not save itself. Rome and Jerusalem and a heroism, which was the nearest that any Athens and everything else were go- pagan ever came to chivalry.” But here, ing down like a sea turned into a slow its representative washed his hands and everything, even by deficiency; that he is in a sense less normal and even less na- tive; a stranger upon the earth.” We are The Lilies of the Field often intent on making Christ human, There is perhaps nothing so perfect in all language or literature as the use of which He is. But we forget the brevity of these three degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field; in which he seems His time here. first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and even its Many pagan sages can be described impotence; then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colours into all the pal- as wandering teachers. Aristotle’s school aces and pavilions full of a great name in national legend and national glory; bore the name of a place for walking and then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to nothing once more with a ges- about while conversing. Socrates, who ture as if flinging it away “...and if God so clothes the grass that today is and rarely left Athens, looked on his own tomorrow is cast into the oven—how much more....” [Mt 6:28-30] It is like the death a bit annoyed that his conversa- building of a good Babel tower by white magic in a moment and in the move- tion was being interrupted for a while. ment of a hand; a tower heaved suddenly up to heaven on the top of which But it would continue in immortality. A can be seen afar off, higher than we had fancied possible, the figure of man; philosopher’s business is “not to do any- lifted by three infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of light logic thing but rather to explain everything.” and swift imagination. Merely in a literary sense it would be more of a mas- Christ was different. “Jesus said: ‘Seek terpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries; yet it seems to have first the kingdom of heaven and all these been uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower. But merely in things shall be added unto you.’ Buddha a literary sense also, this use of the comparative in several degrees has about said ‘Seek first the kingdom, then you it a quality which seems to me to hint of much higher things than the mod- will need none of these things.’” ern suggestion of the simple teaching of pastoral or communal ethics. There Compared to these wanderers, is nothing that really indicates a subtle and in the true sense a superior mind Christ’s life was “swift and straight as a so much as this power of comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that thunderbolt.” Christ’s life consisted in higher with a higher still; of thinking on three planes at once. There is noth- “doing something that had to be done.” ing that wants the rarest sort of wisdom so much as to see, let us say, that the His task, His plan would not have been citizen is higher than the slave and yet that the soul is infinitely higher than accomplished had Christ wandered aim- the citizen or the city. It is not by any means a faculty that commonly belongs lessly about the Holy Land. Christ’s life to these simplifiers of the Gospel; those who insist on what they call a sim- was more like the ancient adventure sto- ple morality and others call a sentimental morality. It is not at all covered by ries than like the life of the philosophers. those who are content to tell everybody to remain at peace. On the contrary, The “primary thing that he was going to there is a very striking example of it in the apparent inconsistency between do was to die.” He did many other defi- Christ’s sayings about peace and about a sword. [See Mt 10:34] It is precisely nite things, but “from first to last the this power which perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war, most definite thing he is going to do is even a good war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are to die.” What philosophy does, though it nowhere so common as in the Gospels; and to me they suggest something too is a preparation for death, and what very vast. So a thing solitary and solid, with the added dimension of depth or Christ did are in different orders. “No height, might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane. two things could possibly be more different than the death of Socrates and the (“The Strangest Story in the World,” The Everlasting Man) death of Christ.”

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 7 failed to judge justly. In that act, he al- their living reach eternal life judged on sages.” On the third day Christ rose. A lowed the Scriptures to be fulfilled. the way they lived. All the ranks of civ- new heaven and earth began in the gar- “For it is certain that for a reason it ilization went along when “Man was re- den where Mary Magdalen thought (the world) cannot satisfy. Since that day jected by men.” Chesterton sees this re- Christ was the gardener. The “strangest (of the Cross) it has never been quite jection as the central event of the plan story in the world” ends this way: “God enough to say that God is in his heav- according to which Christ lived His walked again in the cool not of the eve- en and all is right with the world; since life. At Christ’s burial “It was the end of ning but the dawn.” The truth and plan of the rumor that God has left his heaven to a very great thing, the thing called hu- the strangest story, the story of the Jesus set it aright.” The death of Christ and the man history, the history that was bur- of the New Testament persists even when sending of His Spirit mean that within ied there, the gods, the heroes, and the it is rejected. the world we do not find only the world. We find working itself out the rest of the plan that Christ came to continue. Christ did not come to abolish evil but to over- come it, indeed to offer it redemption if BALLADE OF GILBERT those who caused it would have it. “But there was present in this ancient population an evil more peculiar Ecclesiastes to the ancient world…. (It is) the neglect By G.K. Chesterton of the individual, even of the individual voting for the condemnation and still There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, more of the individual condemned. It is Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth. the soul of the hive; a heathen thing.” In There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, the light of modern political philosophy For God alone knoweth the praise of death. with its own individualism, this is a re- There is one creed: ‘neath no world-terror’s wing markable passage. At first sight, the spirit Apples forget to grow on apple-trees. of the hive and modern autonomous in- There is one thing is needful—everything— dividualism seem far apart. It was “bet- The rest is vanity of vanities. ter that one man die than the whole nation perish.” The kingdom of God is not a hive, but a place for each of those who in

NEWS WITH VIEWS Compiled by Mark Pilon

of the grain to make a five gallon batch of the brew. “We were curious about being able to come up with the first ‘biblical’ beer,” Gutman said. Drying and roast- “When the real revolution happens, ing the grain himself, he gathered some it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.” friends to brew the special beer. They produced what today might be called a session ale, at 3% alcohol. Gutman said “From my viewpoint, as a person who Thank God for Beer existed two thousand years ago. Brewer has tried to hone his sense of taste, it was JERUSALEM—Herzl Brewery, in Itai Gutman, one of the owners of Herzl a surprise. It has a very dry taste, but it Jerusalem, has produced a beer with a Brewery is a man interested in ancient also has a strong aroma and suggestion link to the time of Christ, or if you prefer, and unusual beer. The tattoo on his arm of red fruit—almost like a syrup.” He said second temple-era. The link in this case is the world’s oldest beer recipe, from one bottle is left and there are no plans to is an ancient ingredient, rather than an Mesopotamia, 3,500 years ago. Having make more. ancient recipe. The ingredient is a strain read about the development of a mother Apparently, there isn’t much of a of wheat produced by researchers that wheat, he contacted Tel Aviv University problem with not drinking too much is as close as possible to the strains that and was able to obtain sufficient supply ‘biblical’ beer.

8 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 Ballade of Gilbert

diversity within the bar, and preventing Fashionable Literacy history of Judas Iscariot. He said, “I feel harm to LGBTQ law students were all NEW YORK—GQ Magazine has pub- a bit sorry for Judas,” and that he has got- within the scope of its duty to uphold lished an article entitled, 21 Books You ten “lousy press.” Acknowledging that the public interest. The LSUC has an Don’t Have to Read . Included in the list is, Judas did betray Christ with a kiss, he overarching interest in protecting the predictably, the Holy Bible. The publish- feels the story is “a bit more complicated.” values of equality and human rights in ers asked “a group of un-boring writers” “Judas had invested himself in the carrying out its functions. to give readers permission to not concern revolutionary leadership of Jesus of themselves with this list of books in or- GKC: “Most modern liberality con- Nazareth…only to find himself let down. der to consider themselves well-read. The sists of finding irreligious excuses for re- “Trying to force the hand of the Bible wasn’t the first book on the list; that ligious bigotry.” Messiah didn’t work and, instead of pro- honor fell to Lonesome Dove, which we voking the ultimate uprising against think Gilbert! readers may have already Roman rule, the glorious leader simply given themselves permission to skip, at “I’ve Been Betrayed.” let himself get nailed without resistance. least in order to be considered well-read. LEEDS, Yorkshire—Right Reverend No wonder Judas got upset.” In any case, the Bible rolled in at number Nick Baines thinks it’s time to revise the Yes. No wonder. twelve, and Jesse Ball, author of a book named Census, weighed in with a highly CORNER literate review containing such insights The Originator as, “Those whohave read it know there Celebrating Famous are some good parts, but overall it is cer- & Infamous Names President Hoover tainly not the finest thing that man has with E.C. Bentley’s Felt in need of a soother ever produced. It is repetitive, self-con- After his little tiff

CLERIHEW Elusive Light Verse Form tradictory, sententious, foolish, and even With Governor Al Smith at times ill-intentioned.” We admit the Bible is no Pickwick The Imitators: Papers, but we wonder if Mr. Ball has an All Bible, All the Time appreciation for the genre. We also wonder about his insight into the author’s intentions. No doubt, GQ readers didn’t Methuselah The Queen looked at Nebuchadnezzar need to be told they needn’t feel obligat- Was one long-lived fella. “Neb!” Sez her, ed to read the Bible. They might need to It wasn’t because longevity was bred in “You’ve got hair growing from all your be told that Chesterton is essential if they his bones, pores! want to be really well-read. He was just determined to pay off all And you’re walking on all fours!” his college loans. —DALE AHLQUIST, Bloomington, Minnesota —LEE STRONG, A Higher Law Rochester, New York The disciple Nathaniel OTTAWA, Canada—Canada’s Supreme Shealtiel (You could say Bartholomew Court has ruled that law societies can Begat Zerubbabel just as well) deny licensing to law schools that fail to As to whom Zerubbabel begat Would introduce himself, recognize same-sex “marriage”. The case I forgat. with a smile, involved Trinity Western University an —ARCHIBALD SKEMP, As “a true Israelite, without guile.” evangelical school that proposed to open Minneapolis, Minnesota —JOE GRABOWSKI, a law school in 2012. They sought accred- When Abraham Philadelphia, Pennsylvania itation from Canada’s Federation of Law Laid hold of the ram, Peter, who was originally Societies and British Columbia’s Ministry Isaac said, “Whew!” called Simon of Advanced Education. Both societies “I’d prefer mutton, too.” (Which is easier for rhymin’) challenged the accreditation based on —STUART KOLNER, Became—in spite of his the school’s discrimination against the Ames, Iowa three-fold “Nope”— “LGBT community”. The ruling from The first Pope. the Supreme Court cited that “discrim- —STUART KOLNER AND DALE AHLQUIST ination” as sufficient reason to deny -li censing to the school, describing such denial as “proportionate and reasonable.” CLERIHEW: A humorous, unmetrical, biographical verse of four short lines—two closed couplets—with the first rhyme a play on the name of the subject. Readers are invited to The LSUC (Law Society of Upper submit clerihews for “The Clerihew Corner,” with the understanding that submissions Canada) was entitled to conclude that cannot be acknowledged or returned, nor will all be published. equal access to the legal profession,

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 9 TRUTH IN THE STATE OF TRANSMISSION the philosophy was, too. But there was still something missing. But what? As a beloved teacher used to say, “The The Soul of the Story school is special because of its integrated curriculum.” But what did that mean? Our By Sophia Favorite freshman history classes about ancient Greece connected to our art classes about Winner of the 2018 Chesterton Academy Essay Award ancient art, but was that all that was meant by ‘integrated curriculum’? When it came hesterton Academy has a per- the philosophers?” As Chesterton says, to senior year, I thought it was just all go- fectly proportioned story as its “The philosophy of the philosophers was ing to end quietly and peacefully, and that curriculum. As one journeys not universal”. Mythology is not univer- the last few weeks would bring a peaceful from freshman to senior year, sal, either. The philosophers cannot take feeling similar to that of sitting on a grassy the proportions even out un- anything from the myths, because there knoll in the warm spring sunshine after a til the very end, when they be- cannot be any theological or philosophi- long and painful winter. But the end was Ccome perfectly balanced. The curriculum cal discussions about them. And so, these not like that, not at all. itself is outlined, but it is not an outline. It things do not expand universally; neither This year, we read The Brothers is a story, and it is a story that of them reaches out with Karamazov. We spent a number of months is as universal as the religion both arms to embrace all the on it, discussing it extensively in class and it follows and the man who world. The story of history, picking it apart. It became apparent that it began that religion. Because as far as stories and philoso- was like nothing we had ever read before. Chesterton Academy is phies go, is disproportionate. It seemed to bring everything together, in Catholic and teaches the Only Catholicism, in all a way. It connected philosophical ideas words of Jesus Christ, it is its beauty, is universal. It is with theological ones; it connected justice perfectly proportioned. It is the Faith, the conviction of and mercy; it connected saints and sinners universal and it does come all reality. Christ, with a person- and all of humanity. While talking about the way around, or, in other ality that drew many kinds of the book, one of my teachers said, “Some words, it comes full-circle. It people, lives in Catholicism, truths cannot be expressed in a treatise.” is an adventure story. encompassing the whole And I realized that this was extremely An outline can be compared to a sil- world, mythology and philosophy. “And true. One might study the philosophical houette. Both are flat, and neither relay the this is the light; that the Catholic creed is aspects of The Brothers Karamazov all day whole story. Both are one-sided and rath- catholic and that nothing else is catholic”. long and not gather the rest of the story; er vague. It is impossible that an outline be And so, by being divided in just that cor- It is impossible to write a treatise on the a story, for there is much missing from it. rect way so that the proportions might be Brothers Karamazov and attain the whole Character, personality, (which Chesterton just right, it is the only thing that is com- truth, just as it would be impossible to tell says is the soul of the story) and experi- pletely unified. short-story snippets from it and acquire ence are all key parts of a story that can- Not only did the journey from fresh- the whole truth. But when one reads the not be included in an outline, lest the out- man to senior year include characters and story, in all of its wholeness, they become line cease to be an outline. Chesterton a great amount of wonderful personali- aware of the truth and beauty of the book. Academy is not an outline. The curricu- ties (students and teachers alike) but the The balance between treatise and story was lum tells a story which, when experienced, proportions of one’s story throughout the well done. It had what was missing: all the is a journey to Christ, the Everlasting Man. Chesterton journey became perfectly bal- proportions of the story were correct. Only It is true that Christ’s story is the greatest anced. My class began four years of excel- at the end of the Chesterton Academy ad- story ever told. It is so true that it sounds lent literature with the Iliad, the Odyssey, venture was the story correctly propor- annoying. The perfect balance between and the Aeneid. We started off with the tioned, and having that realization at the story and abstract ideas, supper and sac- myths. end of the journey caused another reali- rifice, justice and mercy, faith and reason, These are the greatest of the pa- zation that it had been a journey, indeed. is there in Christ’s story and it is there in gan works, and “the last man left alive The Everlasting Man brought it all His Faith. It is a balance between two dif- would do well to quote the Iliad and die”. around full-circle. Everything was inte- ferent ways of hunting for truth. Stories But there is lacking a sense of reality, of grated, throughout my four years spent and poems all have this element of that truth. These poems are beautiful. But they there; but only at the end of the story were search for truth. This is the same for phi- are lacking of faith, and therefore reali- the proportions exactly correct. My time at losophy; from Socrates to Rousseau, there ty. Sophomore year brought The Song of Chesterton Academy was not simply prog- is a search for truth in a different way. Roland, Beowulf, and Death of Arthur. The ress; it was an adventure. “The life of man Without Catholicism, one is pushed one proportions still were not correct. In ju- is a story; and in our vision the same is true way or the other: “Will you be with the nior year: Dante’s Divine Comedy, A Man even of the story of God”. gods, or will you pit against them with for All Seasons. The story was there, and

10 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 MISCELLANY OF MEN accurately charted than in the works of any modern novelist or playwright. You can learn more about human nature by reading Constantly Increasing the Bible than by living in New York. Phelps was also Chestertonian in love of smoking, expressing gratitude to G.K.C. Gusto and Excitement for helping the Baptist minister’s son exor- William Lyon Phelps, 1865-1943 cise the sense that smoking (and drinking) were sinful. “But that smoking in itself and By David P. Deavel for the average person should have a fla- vour of wickedness is unfortunate; it con- ore than eight decades af- the books, so to speak, and after a few fuses standards of morals and actually ter Chesterton drew large years had passed, Yale named him the makes some people who enjoy smoking crowds and persistent at- Lampson Professor of English in 1901, feel that they are indulging in secret vice.” tention from writers he re- a position he would hold until retiring This sophisticated yet sincere faith mains a figure quoted, read, in 1933. Phelps taught and wrote about was enough to earn the Yale professor studied, and prayed to. Fame American, English, European, and spe- and popular lecturer invitation to preach Min one’s lifetime is no guarantee of post- cifically Russian authors. His Essays on at the Huron City Methodist Episcopal mortem remembrance. Many probably Russian Authors (1911) was an influen- Church during the summers starting thought the fame of Chesterton’s friend tial introduction of Americans to Tolstoy, in 1922. Phelps’s popular afternoon ser- William Lyon Phelps would Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. mons eventually drew a thousand peo- last. An endowed chair at Yale Though a New ple per Sunday. Twice enlarged, the little University voted professor of the Englander, Phelps was a church finally seated six hundred people, year by the students many times, childhood friend of Frank with four hundred more, according to the a prolific journalist who wrote Hubbard, son of the lumber preacher’s notes, in the aisles or outside literary essays for the prominent baron Langdon Hubbard, the windows. magazines of the day and a syn- who had founded Huron Phelps’s popularity was likely due dicated column called “The Daily City, Michigan. After Phelps to Chestertonian wit. A Yale student Thought,” and a speaker who and Langdon’s daugh- turned in a final exam where a discus- lectured nationally and interna- ter Annabel were engaged, sion of Hopkins’s sprung rhythm was tionally, Phelps, like Chesterton, Langdon died, leaving his to be analyzed, answering, “Only God could measure his audience in the mil- daughter the family house in Huron City. knows the answer to your question. Merry lions. In 1938 he was profiled in Life maga- Like the Chestertons, Billy and Annabel Christmas.” Phelps’s post-yule paper com- zine under the title of “America’s Foremost had no children but were happily mar- ments read, “Happy New Year. God gets Promoter of the Humanities.” Sadly, few ried. Like Chesterton he had a romantic an A—you get an F.” His sympathy and today remember or read him. streak that connected not just to the feel- likeness to Chesterton were more strongly Phelps was the son of Sylvanus ings but the will. “Marriage is a fine and linked to their common interests, literary Dryden Phelps, a Baptist minister with a sacred thing,” he wrote, “if you make it so.” views, and optimistic faith. Phelps loved genealogy stretching back into the early The two spent many of their summers in literature—including nonsense poetry Massachusetts Bay Colony. A gifted ath- Michigan at the inherited home, which and detective fiction—and Christianity. lete, young Billy (as he was known in the the scholar of American literature had He wished to host dinner parties in the family) excelled in lawn tennis, golf, and quickly named “The House of the Seven afterlife “where Hardy and Chesterton the new sensation: baseball. After gradu- Gables” in homage to Hawthorne. could discuss literature and G.K.C. could ating from Yale in 1887 with a B.A. and A pious man, Phelps’s Christian be- say, ‘I told you so. . . ’” And he emulated an honors thesis on the idealist philoso- lief was integrated with his literary sensi- Chesterton’s Christian spirit, so marked pher George Berkeley, Phelps received bilities in a Chestertonian appreciation of by “an extraordinary kindness, a certain a master’s degree from Harvard and a Scripture’s drama. In Human Nature in the gentleness, a consideration for others, that Ph.D. in literature from Yale. After one Bible (1922), Phelps wrote: went with his masculine vitality. He nev- year at Harvard, Phelps was appointed to er lost what Browning called ‘the faculty the English faculty at Yale where he be- I thoroughly believe in a university edu- of wonder.’ He never outgrew his zest for gan teaching a course on contemporary cation for both men and women; but I be- life.” American authors that became the most lieve a knowledge of the Bible without a Nor did Phelps. Though life’s joy some- subscribed class on campus. Due to aca- college course is more valuable than a col- times flagged, “As I advance deeper into demic envy of the national and interna- lege course without the Bible. For in the the vale of years, I live with constantly in- tional attention he was receiving, Phelps Bible we have profound thought beau- creasing gusto and excitement. . . . I am was forced to stop teaching the class of- tifully expressed; we have the nature of an optimist because I believe in God.” ficially. He continued to teach it off boys and girls, of men and women, more Annabel died in 1939 and Billy in 1943.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 11 ROLLING ROAD privileged look at the Cathedral Treasury. He took us through the tunnel under the city, and to the pharmacy owned by Dante’s grandson. Of course.

✦ ✦ Tetiana Stawnychy, who, in spite of that name, is an American. Her parents are from the Ukraine, but she lives in Too Much History for Washington DC, and works for the USCCB directing aid to the Churches of Central Such a Small Place and Eastern Europe. She happened to be in Zagreb at just the right time, because By Dale Ahlquist she got a full dose of Chesterton.

✦ here are 4 million people in a blacksmith in Croatia. He makes medi- ✦ A person who goes by the moniker Croatia. There are almost that eval armor. Of course. He is writing the “Rus meister” and would prefer that I do many Croatians in the rest of first Chesterton biography in Croatian. not use his real name because he is both the world. It has been ruled an American and a Russian and there- ✦ ✦ A remarkable woman named Ksenija by Austria, Venice, Hungary, fore falls under dual-suspicion. He has Abramović. She once ran a successful fi- Turkey, Germany, Russia, and translated The Superstition of Divorce into nancial software company but put her a few earthquakes. 25 years Russian because he understands, as did entire fortune into running the Croatian ago, in the Homeland War, it won its GKC, that the plague of divorce will, be- T Catholic television station, Laudate sides ripping a family apart, rip a civili- independence, and now rules itself. It TV, whose motto is “Good Changes is a new country that is very old. Even zation apart. Everything.” And she is living example though that makes it ripe for paradox, I ✦ of that. ✦ Arnaud Fabre, a lawyer from France, never could have imagined that so many who speaks perfect English with what people from the new generation would ✦ ✦ Stjepan Androić, who has never vis- sounded like Cockney accent—learned be drawn to G.K. Chesterton. But in May, ited an English-speaking country, but it in a Catholic school in France. He is I was invited to speak at the first annu- who is studying philology and reading new to Chesterton but wanted to come al “ChestFest” co-hosted by the Croatian Chesterton, and is a professional official on behalf of the Chesterton Society from Chesterton Klub and the Philosophy tour guide in Zagreb. He can’t be more France. Department of the University of Zagreb. than 21 years old. He led us through the ✦ Ivo Džeba started the Croatian historic Cathedral, which included a ✦ And then there was my host Nikola Chesterton Klub. He had translated walk up a winding stone staircase for a Bolec, who presently runs the Croatian some Chesterton essays and posted them on his blog. The blog developed a large following, and soon a group of people started meeting at a local pub, named for Tolkien. Of course. They were all in their 20’s and 30’s. Ivo went on to translate The Everlasting Man and Orthodoxy . Like me, Ivo was introduced to Chesterton with The Everlasting Man . When he first read it, he did not understand it, but he thought, “I’m going to keep going till I understand it.” I told him that when I first read it, I knew I didn’t understand it, but I also knew that I wanted more. He said, “Yes! That’s exactly it!” Because we both had the fortitude to finish the book, it led to us meeting each other in Zagreb—and to everything else that happened that week. And he was only one in a cast of fascinating characters that included: ✦ ✦ Ivan Dadić, who spends half his year as a sailor in the Caribbean and half as Church of St. Mark, from the 13th Century

12 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 Rolling Road

Chesterton Klub, and was the chief or- with simply a date inscribe on it: July 1, ganizer of the conference. He’s 26, speaks 2013. Without thinking, I asked, “What five languages, works for Laudate TV, is that: the date of independence?” where he has translated several seasons “No, the date we lost independence. of “The Apostle of Common Sense,” The date we joined the European Union.” which has certainly contributed to the There is a magnificent cemetery in growing Croatian interest in Chesterton. Zagreb, and even though I was right next He says that Croatia, because it is small, to it, there was no time to visit it. I asked because it has a widespread rural popula- Nikola, “What famous people are buried tion, because it has cast off Communism, there?” because it is has been given a fresh start, “All of them,” he answered. and because it is largely Catholic, is a The night before the conference, there perfect place for Distributism. People was a wonderful program which featured simply have to find out what it is. The traditional Croatian singing, and a dra- Conference contributed to that. He, matic recitation of Chesterton’s poetry— along with his friends, understand the in Croatian. There was also a sung ver- unimportance of politics. One of them sion of several verses from “The Ballad of told me, “If you hope for a political solu- the White Horse,” that had been arranged tion, you’ve lost hope.” by a heavy metal band from Brazil. Of Did you know that neckties course. are a Croatian invention? On the side of the city hall, there is The conference speakers included: a plaque of Nikola Tesla, who was born ✦ ✦ Robin Harris, a historian and a for- in Zagreb. Tesla had approached the city in a small place.The old city is perched mer aide to Margaret Thatcher. A con- council with a plan for using alternating on a hill, which afforded us a vista of vert from Anglicanism to Catholicism, current to create the world’s first electri- the new city, which featured some real- he has retired to Zagreb. Of course. cal street lighting system. They gave that ly horrible architecture erected during “Leaving Protestantism was not hard,” idea the big thumbs down, so he went to the Communist rule, a style known as he said, “because there wasn’t much to America, where he lit things up. Zagreb, “Socialist Realism.” But I realized that it leave.” He didn’t say if it was hard to leave in turn, put up a monument to their own was no worse than the eye-gouging in- England, but he told the conference au- failure, to the fact that they could have dustrial box-buildings erected in the 50’s dience, “If you visit England visit the been the first... They even preserved the and 60’s in America. Built to rust. beautiful churches, which were built by gaslights on the street in front of city hall. As we walked through the city Catholics. But if you want to see the com- And across the street is the “Museum square, Nikola pointed to another mon- ing religion, visit a mosque.” He was at of Broken Relationships.” Lot of failure ument. It was a modern-looking affair the conference, in part, on behalf of the

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The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 13 Rolling Road

Croatian Chesterton Klub to announce ✦ ✦ Sashya Pravikov, a poet from Russia, that it would be Chesterton that brought the new Croatian translation of The who converted to Russian Orthodoxy them together? Catholic Church and Conversion . (from nothing) because of reading GKC. Being an American in Croatia, I gave He said that when Chesterton’s work first ✦ ✦ Martine Thompson, who now runs a talk about England. Of course. As usu- appeared in Russia, it was misunder- the long dormant Chesterton Society in al, the Q & A was the best part of the talk. stood, and that turned out to be a good England. She talked about how difficult it My favorite question was “What do you thing. The Soviets allowed him to be pub- was to do a doctoral thesis on Chesterton think are the differences between Croatia lished because they did not understand in Chesterton’s own land. Her advisors and America?” him, thinking he was just another ec- belittled GKC, but they had never both- I answered that the intellectual lev- centric English writer. It was later when ered reading him. She offered a very pro- el in the U.S. is much lower than in he became well-liked by the dissidents, found reflection on Chesterton’s death- Croatia. America is a Protestant na- and his writing went underground. The bed words: “The issue is now quite clear. tion, and the Protestants all protest first meeting of the Russian Chesterton It is between light and darkness and ev- against each other. There is a saying Klub was on the 100th anniversary of ery one must choose his side.” Martine (that sounds like something Chesterton Chesterton’s birth in 1974. It was attend- said that Chesterton said this not for would say) that in America, even the ed by Catholic priests, Orthodox priests, himself, but for us. He had long before Catholics are Protestant. But in any case, poets, writers, the dissident scientist chosen his side. But he was telling us we the Catholics in America are outsiders, Andrei Sakharov and a cat. They appoint- must choose ours. whereas in Croatia, they are the vast ma- ed the cat as chairman. Sashya is working jority. America has an inflated sense of ✦ ✦ Sister Ivana Pavla Novina, a Dominican on translating “The Ballad of the White its own history, whereas Croatia has “too nun who is writing her doctoral disserta- Horse” into Russian, and in the mean- much history for such a small place.” And tion. She sang Chesterton’s praises for his time has written a Chestertonian poem, American culture is largely borrowed understanding of philosophy: “You can’t “The Ballad of the Toy Horse.” from other places, whereas Croatia truly get the theology right if you don’t get the ✦ ✦ Marco Sermarini, my Italian counter- has its own home-grown, deeply-rooted philosophy right.” Naturally, she appreci- part, who lives just across the Adriatic and fruitful culture. Unfortunately, what ated GKC’s book on her fellow Dominican, from Croatia. “From my hills, I can see is uniquely American is imported every- St. Thomas Aquinas, but she took a very your outer islands,” he told them. “I where else, and all the worst elements fresh approach, arguing that Orthodoxy is have been curious to meet my Croatian from America have shown up in Croatia. a microcosm of the Summa Theologica. neighbors.” Who would have believed For example, I was walking through the Nikola Bolec

14 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 Rolling Road

very international center of Zagreb, and probably be opened this fall. Then he and profound. They want to start an in- I saw a bar called “My Way” with a logo went on to describe him as a perfect ex- ternational summer school in one of the of Frank Sinatra plastered all over it. Is ample of someone who was in the world coastal towns. I don’t see what is going that the best thing we can give Croatia? but not of the world, which tied nicely to stop them. Frank Sinatra? into the Gospel reading. I was talking to two young men in The next day was Sunday, and the For the offertory, the choir sang “O their late 20’s, and I said how on the conferees attended Mass at a very large God of Earth and Altar”. one hand I can understand their at- old beautiful church in the heart of Then before the final blessing, the -en traction to Chesterton because he talks Zagreb. Place was packed. The choir tire congregation prayed for Chesterton’s about universal things—faith and fami- sang a Mass by Gounod. The priest was intercession and that the Church would ly and freedom—and it is perhaps those the Provincial General of the Jesuits in beatify him. things that are especially appreciated af- Croatia. His entire homily was about The Mass was broadcast on Croatian ter their country has just been through a G.K. Chesterton. Hit all the right national radio. war to overthrow Communism, but on points: his humor, his cigars, his hu- I’ve never seen, never could have the other hand it is still surprising to me mility. He talked about Orthodoxy and imagined anything like it anywhere. that they are drawn to Chesterton when The Everlasting Man and Father Brown, Afterwards, about 15 of us went out Chesterton has no connection with his defense of common sense, his mys- to the countryside, amidst rolling vine- Croatia at all. ticism, his conversion, the fact that he yards, for a barbecue. We had homemade One of them said, “We are Notting makes converts and that people return wine, cheese, sausage, and bread, and Hill.” to the Church because of reading him, long discussions about Chesterton and And the other said, “Yes, and we are and that his Cause for Beatification will culture. Everyone was witty and joyful not going to let our street be taken.”

The Bible ✦ ✦ The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and book in the witness-box and ask it what it really means. The also to love our enemies; probably because they Fundamentalist controversy itself destroys Fundamentalism. are generally the same people. (Illustrated London The Bible by itself cannot be a basis of agreement when it is a News, October 7, 1911) cause of disagreement; it cannot be the common ground of Christians when some take it allegorically and some literally. ✦ ✦ Men do not believe in Original Sin because they believe The Catholic refers it to something that can say something, in the the Book of Genesis. They are ready to believe in the to the living, consistent, and continuous mind of which I Book of Genesis, because they already believe in Original Sin. have spoken; the highest mind of man guided by God. (“Why (Illustrated London News, Sept. 18, 1920) I am a Catholic”) ✦ ✦ Legends and jokes and journalistic allusions are read into ✦ ✦ We read in the greatest of texts that God is Love, but we do the Bible by people who have not read the Bible. (Illustrated not read anywhere that God is Sentimentalism. (Daily News, London News, April 20, 1929) July 19, 1901) ✦ ✦ The one standing probability is the probability of becom- ✦ ✦ There is something compact and contented in the thought ing a cowardly hypocrite. The circle of the traitors is the that the best blasphemy is in the Bible. (New Witness, July 5, lowest of the abyss, and it is also the easiest to fall into. That 1917) is one of the ringing realities of the Bible, that it does not make its great men commit grand sins; it makes its great ✦ ✦ Praise, which was recognised in the Bible as the univer- men (such as David and St. Peter) commit small sins and be- sal thing, is almost always right; it is always better criticism have like sneaks. (“Later Life and Works,” Charles Dickens) to admire a snake for having all the colours of the rainbow than to despise it for not having two legs. Critics would al- ✦ ✦ The English Bible [is] something like the big bones of most always be right if they would only refrain from being English Literature. (Illustrated London News, July 28, 1917) critical. (Daily News, June 26, 1901) ✦ ✦ Men of science have quarrelled with the Bible because ✦ ✦ Nothing has had so much terrible and transcenden- it is not based upon the true astronomical system, but it is tal power over men as something written which they have certainly open to the orthodox to say that if it had been it not read; there is no book like the sealed book. The Bible would never have convinced anybody. (“A Defence of Planets,” plays that part for many; for others the Koran; for others the The Defendant) Origin of Species; for others the Capital of Karl Marx. (New ✦ ✦ The Catholic Church… does not, in the convention- Witness, Jan. 13, 1922) al phrase, believe what the Bible says, for the simple rea- ✦ ✦ Every book of poems ought to be as contradictory as the son that the Bible does not say anything. You cannot put a Bible. (Daily News, Sept. 13, 1901)

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 15 THE GOLDEN KEY CHAIN looked on all things and saw that they GKC on Scripture • Conducted by Peter Floriani were good” contains a subtlety which the popular pessimist cannot follow, or is too hasty to notice. It is the thesis that Genesis 1:1. In the beginning God creat- William Blake would have been the there are no bad things, but only bad ed heaven and earth . first to understand that the biography uses of things. If you will, there are no of anybody ought really to begin with bad things but only bad thoughts; and es- Nobody can imagine how nothing could the words, “In the beginning God creat- pecially bad intentions. Only Calvinists turn into something. Nobody can get an ed heaven and earth.” If we were telling can really believe that hell is paved with inch nearer to it by explaining how some- the story of Mr. Jones of Kentish Town, good intentions. That is exactly the one thing could turn into something else. It we should need all the centuries to ex- thing it cannot be paved with. But it is is really far more logical to start by say- plain it. We cannot comprehend even the possible to have bad intentions about ing “In the beginning God created the name “Jones,” until we have realised that good things; and good things, like the heavens and the earth” even if you only its commonness is not the commonness world and the flesh have been twisted by mean “In the beginning some unthink- of vulgar but of divine things; for its very a bad intention called the devil. But he able power began some unthinkable pro- commonness is an echo of the adoration cannot make things bad; they remain as cess.” For God is by its nature a name of of St. John the Divine. (William Blake) on the first day of creation. The work of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that heaven alone was material; the making Genesis 1:31. And God saw all the things man could imagine how a world was cre- of a material world. The work of hell is that He had made, and they were very ated any more that he could create one. entirely spiritual. (“A Meditation on the good . And the evening and morning were But evolution really is mistaken for ex- Manichees,” St . Thomas Aquinas) the sixth day . planation. It has the fatal quality of leav- Genesis 2:18. And the Lord God said: ing on many minds the impression that To understand the medieval controversy, It is not good for man to be alone: let us they do understand it and everything [about the Manichees and the dualism of make him a help like unto himself . else; just as many of them live under a good and evil, especially touching mate- sort of illusion that they have read the rial (real) existing things] a word must The heart of humanity, especially of Origin of Species. (“The Man in the Cave,” be said of the Catholic doctrine, which European humanity, is certainly much The Everlasting Man) is as modern as it is medieval. That “God more satisfied by the strange hints and symbols that gather round the Trinitarian idea, the image of a council at which mercy pleads as well as justice, the conception of a sort of liberty and variety existing even in the inmost chamber of the world. For Western religion has always felt keenly the idea “it is not well for man to be alone.” The social instinct asserted itself everywhere as when the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks. So even asceticism became brotherly; and the Trappists were sociable even when they were silent. If this love of a living complexity be our test, it is certainly healthier to have the Trinitarian religion than the Unitarian. For to us Trinitarians (if I may say it with reverence) – to us God Himself is a society. It is indeed a fathomless mystery of theology, and even if I were theologian enough to deal with it directly, it would not be relevant to do so here. Suffice it to say here that this triple enigma is as com- forting as wine and open as an English fireside; that this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart: but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of

16 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 The Golden Key Chain the lonely God; the real Unitarians who appearance whereby all species melt slavery of women. Millions and millions with scimitar in hand have laid waste into each other. This is probably what of people in Asia, who had never even the world. For it is not well for God to was meant by Adam naming the ani- heard of the Bible, had a universal tra- be alone. (“The Romance of Orthodoxy,” mals. (“The Way to the Stars,”Lunacy dition of sex inequality. The Greeks and Orthodoxy) and Letters) Romans, when they were Pagans, had it in a form more humanised than this, but Genesis 2:19. And the Lord God having Genesis 2:21-23. Then the Lord God much more hardened than when they formed out of the ground all the beasts of the cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when were Christians. The truth is that the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought he was fast asleep, He took one of his ribs, Christian tradition is rather unique, in them to Adam to see what he would call and filled up flesh for it . And the Lord God so far that it does say that the same mo- them: for whatsoever Adam called any liv- built the rib which he took from Adam rality applies to men as to women; while ing creature the same is its name . into a woman: and brought her to Adam . human nature as a whole has almost al- And Adam said: This now is bone of my In a word, I should find certainty, or con- ways relaxed it in favour of men. A work- bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be viction, or dogma, which is the thing that ing model of this may be found in such called woman, because she was taken out belongs to man only, and which, if you exceptional things as the Vestal Virgins. of man . take it away from him, will not leave him Paganism did in a sense have nuns; but it even a man. For it is the whole business Parsons and priests and people who read did not in the same sense have monks. I of humanity in this world to deny evo- the Bible have somehow or other artifi- think the matter worthy of note, because lution, to make absolute distinctions, to cially created the legend that woman is there are several other moral questions take a pen and draw round certain ac- the slave of man, as Eve was the rib of about which the same mistake is made. tions a line that nature does not recog- Adam. As a matter of fact, the very oppo- The Church is made responsible for nise; to take a pencil and draw round the site is the truth. Ordinary human beings, saying what the world had always said, human face a black line that is not there. especially heathen human beings, when and only the Church had ever ques- I repeat, it is the business of the divine left to themselves, tend far too much to tioned. (Illustrated London News, Nov. 4, human reason to deny that evolutionary things like slavery, and especially the 1922)

Chesterton for Today, Biblical Edition ✦ ✦ There is a mass of fiction and fashionable talk of which it may truly be said, that what we miss in it is not demons but ✦ ✦ There are those who deny with enthusiasm the existence of the power to cast them out. It combines the occult with the a God and are happy in a hobby which they call the Mistakes obscene; the sensuality of materialism with the insanity of of Moses. I have not studied their labours in detail, but it spiritualism. In the story of Gadara we have left out noth- seems that the chief mistake of Moses was that he neglect- ing except the Redeemer, we have kept the devils ed to write the Pentateuch. The lesser errors, ap- and the swine. (“The Battle with the Dragon,” The parently were not made by Moses, but by an- New Jerusalem) other person equally unknown. (“Pickwick ✦ ✦ The devil can quote Scripture Papers,” Appreciations) for his purpose; and the text of ✦ ✦ It is the vanities that consume and Scripture which he now most the feeble things that we fight in commonly quotes is, ‘The vain. (Illustrated London News, Aug. 24, kingdom of heaven is with- 1912) in you.’ (“The Spirit of America,” What I Saw in America) ✦ ✦ Primitive scriptures describe a man as happy under his own vine ✦ ✦ We live in an age in which and fig tree, or in not coveting his the justification of Judas Is- neighbor’s ox or ass. This implies cariot has become quite a that a normal neighbour may pos- hackneyed piece of sentiment sess an ox or a vine. (Manchester Evening for the films.( Illustrated London News, May 8, 1936) News, Oct. 28, 1933)

✦ ✦ It is a true and tremendous text in Scripture ✦ ✦ Men had to tear up their own scrolls which says that “where there is no vision the peo- and scriptures, and break the stone tables of ple perish.” But it is equally true in practice that where there the own tribal laws, before they could reach the su- is no people the visions perish. (“The Philosophy of Sight-Seeing,” preme and mystical blasphemy of the murder of their own Alarms and Discursions) Maker. (Introduction to The Betrayal)

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 17 The Floriani Collection NON-FICTION: 11. A Scholium to S. L. Jaki’s Science and 1. An Introduction to Heraldry. Heraldry is both Creation. A guide and extension of this important art (the arms, the coloured drawing) and science work of S. L. Jaki, prolific historian of science and (the blazon, the verbal specification of the arms). a Chestertonian. Learn what “Argent a cross gules” means. 12. A Chestertonian’s Vade Mecum. A go-with- 2. An Introduction to Logic. Logic is where the me to introduce and aid Chestertonians of every Trivium meets modern technology: words, the two sort. Learn how to say Plakkopytrixophylisperam- great branches, errors, the Argument. Learn how bulatiobatrix. “Logic works by Barbara.” 13. A Golden Key Chain. Over 300 excerpts 3. An Introduction to the History of the where GKC quotes, paraphrases, comments on, Hospital. A tour through two millennia of mercy or extends Holy Scripture. An echo of the Catena motivated by the Last Judgement. Learn how Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas. Medicine, the greatest of all engineering fields And for those with deeper interest in computing, (science applied to human needs) is founded in and the “Case Studies in Computer Science” series: by Christianity and the Virtues. 14. The Problem With “Problem-Solving 4. Subsidiarity. A brief history of this great Skills”. Can you name any problem-solving skill? principle of Catholic Social Teaching, its meaning Here are a number of those really used by a com- and method, demonstrated by its application in a puter scientist. You’ll start by baking some bread. system used by cable TV for more than five years. 15. Free the Wild Monoid! What is a monoid, 5. A Twenty-first Century Tree of Virtues. Learn hard jobs like fighting fires. Time passes and these and why ought they be free? How the mathematics young men are confronted with enemies of unpar- about this famous graphical representation of the underlying the making of a word underlies molecu- complete realm of human knowledge, alleled wickedness, even as they meet unexpected lar biology, and how computers and powerful allies. The challenge of a millionaire’s virtue, and action, with an can help. updated version. encrypted legacy, a brutal and wealthy egotist, 16. How the Popes Assisted and the astonishing invention of an unbreakable 6. A Guide to the Am- [a certain company] with Ad tactical language set the stage for some of them brosian University. How Insertion Software for Ca- to enter college, where they will encounter riddles a school should implement ble TV. The companion book pointing to a long-hidden treasure. When the the Tree of Virtues and to Subsidiarity, providing the three become four, solve a strange Petrine Proverb Newman’s books on the technical details left out of puzzle, grow in virtue, fight evil, and complete their University. It is not so much that one. challenges, they become knights, who must now fiction as a real-world plan 17. Sometimes... (from Habi- restore the treasure to its rightful owner – a task in for the future. Watch an which they will go on an unbelievable journey with intramural Gype game! tation of Chimham Publishing Company) Some unexpected an even more unbelievable companion. 7. Laboratory of the insights into the famous and 2. Short story collections: Gospels: the Rosary. Lab difficult Travelling Salesman a. Quayment Short Stories notes from a scientist who Problem. investigates this famous b. More Quayment Short Stories hand-held instrument for 18. 223,092,870. A bit of fun c. I Will Lift Up My Eyes with primes and an exposure exploring the Gospel. d. Too Classified to Name of the new fad called Quantum Computing as a A number of more-or-less independent tales provid- 8. Science and the Gospel. Over one hundred YANE (Yet Another Naked Emperor). terms from the Gospel, examined in their usage ing background to the Saga. and their underlying science. Learn why the mus- FICTION: 3. Joe the Control Room Guy. An adventure/ tard seed is so astounding. 1. The Saga DE BELLIS STELLARUM. (a multiple mystery novel, a partial and faint echo of Sayers’s 9. The Paradoxes of Man. A visiting xenobiol- volume series, presently 13 installments) A tale Murder Must Advertise, but transposed into ogist tries to answer Psalm 8’s question about a of the battle between Light and Darkness, and the a modern setting while touring the real world strange creature which inhabits the third planet of return of chivalry through the founding of a modern underlying Subsidiarity. It also provides some Old Sol. Also examines the gifts and the paradoxes Order of Knights. background to the Saga. of that being. Knights? Why knights in this modern day and age? ————————————————— 10. Chasubles and Lab Coats. Short biographies Because somebody has to do the hard jobs. Expect GKC to show up here and there and every- of two popes, four bishops, and twenty priests who A nine-year-old boy inherits the burden of a where. were also scientists. Learn which saint is men- plan devised more than 150 years ago. Three broth- tioned in the great CRC Handbook of Chemistry NOTE: All Floriani works are presently available ers in high school commit themselves to doing and Physics. through Amazon. The Golden Key Chain

The Old Testament ✦ ✦ The Ark was antediluvian, only possibly symbolic character of some of the divine oracles. It it managed to be postdiluvian was not until the Bible was distributed loosely that it was tak- also. (Illustrated London News, Jan. 17, 1925) en literally. (G.K.’s Weekly, April 13, 1929)

✦ ✦ It would be as easy as anything in the easiest of trades, ✦ ✦ There are no theories in the Old Testament. The concep- to show that Mr. Blatchford is not an evolutionist. It would tion that gives a grand artistic unity to the Hebrew books, the be easy to show that he is treating the Bible with a degree conception of a great and mysterious protagonist toiling amid of sanctified specialism that no Christian ever dreamed of: cloud and darkness towards an end of which only fragments that he is not reading it as an educated man reads a piece of primitive Pagan literature. It would be easy to show that the are revealed to his agents, has no counterpart in Milton. The thought at the back of his mind is not the thought that the “With whom hath he taken counsel?” of the prophet is not Bible was not inspired by God, but the thought that it was there: the God of the Old Testament never explains himself not inspired by man; the thought of the fine old Gnostics, intellectually; the God of Milton never does anything else. who held that the Old Testament was written by the Devil. The much-quoted object “to justify the ways of God to men” (Daily News, Nov. 14, 1903) would have appeared mere ridiculous blasphemy to Isaiah. ✦ ✦ Some of the finest passages in the Bible are This sublime Jewish sentiment of the loneliness its furniture catalogues. It is, when one of God (“I have trodden the wine-press comes to think of it, a truly extraordi- alone and of the peoples there was no nary thing that the Old Testament man with me”) is perpetually vio- should have been so peculiarly the lated in Milton, whose Deity is text book of Puritans when one always clearing Himself from considers that it blazed from charges as if He were at the one end to the other with in- toxicating jewels and is more Old Bailey. The least super- bewilderingly beautiful than stitious of us can feel the the Arabian Nights. In that thrill of the elemental faith sacred and sustained song of the Jews, can imagine a of all things even the inven- voice thundering out of the tory clerks are poets. This sky in mysterious wrath or wholesome luxury is no sin more mysterious benedic- against the simplicity which is tion. But who can help laugh- the backbone of Hebraism, for it is not a mark of simplicity to be in- ing at the idea of a voice out of different to magnificence. It is a very the midnight sky suddenly begin- difficult and generally artificial subtlety. ning to explain itself and set right an It may be , as some maintain, wicked to re- unfortunate misunderstanding? (Speaker, joice in the lustre and value of materials, but it is, Dec 15, 1900) certainly a direct and inevitable result of becoming as a little child. (Daily News, Sept. 17, 1901) ✦ ✦ Why should Hebraism be regarded as the expression of a dark self-effacement; why should the Hebrews be regarded ✦ ✦ The whole apocalyptic pageantry with which the Old as a gloomy people? They danced openly with delight in the Testament opens, the stories that men can never forget even when they disbelieve, have quite recently been largely jus- goodness of God; the key-word of the Old Testament from tified as matters of belief. I despair of trying to explain to beginning to end is the word “joy.” Their sacred books blaze the school of Mr. H. G. Wells or Mr. Arnold Bennett the el- with gold and jewels just as they blaze with elemental grati- ementary facts about the history of Catholic belief in these tude and pleasure. They believe, more openly and professedly times. They themselves apparently began by being Baptists than any people has believed, in the primal fertilities, in the in Little Bethel; and nothing will ever persuade them that all fact that the corn and the orchard are the signals of the ulti- Christians did not begin by being Baptists in Little Bethel. mate beneficence, in the fact that children and the fruit of the It is in vain to tell them of the staring outstanding historical womb are a heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord. They facts; that the Catholic Church existed before there was any declared that God called all things good, the most stupen- Bible; that the Catholic Church decided what books were a part of the Bible; that the very earliest Catholic theologians, dously daring thing that any people has ever said. (Speaker, like St. Augustine, admitted from the first the mysterious and Dec 28, 1901)

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 19 ALL IS GRIST know as Baal, the Lord. The Romans did not at first quite know what to call him or what to make of him; they had to go back to the grossest myth of Greek or Roman origins and compare him to Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch were not gross or primitive. They were members of The New War of Gods a mature and polished civilization, abounding in refinements and luxuries; and Demons they were probably far more civilised than the Romans. And Moloch was not By Jack Baruzzini a myth; or at any rate his meal was not a myth. n May 26, 2018, Ireland vot- and Catholic identity. The repeal is be- The new Carthage of the culture ed by referendum to repeal ing hailed as Ireland shedding the archa- of Death is sweeping across the world; the 8th amendment of the ic and stifling bonds of Catholicism and Hannibal is crossing the Alps. Where Irish Constitution that pro- embracing a civilized modernism in line then is Rome? Where then is Scipio tected the life of the unborn with the rest of Europe. Africanus with his legions in a desperate child in the womb. While it There is a new War on of Gods and battle for the soul of civilization? It is in Ois disheartening, it is hardly a surprising Demons, but this war is not new, and the the New Rome of the Church, and all of turn of events. Ireland has been moving demons of utilitarianism are as old as the its members are called to stand against in a “progressive” direction for years, and ruins of Carthage. As Chesterton wrote what seem to be overwhelming odds. the Church in Ireland, rather than light- in chapter seven of The Everlasting Man: Chesterton prophesied the Culture ing bonfires on the hill of Slane in defi- of Death. He also prophesied its defeat. ...the god who got things done bore ance of the druids, has been tepid and But, of course, that prophecy is also in the name of Moloch, who was perhaps non-confrontational in confronting the the Bible. The last enemy to be defeated identical with the other deity whom we country’s slide from traditional morality is death.

in the post. It bears that element of sur- The Wonder of Mail prise, which is almost the deepest of our spiritual concepts.” It is noteworthy that Charlotte Ostermann Nietzsche despised letters: “A letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the sn’t mail a marvel? That someone amplifies the freedom of that act by the agent of rude surprises,” said he. This ex- is tasked with the solemn duty of exercise of freedom in reciprocity. This is plains a lot about his refusal of God’s on- conveying your thoughts to me! glorious stuff! The stuff, in fact, that free- going surprise. That for pennies my missive flies dom is made of. C.S. Lewis, in the essay On Stories, to you through an unseen net- Letter-writing is a dance that accom- speaks of the surprise made possible by work of hands, scales, sorting ma- modates two paces that may be quite dif- re-readings: chines, rolling bins, airplanes and ferent, yet generates a rhythm of its own. Itrucks! And against what odds!?! Mail Correspondence, if you can bear it, is a It is the quality of unexpectedness, not arrives despite thick, thin, rain, wind, delightful and demanding game, played the fact that delights us….Knowing that hail, gnashing teeth, pilfering paws, gas over time and space between persons the ‘surprise’ is coming we can now ful- prices and competition from private who recognize that they cohere some- ly relish the fact … We do not enjoy a enterprise. where beyond time and space—a game story fully at the first reading. Not till I so envy Jane Austen’s ladies their for supernatural giants, in a way. Letters the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, Morning and Evening Posts. What a de- drop into chronos from another moment has been given its sop and laid asleep, licious wait it can be (pace Marianne) for as much as they drop into a mailbox from are we at leisure to savour the real beau- the favor of a reply. Ah, response! Beyond another place. ties….The children understand this well the wonders of its physical delivery lies Fr. Schall enjoys the surprise of let- when they ask for the same story over the profound mystery at the core of mail: ters. In The Unseriousness of Human and over again, and in the same words. correspondence. I utter, you respond; Affairs he writes, “The letter comes un- They want to have again the ‘surprise’ … you invite, I respond. We act and a person expectedly some morning or afternoon It is better when you know it is coming:

20 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 All is Grist

✦ ✦ When a man is discuss- sheep—” “What man of you, having a son—” These are The New Testament ing what Jesus meant, let him the utterances of a Divine equality. (The Speaker, April 12, 1902) state first of all what He said, ✦ ✦ They say that because the books of the New Testament not what the man thinks He would have said if he had ex- may have been tampered with, we know not to what extent, pressed Himself more clearly. (“Tolstoy and the Cult of Simplicity, we must, therefore, surrender altogether a series of utter- Varied Types) ances which every rational person has admitted to strike ✦ ✦ The ethics of the Middle Ages were at one with the eth- the deepest note of the human spirit. (The Bookman, July, 1902) ics of the New Testament on this important point; that they ✦ ✦ St. Paul says that when he became a man he put away understood the idea of the Pharisee. The saint without hu- childish things; and, with all reverence, I think it is perhaps mility is the devil. (Daily News, Feb. 3, 1906) one reason why popular Christian tradition has preferred ✦ ✦ The essence of Christianity was in a literal sense the New St. Peter. (New Witness, Oct. 28, 1921) Testament—a covenant with God which opened to men a ✦ ✦ The obligation of wealth is to chuck it. But the tale of this clear deliverance. (“ Defence of Humility,” The Defendant) very sensible test is not to be studied in the New Witness, ✦ ✦ No one can read the great sayings of the New Testament but in the New Testament. (New Witness, Oct. 14, 1915) without feeling that they are dominated by an appeal to a ✦ ✦ The New Testament is new forever.( Illustrated London News, cosmic common sense. Their characteristic note is a rea- Nov. 12, 1932) sonable surprise. “What man of you having a hundred

free from the shock of actual surprise world of the writers through the breezy of Real Letters, of co-respond-ing itself you can attend better to the intrinsic intimacy of their letters? It may be un- that thrills me. Email cannot compare, surprisingness of the peripeteiea. fair to peek, but they did create such win- though it may aspire (and, at its best, may dows to lure us! accomplish a great deal). It lacks the hu- G.K. Chesterton was known for his The details of their particular mo- man touch, the beat of the heart, the childlike delight in that ‘sudden rever- ment and surroundings welcome us to stain of tea and tears. The email is na- sal of fortune,’ whether it came in the kairos as we—later, elsewhere—enter in. ked! Gone the envelope with its doodles, form of the sun’s rising (again!), of the The intrusion of little quotidian reali- last-minute P.P.P.P.S., the message “God Incarnation, or of a letter from a beloved ties, and allusions to background mate- Bless Our Postal Workers!”, the lipstick friend. His and Lewis’s correspondence rial taken for granted as known, weaves a kiss, the enclosures of tea bags, confetti, was voluminous and decidedly burden- fabric that wraps readers into their world. pressed flowers and such, and the stamp some, but there was something about the The hint that much more could be said which, chosen well, may be one last mes- men that continued to respond to the call is provocative. There may be much more sage in itself. of duty inherent even in the most un- said between the lines than in them. The Real Letters are not likely to catch promising letters. For Lewis, the biggest free use of the ellipsis makes me feel I’m on again in a big way with people who surprise may have been meeting his fu- in a real conversation…one that may ac- feel burdened by duty, uncomfortable ture wife through this faithfulness. For tually be possible in eternity. with complete sentences, impressed by Chesterton, it may have meant writ- Fr. Hardon particularly emphasized speed and efficiency, impatient for re- ing fewer books, but choosing the bet- the importance of writing letters for the sults; who read a message or book only ter part over and over again—to multi- development of writers. “The writing once, and who just don’t get the point ply the freedom of others by this exercise apostolate…must include the writing of because letters, like persons, do not of his own. letters, not only to those who have writ- have a point. With people ‘of the Word,’ Sadly, the expected surprise, though ten to us, but especially to those from who however, there is hope of rekindling re- it always delights us children, is out of fa- we have never received a letter, and who gard for the lowly Letter and its impli- vor with publishers of ‘children’s books’ may never correspond with us in return.” cations. Literally, much is folded in to these days—linked, no doubt, to the Surely writing letters without the hope of a letter that cannot as easily be placed death-by-‘freedom’ of the practice of the consolation of response is a high and elsewhere. reciprocity. We may still experience it at magnanimous gesture of freedom. I rec- And I suppose this is good place the mailbox, waiting for the response of ommend it to Advanced Practitioners. to mention that most of the New a friend, or by re-reading saved letters on First, practice writing letters at all, to peo- Testament consists of letters. We call rainy days. Speaking of literature, corre- ple who will play with you as you develop them Epistles. But we’re reading mail spondence has gifted us with an entire your facility and voice. from St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, St. genre. Is there anything quite like episto- But—letters as literature, or min- James, and don’t forget St. Jude. lary style for granting access to the inner istry aside—it is the wonder of mail,

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 21 THE FLYING INN laws appear to be broken (but are actually fulfilled) to reveal hope—the New Home Rule at Home Testament. The second part of the book is where the rules or laws are applied to Chesterton and the Bible, Smith, the conventions are followed to the letter—the Old Testament. and the Novel Manalive During this trial, Smith is accused of breaking the last five commandments: By David Beresford murder, theft, false witness, adultery, coveting. Smith get’s acquitted because he magine standing before a drawing was how Adam saw the creatures when he strictly observed these commandments to on the wall of an art gallery amidst give them names, as they were first creat- the letter. hundreds of other drawings. You fo- ed. But of course in each moment creation The book ends at the first chapters of cus on one drawing, it is complete. is made new again because creation exists Genesis, backwards through the events of Stepping back from the wall you no- in time, and must be re-created moment the creation story (emphasis mine) from tice that the arrangements and colors by moment. his children, his wife Alice, the garden, Iof all the drawings together actually forms A common mistake, a post fall-of- the snake, his marriage, the creation of the a large image all along the wall, then look- Man way to look at reality, is as if creation creatures night and day, light, ending at the ing at the ceiling and floor you discover was a clock-like mechanism set in motion wind hovering over the waters: that the entire structure is a single large by a divine Clockmaker. This view miss- “Oh, what’s the good of talking about construction in which you, the observer, es the immediacy and truth of existence, men?” cried Mary impatiently; “why, form a part. that God chooses to continue with cre- one might as well be a lady novelist or That is how I think Chesterton writes ation each moment because it is good, it is some horrid thing. There aren’t any men. his stories; there is a large-scale narrative still good in each moment. This is how a There are no such people. There’s a man; which acts as a kind of architecture for his man alive to each moment would see real- and whoever he is he’s quite different.” novels. There is a storyline, of course, or ity, hence Manalive. . . . “Stick to the man who looks out of else it would not be a story, but Chesterton Smith’s antics throughout the first the window and tries to understand the also adds a super narrative above the main half of the novel reproduce many New world. Keep clear of the man who looks tale, one which may not be directly per- Testament themes: Smith teaches the oth- in at the window and tries to understand ceived, but which produces an atmosphere. er characters to enjoy wine as if for the first you. When poor old Adam had gone out Consider the novel Manalive . I sug- time, giving them good tasting wine after gardening (Arthur will go out gardening), gest that this book is written so that as the they expected cheap wine, Smith descends the other sort came along and wormed story unfolds it traces a path backwards down from a tree talking claiming his himself in, nasty old snake.” . . . from the New Testament, through the Old crown (his hat) which he is not wearing, Almost at the same moment lights Testament, ending at the opening scene of Smith tries to resurrect Dr. Warner, a man sprang up inside the darkened house, the Book of Genesis. This path is not as who was pronounced dead by Michael turning the two glass doors into the gar- an allegory—you cannot link each part of Moon, and he let’s others represent him den into gates of beaten gold. Manalive to specific events from the New in the kangaroo court, refusing to de- While the tempest tore the sky as testament—but it forms the shape of the fend himself when charged with questions with trumpets, window after window novel and explains much of what occurs. about his identity. And, finally, at the end was lighted up in the house within; and From this perspective the hero of the first book Smith reveals his name: before the company, broken with laughter Innocent Smith make sense, especially “Call myself something,” thundered the and the buffeting of the wind, had groped in light of Chesterton’s view that original obscure voice, shaking the tree so that their way to the house again, they saw sin caused us to look at the world as if we all its ten thousand leaves seemed to be that the great apish figure of Innocent were tired of it, that sin caused us to lose talking at once. “I call myself Roland Ol- Smith had clambered out of his own at- sight of the wonder inherent in each thing. iver Isaiah Charlemagne Arthur Hil- tic window, and roaring again and again, Smith arrives at the boarding house more debrand Homer Danton Michaelangelo “Beacon House!” whirled round his head or less known to everyone, but still a mys- Shakespeare Brakespeare—” a huge log or trunk from the wood fire be- tery figure. Instead of lecturing, Smith acts “But, manalive!” began Inglewood in low, of which the river of crimson flame out the truth that reality is immediate and exasperation. and purple smoke drove out on the deaf- wonderful. In this, he follows the didactic “That’s right! that’s right!” came with ening air. He was evident enough to have method used by Our Lord. Our Lord’s ac- a roar out of the rocking tree; “that’s my been seen from three counties; but when tions only made sense once His purpose re a l n am e .” the wind died down, and the party, at the and identity was known, these were in- top of their evening’s merriment, looked comprehensible otherwise. The first part of the book is reality act- again for Mary and for him, they were not Smith tries to present reality as if it ing out as a man alive, for whom the rules to be found. ( emphasis added) was new – as each moment is new. This of decorum, the conventions, the minor

22 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 VARIED TYPES the month from January through October “No Devil Worshipers Please ”. —G.K. CHESTERTON at 7PM. We take a break from regular meetings in November and December. In the months of November and December my wife and I usually host a Chesterton Rabbit Holes, Rabbit Thanksgiving, and a Chesterton Christmas celebration at our home. These are just fun Trails, and Drinklings social gatherings. The group also occasion- By Victoria Darkey ally has an informal meeting we call The Drinklings. Interested group members get atthew Elam is the lead- Joseph Pearce was taking a position at together for an evening of drinks and in- er of the Nashville Aquinas College here in Nashville. I sent formal conversation in between the reg- Chesterton Society. Here Mr. Pearce a note inviting him to dinner ular meeting times. We usually end up is a snippet from a recent and drinks at a local pub, which he ac- talking more about the reading selections conversation I had with cepted. During the night’s conversation, from the regular meetings, as well as lots him, where he provides he asked us why there was no Nashville of other topics. a glimpse of the fun hap- Chesterton Society, and Paul and I had VD: So, let’s talk about your meetings. Mpening in Nashville in the name of G.K no good answer. So with his encour- How many show up? Chesterton. agement, we promptly started one. Our ME: Generally, we have eight to ten peo- group began meeting in January 2015. VD: Matt, how did you discover G.K. ple at a meeting. Chesterton? VD: Who’s involved? ME: In my mid-twenties I became a Christian from an un-churched sec- ME: All types! We have a few young ular background, and met my friend, dads, a nurse, a college student, a retired small business owner, a filmmaker, and Paul Padgett. One year, when Paul’s others. We are men and women, young birthday came around, I knew he liked and old, Catholics and Protestants. I at- Chesterton, so I bought What’s Wrong tend an Anglican church, but I’m not a with the World for him as a birth- confirmed Anglican. My wife is a devout day gift. Paul read it, then gave it back Presbyterian. Our group consists of all to me telling me that I had to read it. I types. read it, and was hooked. I began reading more Chesterton. I guess you could say VD: What happens at your meetings… I fell down the Chesterton rabbit hole. Lectures? Discussion? Mayhem? In 2009 I was awarded the Gilbert and ME: A little of all three! We generally Frances Chesterton Scholarship from the start the discussion with some part of the American Chesterton Society. I attended Chesterton cake based on Ben book, essay, story, or poem we are read- Hatke’s ACS christmas rnament Belmont College, where as an adult un- ing, but we rarely stay on topic for very dergrad I completed their “liberal stud- long. I don’t try to control the conversa- ies” program. The curriculum includ- VD: How did you end up as the leader? tion. I let the rabbit trails happen. I do try ed lots of English Classics, lots of C.S. to moderate us out of situations where ME: I was co-leading it for a time Lewis and The Inklings, and authors like it seems the argument might become a with Paul, but he has since moved to George McDonald, Charles Williams, quarrel. I’ll try bringing a third perspec- Washington, DC and left me alone to and G.K. Chesterton. tive, or if it gets heated, or too far off the lead this unruly bunch. VD: So, this isn’t the first time you’ve trail, I’ll suggest that this might be a good shown up in the pages of Gilbert! . . VD: So, where does your group meet? topic to take up at The Drinklings. ME: Right. This is the second time. “On ME: We usually meet at a local pub, cre- VD: What are you arguing about? atively named “The Pub”, but we recently Heroes”, the essay that won the scholar- ME: We recently read Chesterton’s es- ship, appeared in Gilbert vol.13.2, in the went to 6PM mass as a group and then say “Why I Am a Catholic”, which pro- fall of 2009. walked to a pub across the street after- duced a lively argument about The Real wards. That was so popular that we may Presence… not a point Chesterton brings VD: How did the Nashville Chesterton make it our regular routine! up in the essay, but as I said, we rarely Society get started? VD: Do you meet every month? stay on topic. I am happy to report that ME: It began when my friend Paul no quarrels were permitted to interrupt Padgett told me that the esteemed scholar ME: We always meet on the last Thursday of the argument.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 23 VD: You’ve been meeting for four years. Reading it slowly with the group and tak- Chesterton Society that you’d like to share Is there a particular Chesterton writing ing a chapter or two a month was a great with the readers of Gilbert!? that goes down as a group favorite? way to chew through it at a savory pace. ME: My wife once made the most amazing ME: In 2017 we spent the entire year on VD: Is there anything unique or partic- Chesterton cake to celebrate G.K.’s birth- The Everlasting Man. That was fantastic. ularly memorable about the Nashville day—you should publish a picture!

CHESTERTON’S GREAT CHARACTERS cultured accent is an affectation, his calm and superior demeanor is a mask that cannot survive a direct challenge. Most strik- Kalon ing of all, his professed faith in the sun by Chris Chan bleaching away evil is nothing more than a long con. He’s a confidence man who “What on earth is that?” asked Father Brown, and stood still. “Oh, a new religion,” said knows how to sway his marks. The tenets Flambeau, laughing; “one of those new religions that forgive your sins by saying you nev- of his faith are all carefully selected tricks er had any. Rather like Christian Science, I should think. The fact is that a fellow calling in order to make a dishonest profit. himself Kalon (I don’t know what his name is, except that it can’t be that) has taken the Of all of the characters in the Father flat just above me. I have two lady typewriters underneath me, and this enthusiastic old Brown stories, Kalon has one of the most humbug on top. He calls himself the New Priest of Apollo, and he worships the sun.” devastating arcs. At his entrance, he’s a “Let him look out,” said Father Brown. “The sun was the cruelest of all the gods. But seemingly confident and invincible fig- what does that monstrous eye mean?” ure, the embodiment of contemporary “As I understand it, it is a theory of theirs,” answered Flambeau, “that a man can endure “New Age spirituality” that professes to be anything if his mind is quite steady. Their two great symbols are the sun and the open eye; cleaner and more natural that tradition- for they say that if a man were really healthy he could stare at the sun.” al Christianity. Yet the age of Aquarius is “If a man were really healthy,” said Father Brown, “he would not bother to stare at it.” far less appealing that the musical Hair “Well, that’s all I can tell you about the new religion,” went on Flambeau carelessly. “It would have one believe. Throughout the claims, of course, that it can cure all physical diseases.” story, Father Brown and Kalon are com- “Can it cure the one spiritual disease?” asked Father Brown, with a serious curiosity. pared and contrasted, both physically and “And what is the one spiritual disease?” asked Flambeau, smiling. ideologically. Kalon is physically imposing “Oh, thinking one is quite well,” said his friend. and glamorous, Father Brown is small and [WARNING: Spoilers for “The Eye of Apollo” follow.] drab. Kalon attempts to paint himself as a figure of light and Father Brown as an he Father Brown mysteries rare- When clad in flowing robes and a diadem, avatar of darkness, though once Father ly make their villains obvious. he cuts such an impressive figure that he Brown recovers his loquacity in the final More often than not, a killer defuses all potential mockery. pages, it’s clear that the true dichotomy is or thief is a highly respectable Indeed, Kalon’s behavior may seem ec- that Father Brown represents substance member of society, or perhaps centric, but he is no fool. His stage pres- and Kalon shadow, the former truth and someone who seems harmless ence is carefully constructed, and his orato- the latter lies. thatT the average citizen has an embarrass- ry skills are powerful. In their one and only Once again, Chesterton was ahead of ing habit of overlooking. A thoroughly un- meeting, Father Brown asks Kalon to de- his time. Many of the sentiments and com- pleasant character may be a jerk, but not fine his religion, and Kalon delivers a tem- parisons Kalon makes in his big sermon a criminal. porarily shattering monologue promoting have been adopted in many pop spiritual- Every now and then in the Father his own ideological purity and righteous- ity/psychology/self-help programs, which Brown mysteries, one comes across a char- ness, and casting the good Father as a seek to win over people by promoting a acter that one knows isn’t right in at least sin-obsessed agent of darkness. For about worldview or attitude that sounds right (or one way. In “The Eye of Apollo,” Father the only time in the canon, Father Brown is at least appealing), but which crumbles Brown and Flambeau come across Kalon, speechless and shaken. This is only tempo- over careful scrutiny and real-world testing. a neo-pagan who professes sun-worship rary, as Father Brown’s deeply rooted faith By the end, the reader realizes that and the power of the mind to cure all ills. and powers of logic and reason manage to Kalon is cruel, calculating, arrogant, and His worshipping revolves around gazing at pierce the aura of Kalon’s dazzling oratory. a sore loser. He doesn’t believe in his own the sun, making professions of adulation. The reveal towards the end of the sto- made-up religion, except as far as he can As the story opens, Kalon has devel- ry completely rips the mask off of Kalon. profit from it. When thwarted, he loses all oped a few acolytes, including one very Based on Kalon’s calmly self-assured pro- self-control and attacks. In many ways, wealthy young woman. Part of Kalon’s in- nouncements, one might assume that Kalon is a human embodiment of many fluence comes from his physical appear- Kalon genuinely believes in the power of of the gods of the Greek myths: attractive ance– he is tall, handsome, and compared the sun. As a sudden, devastating shock on the surface, but capricious, selfish, and to both a lion and a Saxon king/saint. reveals, Kalon is a complete fraud. His bloodthirsty in character.

24 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 ALL I SURVEY Chesterton can describe the differ- “It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love ence between a Protestant and Catholic has been destroyed or sent into exile ”. —G.K. CHESTERTON understanding of religion by using Bible reading as a case in point. “Protestant Christianity believes that there is a Divine record in a book; that everyone ought to have free access to that book; that everyone who gets hold of it can save his soul by it, whether he finds it in a library or picks it off a dustcart. Catholic Words Are Not Enough Christianity believes that there is a Divine army or league upon earth called By David W. Fagerberg the Church; that all men should be in- duced to join it; that any man who joins it think I am the sort of man who came is elegant, and the paper is of top quali- can save his soul by it without ever open- to Christ from Pan and Dionysius ty.” If he said such a thing, he would not ing any of the old books of the Church at and not from Luther or Laud; that have attended to the book as Scripture, all. The Bible is only one of the institu- the conversion I understand is that but to the book as a book. Maybe he was tions of Catholicism, like its rites or its of the pagan and not the Puritan.” a bookbinder, or sold paper and ink for priesthood; it thinks the Bible only effi- In this introspective comment, books, or ran an antiquarian bookshop, cient when taken as part of the Church.” IChesterton gives us a clue as to why the but whatever the case, he would not be You might be a Bible-thumper today, Bible could never hold for him the cen- attending to the Bible as a believer, but as but not know which end is up tomorrow. tral position it held for Protestants. He a bibliophile. Suppose you lent the Bible Chesterton imagines a missionary in the was neither enchanted by it before his to another person who pointed out in er- field, having lost his faith. “Travelling conversion nor afraid of it after. He re- ror in II Kings, and another who mused about alone with nothing but a big Bible, jected the Protestant accusation that a about Abraham’s mind bringing Isaac up he had learned to study it minutely, first Catholic would be afraid of the Bible, for oracles and commandments, and af- saying that it did not “have any great ter- The Bible could never terwards for errors and contradictions; rors for me at any time. This was by no for the Bible-smasher is only the Bible- merit of my own, but by the accident of hold for him the worshipper turned upside down.” Thus my age and situation. For I grew up in it seems to have been for Protestantism. a world in which the Protestants, who central position it held Those who had put the Bible up against had just proved that Rome did not be- for Protestants . the Pope were not now able to prop up lieve the Bible, were excitedly discover- the Bible against Modernism. ing that they did not believe the Bible Chesterton’s sympathy with the com- themselves.” Mount Moriah to sacrifice, and a third mon man and material culture made Ever the romantic realist, or practical who pointed out subtle similarities be- him sympathetic to sacramental reli- idealist, Chesterton would want to know tween Israel’s temple cult and Hindu sac- gion. “The one mark of all genuine re- how one was going to use that Bible. In a rifice. The first would be attending to the ligions is materialism,” says Fr. Brown sense, it is a tool, and he wants to know book as a historian, the second as a psy- again. The divine army or league upon how the tool will be swung in the hands chologist, and the third as a comparative earth is preferable to the lonesome Bible of the person holding it: will it smash religionist. reader not only because it is corporate something or build something? Will it Fr. (Detective) Brown also believes “a but also because it is corporeal. To rely exclude something or include some- printer reads the Bible for misprints. A on the Bible alone is to rely on words that thing? Will it make your world small- Mormon reads his Bible, and finds polyg- are dis-incarnate. But the whole purpose er or larger? What the reader does with amy; a Christian Scientist reads his, and of Incarnation was for God and man to it is a clue to what the reader was seek- finds we have no arms and legs.” While live together. After marrying your wife, ing in it. The reader could find “in the Chesterton would have some trouble would you be satisfied to live in differ- Old Testament anything that he wanted with Luther’s sola fides, he would have ent cities and merely text each other? – lust, tyranny, treason.” even more trouble with Luther’s solo lec- Would it not be more gratifying to touch Let me propose an experiment to il- tio. We need company if we are not to hands and exchange kisses? A sacramen- lustrate the effect. Suppose you had a read idiosyncratically; we need a corpo- tal Church has lovemaking. friend who had never seen a Bible be- rate body if we are not to be idiots, in fore, so you lent him one. A week lat- the etymological sense of the word. The Please donate to the American er, you asked him what he thought, and Bible has a point, but you can’t tell the Chesterton Society. he replied “It is a very good book! The direction of a trajectory line from a sin- binding is sturdy, and the typography gle point. www.chesterton.org

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 25 CHESTERTON UNIVERSITY Chesterton says it is a form of kidnap- An Introduction to the Writings of G .K . Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist ping. The philanthropist captures children because he cannot capture adults. There is no debate, no battle, no resistance. “The philanthropic educationist is using two solely accidental advantages; first, the advantage of the wealthy man over the working classes; and secondly, the advantage of the grown-up person First Hand Accounts over the child...To sap the soul of an an- The Eye-Witness1911-1912 cient people by infant schools is to make unmanly war.” This is why most nation- he Eye-Witness only existed for (“I think an explanation is required.”), al educational systems become anti-na- one year. It was a weekly paper “A Ballade of a Stoic” (“My aunt is mur- tional, and why strange ideals are taught created and edited by Hilaire dered—and I do not mind.”), “A Ballade to a new generation that are “contrary to Belloc. It paved the way to the of a Book-Reviewer” (“And feed my brain the very blood, habits and literature of New Witness, which followed with better things.”), and “Ballade to a the people.” it, and G .K ’s. Weekly, which fol- Philanthropist”: Speaking of being fair, one of the lowedT that. The original purpose was to things Chesterton is able to do in the Eye- Prince, I will not be knighted! No! expose political corruption. As an out- Witness is something that he regrets he Put up your sword and stow your tricks! going member of Parliament, Belloc had cannot do in the Illustrated London News: Offering the Garter is no go— seen enough of it firsthand to fill many invite readers to write to him. He always BUT WILL YOU LEND ME papers. But with Belloc as editor, the pa- felt it was “unsportsmanlike” to express TWO-AND-SIX? per was not only filled with mud; it was certain opinions in the larger main- also a literary paper, featuring book re- Philanthropists are a favorite target stream paper because it provided no fo- views, poetry, and creative satire. of Chesterton’s, and he goes after them rum for those critical of his articles. But G.K. Chesterton did not contribute not only in a poem, but in one of the Belloc gave readers lots of space to vent. much to it at all. But what he did con- few book reviews and few essays that he Chesterton once said that if an editor can tribute was sublime. Most of it was po- contributes to the paper. So what’s wrong make his readers angry enough, they will etry, and most of the poems were bal- with philanthropists? They have an un- write half his paper for free. (That strat- lades, including his famous “Ballade of fair advantage in screwing up the world. egy has never worked for Gilbert! We’ve Suicide” that includes the refrain “I think And how do they go about it? By fund- only managed to get readers to cancel I will not hang myself today.” But let’s not ing the latest educational fads and then their subscriptions.) forget “A Ballade of Reasonable Inquiry” molding the most malleable of minds. One reader, in objecting to GKC’s criticism of philanthropists, says that he makes the mistake of assuming that all philanthropists are socialists and that all socialists are wealthy. Chesterton responds that he does not think all socialists are wealthy. But “I think (or rather know) that their fundamental philosophy came from the wealthy. Very rough- ly, it is the sentiment that we are responsible for the poor as we are for dogs and cats; never the idea that we are responsible to the poor as we are to friends and enemies.” One letter-writer says he’s damned if understands what Chesterton is saying. Chesterton responds that the gentleman is damned if he doesn’t. And to the standard criticism with which Chesterton is dismissed, he responds: “I am not a master of paradox, nor (which is much the same thing) a slave of it.”

26 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 Chesterton University

Philanthropy is part of the English simple power of the Gospel.’” Just as between Fortinbras and Horatio in Revolution, which is rather the oppo- the thwarted attempts to overthrow the the wake of all that unpleasantness at site of the more well-known French Protestant Reformation in England, so Elsinore, where Horatio is trying to get Revolution. In England the Revolution the attempts of the working classes to the truth out, but Fortinbras is stone- is the rich against the poor. Chesterton overthrow their overlords go unstudied walling by avoiding asking the right bemoans the lost revolution in England. when the classrooms are controlled by questions. However, he says that just because a re- the conquerers. We should mention one other poem volt has not conquered, it does not In the Eye-Witness, Chesterton he wrote for the Eye-Witness. The fact mean it never occurred. “No one writes wrote less about the political control that he wrote it for this paper may ex- or speaks, for instance, about the in- than the cultural control exercised by plain why it reads in like a first-hand ac- surrections all over England against the rich, but there is one veiled refer- count. The event it depicts, however, is the ecclesiastical policy of Henry VIII.; ence to Marconi Scandal which is start- not a contemporary one but a historic and that priceless ass who writes the ing to boil and about to explode. While one. It is perhaps Chesterton’s greatest Protestant novels said the other day it is still in the officially-being-hushed-up poem: Lepanto. that the Reformation ‘relied on the stage, Chesterton writes a witty dialogue

The “Apocrypha” ✦ ✦ The dog represents all the realities why) relegated this excellent sleuth story to the Apocrypha. connected with what is historic. The It is the story of Bel and the Dragon in which Daniel expos- ape represents all the abstractions connected with what is es the fraud of idolaters. (New York Herald Tribune, July 21, 1935) prehistoric. Historic man, through all his history, has had a ✦ ✦ If any little word of ours can add one moment’s extra be- dog, and has never forgotten the dog; as may be seen in Tobit wilderment to the universal confusion of everybody’s ideas [See Tobit 6:1] or Ulysses. (Illustrated London News, July 1, 1933) about everything, we would therefore draw attention to ✦ ✦ Most Fundamentalists are not Fundamentalists. For what- one historical fact which is strangely left out of the present ever we think of the thing now called Fundamentalism, it is Church discussion. What about those books of the old Bible not fundamental. It is not particularly fundamental to throw discarded in the sixteenth century and only printed under a big Bible at people’s heads (or rather, a particular transla- the general name of “Apocrypha”? To all mortal appearance, tion of the Bible, with a lot of books left out as Apocrypha) only one person in a hundred seems even to know that it was any more than to throw the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the the Protestants who, rightly or wrongly, abridged the Bible; Institutes of Calvin. Even if it be a truth, it is not a first prin- and the Catholic who kept the unabridged Bible. We really ciple. (Illustrated London News, Jan. 31, 1931) believe that ignorance is increasing about these things. We have nearly everybody taking the Bible merely as a human ✦ ✦ It was only the Roman Catholic Church that saved the document, and nobody pointing out that the Apocrypha con- Protestant Truths. It may be right to rest on the Bible; but tains some of the noblest of all human documents; that sing- there would be no Bible if the Gnostics had proved that the ing wisdom that praised famous men and our fathers that be- Old Testament was written by the devil, or had littered the gat us; or the great Maccabaean epic, which put a Jew among world with Apocryphal Gospels. It may be right to say that the nine great warriors of the world. (G.K.’s Weekly, Oct. 13, 1928) Jesus alone saves from sin; but nobody would be saying it if a Pelagian movement had altered the whole notion of sin. Even the very selection of dogmas which the reformers decided to preserve had only been preserved for them by the authority which they denied. (“Roman Catholicism,” An Outline of Christianity: The Story of Our Civilization Vol. 3)

✦ ✦ Detection, in the dramatic sense necessary for a story, does not depend on the support of the police or indeed upon the sympathies of public authorities in any form. This may be not- ed in one of the latest of the Sherlock Holmes stories; which happens to be practically identical with one of the earliest detective stories in the world. The story is that which turns on Sherlock Holmes suddenly displaying a most rapid, rapa- cious, and insatiable taste for somebody else’s Russian ciga- rettes. And its model, or at least its prototype, may be found in the Bible: that is, in the old original and complete Bible, though the Protestant reformers (I never quite understood

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 27 BOOK REVIEW or “seeing things upside down,” Floriani draws from the Chesterton oeuvre, all in order to clinch a Chesterton point in more ways than one. Floriani follows that with twenty odd categories of what he labels “odd things.” Pigs or Binomial Theory But for the “deterioration of English” he likely would have gone with Chesterton’s or Anything Else reliable use of “queer things” for a chapter title. Of course, the result is something A Chestertonian’s Vade Mecum. unfortunately there is no “ff” to indi- on the order of “catch all (the rest),” fol- By Peter Floriani. cate the result of any search for pre-1325 lowing the “catch (almost) all” chapter on Milan, Pennsylvania: Ambrosian pre-moderns. Chesterton motifs. University Press, 2017. And do you know what the binomi- Sure, the categories are arbitrary and 183pp. al theory looks like when it is written as a eclectic. Sure, they are meant to showcase formula? It’s an “ff” right here in this slen- Chesterton, as well as how well Floriani Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg der volume. If you’re a real Chestertonian, knows his Chesterton. But the result is de- you ought to be able to figure out why it’s lightful, not to mention great fun, especial- id you know that Julius Caesar included here. If not, here’s a hint: Peter ly if you don’t ignore the “ffs”—or should and St. Thomas Aquinas were might have chosen to draw a picture of a that be the “FFFFs,” as in the Fun to be Chesterton’s equal in that all pig instead. Found in the Floriani Footnotes. three could write more than That really does give it away, doesn’t it? Not that Peter Floriani cannot be se- one thing at a time? Peter It’s finally time to do what Peter Floriani rious. In an appendix listing “some other Floriani assures us that this is does a good deal of in this manual/guide/ books to read” he leads off with the Bible Dthe case, even if he can’t provide definitive reference book/companion, namely give as the “greatest of literary treasures” before proof when it comes to Caesar. us some undiluted Chesterton: “You returning to The Everlasting Man: “Once And did you know that Chesterton cannot evade the issue of God; whether you’ve read the second half of (the lat- averaged 14.2 semicolons in his weekly you talk about pigs or the binomial the- ter), the gospels will never be the same.” Illustrated London News essays? Or that ory, you are still talking about Him. . . . He then adds that the same is true for the he missed a few weeks along the way? (The Things can be irrelevant to the proposi- Book of Job after having read Chesterton’s 69 missing weeks among the 1602 possible tion that Christianity is false, but nothing commentary on it. weeks are listed here.) Or that Chesterton can be irrelevant to the proposition that Briefly back to the pre-appendix and kept within 200 words of his 1,500 word Christianity is true.” the motif of this review. Do you know what target 77% of the time. Or that the aver- This book is certainly proof of that— a shibboleth is? If you don’t, Floriani is in- age word count was 41.5 words under that and more. There may be nothing here on clined to declare you to be a non-Chester- 1,500 word goal? Floriani is certain about Zulus or the French Revolution, but pretty tonian. For an answer you will have to read all of this, and this reviewer is not about to much everything else can be found some- this book. Or if you’re inclined to hurry question his certainty. where in these pages. Along the way, this things along you could take Casey Stengel’s While we’re at it, did you know that the book also proves that Peter Floriani knows advice and “look it up.” word “modern” is actually of medieval ori- and loves his Chesterton. It’s one thing to Lastly, did you know that Joseph gin with roots in ancient Latin. A Floriani give us various laundry lists of and about Pearce also goes by Pierce and that the bat- footnote (hereafter referred to as “ff”) -in Chesterton’s writings. After all, that much tle of Lepanto took place three centuries forms us that it derives from the ablative of is to be expected in a handy handbook of later than we had thought. It’s all here as “modus,” meaning “measure”; hence it sig- this sort. But it’s quite another thing to give well. But these are mere quibbles. Names nifies “by measure” or “just now.” us unlaundered Chesterton, especially in and dates, especially dates, never bothered By the way, the “ffs” in this book are a the manner that it appears here. Chesterton very much, so why should they feast (making them “fffs”) and a treat. The Everything from snippets to gulps of bother a devoted Chestertonian. Besides, print may be small, but the rewards are Chesterton come arranged by themes, there is too much vintage Chesterton, as large. Besides, with or without this com- themes as only Peter Floriani could ar- well as too much vintage Floriani, in these panion guide, we all know what Chesterton range them. The heart of it all is com- pages to worry too much about a century thought of small things, things like toy the- prised of what Floriani, the arranger, calls or three—or a vowel or two. aters, which he thoroughly loved, rather “Chesterton motifs.” Music was far from [Joseph Pearce than footnotes, which he largely avoided. Chesterton’s strong suit, but that fail- And Franklin Pierce Back to the large print. Floriani also ing has failed to stop Floriani from ap- Were really not related to each other tells us that that word “modern” was al- plying a musical technique to a variety Unless it was through their mother. ready in use as of 1325. There is an “ff” of Chestertonian themes. Whether he is —Ed.] to support this bit of information, but playing with “two ways of getting home”

28 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 THE SIGNATURE OF MAN than that of the Reformation, which succeeded in hiding everything else. It would be an easier task in any case to conceal from Western people a particular collection of Eastern chronicles; but the Protestant succeeded in concealing from them their own chronicles. For instance, I found myself lately in an old Gothic church dedicated to St. Giles, as Art and the Bible are a thousand things in this island from the great cathedral used by Calvinists in by G.K. Chesterton Edinburgh, to the little English village a mile or two from my own door. In the ✦ ✦ He who draws the image of man draws ✦ ✦ No one can deny that a noble dignity church there were numberless carvings the image of God. (Illustrated London News, is possible even to the poorest, who has and colored windows representing scenes Jan. 20, 1923) seen the Arabs coming in from the des- from the Old Testament. I am sure the ert to the cities of Palestine or Egypt. No ✦ ✦ To wrong the image of God is to insult people who went to that church in me- one can deny that men whose rags are the ambassador of a King. (“About Voltaire” dieval times had much more general no- dropping off their backs can bear them- As I Was Saying) tion of who Abraham was, or who David selves in a way befitting kings or prophets was, than the people who go there now ✦ ✦ In the dark scriptures of a nomad peo- in the great stories of Scripture. No one have of who St. Giles was. Yet the name ple, it had been said that their prophet can be surprised that so many fine art- of Abraham was translated from strange saw the immense Creator of all things, ists have delighted to draw such models Semitic tongues talked in a remote an- but only saw Him from behind. I do not on the spot, and to make realistic stud- tiquity at the Ends of the earth. And the know whether even Watts would dare to ies for illustrations to the Old and New name of St. Giles is plastered all over our paint that. But it reads like one of his pic- Testaments. On the road to Cairo one own maps and towns and streets. (“What tures, like the most terrific of all his pic- may see twenty graphs exactly like that They Don’t Know,” The Thing) tures, which he has kept veiled. (G.F. Watts) of the Holy Family in the pictures of the Flight into Egypt; with only one differ- ✦ ✦ The whole point of the Christian the- ✦ ✦ Michael Angelo and even Leonardo ence. The man is riding on the ass.(“The ory is that pain is so real that even God da Vinci knew that Christianity is really Way of the Desert,” The New Jerusalem) Himself could experience it. If you take wiser, and even wider, than Paganism... I away that idea from the Gospel story, it think this rather neglected truth is due to ✦ ✦ The Church has been accused of hiding seems to me obvious that it becomes a these great artists, when so many people the Bible; but had it been true, it would pointless story. (America, Aug. 30, 1930) imagine them to have been Pagans and have been a less astonishing achievement some can even imagine them as Puritans. When we consider that scepticism had begun to appear here and there even among priests and bishops, it is really singular that it had not appeared more among painters and sculptors. We may talk, as they sometimes may have talked, about reviving the gods of Greece. But Moses is Moses and David is David, and a Pagan would have stood puzzled before them. (Illustrated London News, Jan. 18, 1930)

✦ ✦ The artists of the devout age seemed to regret that they could not make the light show through everything, as it shows through the little wood in the wonderful Nativity of Botticelli And that is why, again, Christianity, which has been at- tacked so strangely as dull and austere, invented the thing which is more intox- icating than all the wines of the world, stained-glass windows. (G.F. Watts)

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 29 THE DISTRIBUTIST any chance think about effect. They have got the fallacy of mere production in a most advanced and deadly form. A gun- Spiritual Over-Production ner, who has the misfortune to be dealing out death, will be far too wise to waste a By G. K. Chesterton shot where he knows it will not tell. An advertiser will often seem to have forgot- remarked recently that the huckster offering to teach Political Economy to the ten the very idea of waste; and nothing who now rules humanity does most poor. It was explained that if these peo- will persuade him that something which harm, not by dealing in bad things, ple once understood Political Economy, tells on the first occasion does not tell on but by dealing in good things. So long they would realise, with radiant surprise, the twentieth. He is always talking about as he pursues the sound old princi- how much nicer it was to have their wag- the Psychology of Advertising, and he re- ples of recognised and respectable es lowered rather than raised. All might peats that phrase also till every sane man Ibusiness, and sells drugs, poisons, adul- have gone well with this educational ef- is sick of it; thereby showing himself an terated goods, mustard gas, mud idols fort, but for one little hitch that halt- exceedingly bad psychologist. The truth and modern books on psychology and ed the proceedings; the discovery that is that the publicity men do not know the Road to Success, he does no great those who were so eager to teach Political the alphabet of psychology; just as the harm except to the people who buy them. Economy had in their haste omitted to employers did not know the alphabet But if the same huckster or hawker goes learn it. They knew even less about it of economics. Any sensible person can about hawking holy images or crucifix- than I do; which is putting it heartily. For see that if all the galleries of the Louvre es or relics of heroic virtue, then he does they went about saying that all that was were lined with statues of the Venus of very great harm by suggesting that these wanted was for workmen to work fright- Milo, we should not strictly speaking see things are for sale. And even in dealing fully hard and increase Production; and the statue at all. Everybody knows that if with more ordinary and natural things, even I know that the economic prob- all Paris, or all France, could be banked of a good and innocent sort, he does lem is not so simple as all that. Even I, up to the height of the top of the Eiffel harm by cheapening them, not in price, in my weedy den of dreams and unsci- Tower, the Eiffel Tower might just as well but in appreciation. And there is, for that entific superstitions, have heard of such never have been built; even for the sil- matter, something like a real parallel be- a thing as the practical problem of Over- ly and vulgar purposes for which it was tween this moral depreciation and cer- Production, and what is meant by a glut built. That amount of human psychology tain principles affecting purely econom- or flooding the market. I would not of- ought to be known to schoolboys; but it is ic depreciation. fer myself as a Professor of Economics not known to great advertising experts in The whole civilisation of Christendom to teach the working classes; but I might the Age of Psychology. Quite apart from took a wrong turning when it began to go have a shot, for the first two elementa- the question of bad work, good work is only to an invisible market; the market ry lessons, at teaching their teachers. being wasted by being used too monoto- that is without a market-cross. Because However, I am not here interested in the nously and too much. We use a thousand there is no image there is nothing except economic question itself, but in a certain things to stun and stupefy people, when imaginaries. Wall Street has truly, as in parallel between the economic question we might use a third of those things to the old tradition, set the Street without and the larger question which is social awaken and enlighten them. We are put- the Wall; and Threadneedle Street thinks and even spiritual. ting all the best things to all the worst very seldom of the image of threading a Whatever be the fact about the evil of uses; and making them useless even for needle with a camel. Hell as well as heav- over-production in Trade, there is cer- that. In the Press and the film, we take en is a house not made with hands; evil is tainly such a thing as the evil of over-pro- that touch of sentiment that might keep most evil when it takes refuge in pure ab- duction in Truth, or even in Beauty or men sane, and dilute it into a sentimen- stractions; and perhaps that is why Satan Virtue; in the sense that mere soulless talism that is not only sickening, but of was called the Prince of the Air. Anyhow, repetition is bad, even of things that which most people are really sick. in the financial world he is the appropri- might otherwise be good for the soul. If we could get the good things out ate author of a great deal of hot air. In economic production we do want to of the hands of the bad people, we might There is an element of nonsense verg- have products; but we do not want to be content to leave them the bad things ing on nothingness in the very nature of have waste products. But in publicity and to use as they like; and if they will cease a great deal of financial speculation, and popular education, many modern people to blunt the Sword of the Spirit, we will even of financial success. In nothing does seem so anxious to have energy, that they abandon to them the armoury of hell. this appear so much as in the whole busi- actually want to have wasted energies. But it is the whole evil of the time, which ness of expansion and depreciation. A lit- They pour out public appeals or social in- we exist to emphasise, that nearly all tle while ago, when the great Lock-out, vitations without really considering at all things of worth are being concentrated and general conspiracy for lowering wag- what happens to most of them at the oth- in few and unworthy hands. es, was being carefully planned, many of er end. They always at every opportunity From G.K.’s Weekly, December 7, 1929. the conspirators were told to go about talk about efficiency; and they never by

30 Volume 21 • Number 6, July/August 2018 CHESTERTON’S MAIL BAG live thing) than the contrast between the careless commonsense with which Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail Christ and His Apostles admit the need of rulers and the mysterious and authoritative violence with which they de- The Bible clare that the mighty shall be plucked from their seat and the rich shut out of Dear Mr. Chesterton, Dear Mr. Chesterton, the Kingdom. There is mere light rea- Don’t you think the Bible should be What is the difference between the sonableness in Christ’s tone towards the taught in our public schools? Obviously Catholic and the Protestant view of civ- tribute to Caesar. “Look at a penny for it can’t be taught as a religious text, but it il obedience? yourself; after all, Caesar mints them; shouldn’t it at least be taught as literature? Signed, give the man benefit of the work he does Signed, A Civil Person in the world.” There is the same practi- Dr. Clifford cal tone in St. Paul about the magistrate; Dear Civil Person, “He beareth not the sword in vain.” That Dear Dr. Clifford, A Puritan passionately believing in the is exactly what the sane mystic does feel The question of whether the Bible can Bible was bound to obey anything he about the magistrate; “After all, he’s not be taught merely as literature is a ques- found in the Bible. The only difference there for nothing; there must be some tion that raises the whole riddle of things was in the fragmentary and rather fantas- sense in the human tradition of civil obe- that have two meanings, a big meaning tic things that he sometimes had a hab- dience.” It is in a very different tone, a and a small meaning. Can the Koran be it of finding. So that, while the Catholic tone of apocalyptic truth and terrible re- treated as literature? Yes, anywhere ex- was learning from St. Thomas that civil ality, that they speak of the spiritual state cept in Islam. Can the Bible be taught as obedience is rational, because “a law is an of rulers, damned in the purple and fine pure literature? Yes; anywhere except in ordinance of reason passed for the com- linen or eaten by their gold as by fire. It is a Protestant country. mon good,” the Puritan might be learn- arguably Christian to say that the wealth It is the old-fashioned theologians who ing from the anecdote of Ehud and Eglon and leisure are necessary for a State, ought to insist on secular education. It that it is a good idea to stick a knife sud- but not that they are good for a soul. A is the orthodox Puritans who ought to denly into any politician with whose pol- Christian might say that the rich we have want the Bible kept out of the schools. itics you disagree. always with us. But it is not Christian to The truth can, indeed, be put in a kind In short, every man must admit the right say that they are anything but a necessary of dilemma. Either the Bible must be of- of the higher mysteries to rule his life in evil. Put not your trust in princes even if fered as something extraordinary or as the last resort. But some things, such as you obey them. something ordinary. If it is offered as the language of Scripture, avowedly leave Your friend, something extraordinary, that is certain- the mysteries rather too mysterious for G.K. ly unfair to the agnostics and the doubt- immediate application; while some, Chesterton ers. If it is offered as something ordinary, like the Catholic theory of social au- (Daily News, that is grossly and atrociously unfair to thority, are deliberately clarified so July 17, the theologians and the believers. that they can be applied. 1909) Suppose a child says, “Did Jesus really Your friend, come out of the grave?” Either the teach- G.K. Chesterton er must answer him insincerely, and that (America, Jan. 4, 1932) is immorality, or he must answer him sincerely, and that is sectarian education, or he must refuse to answer him at all, Dear Mr. Chesterton, and that is first of all bad manners and a Wait, I just read your answer to the last sort of arrid tyranny; and it is, moreover, letter, and I’m confused about the gross and monstrous idolatry. It is some- Bible’s teaching on how we should thing darker and more irrational than a deal with government authorities. religion - it is a silence. The Bible is wor- Can you explain? shipped without even being proclaimed. Signed, Its priests must not offer even a reason Also a Civil Person for placing it beyond reason. Dear Also a Civil Your friend, Person, G.K. Chesterton Nothing is more (Daily News, April 17 1909) striking (to anyone who feels the Bible as a

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 31 LETTER TO AMERICA CHESTERTON’S SKETCHBOOK

G K. . Chesterton in the New York American

The New Pharisee By G. K. Chesterton

see that some doctor or other should be killing them for our good, the somewhere has been insisting that sentence might at least have made some all imbeciles must be immediately sense. As it is, it stands for a particular killed; a very rash and suicidal pol- type of cant and sniveling sentimental- icy on his part. ism that has never been known in the How true it is, as we have often world before. Iheard, that the true scientific man will The point is worth noting; because take any personal risk in the pursuit a notion still lingers that cant and hy- of science. But in this modern fanati- pocrisy are found only in old-fashioned cism against imbeciles, there is anoth- figures; like comic old clergymen on the er curious quality besides imbecility. stage. In a sense, it is the simplest part of the My experience is that there is much matter that the medical gentleman of- more hypocrisy and spiritual pride in fers himself as one willing and eager to the new ideals than in the old. The New commit murder, or rather to commit Pharisee does not wear ritual raiment; massacre. or go in for broad phylacteries and In neither of these things is he spe- narrow doctrines. The New Pharisee is cially original; except in the sense of much more likely to be a Nudist; and original sin. There have been plenty of explain that he wears no clothes be- murders; and not a few massacres. cause he has no faults, weaknesses, or The new element, the modern appetites. touch, may be felt in this extraordi- He washes his hands and says he has nary fact; that the doctor not only de- done no evil; but it is not really wash- clares solemnly that he is a humani- ing but white-washing. He is a whited tarian, but says he is going to kill all sepulcher, in the most modern style of these weak-minded people for their architecture; and within, in more ways own good. than one, are only dead man’s bones. Now if he had simply said that we From The New York American, June 13, 1935

At the conclusion of an interview with Carl Eric Bechhofer of The New Age, Chesterton sat down to tea with his fellow journalist. Bechhofer writes:

“A small niece asked Mr. Chesterton if he knew what the big dog that lived next door had done. ‘What did he do?’ ‘Why, he came into our garden, and killed six of our little baby chickens.’ Courtesy of the Kelly Library, ‘The Herod!’ cried Mr. Chesterton.” University of St. Michael’s, Ottawa

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