Psmith

Suzannah, at her great site, reviews a P.G. Wodehouse book she hadn't read before (neither have I) about her favorite Wodehouse character:

Rupert Psmith (the P is silent, as in pthisis and ptarmigan) has been my favourite Wodehouse character ever psince I made his acquaintance in Leave It to Psmith, one of Wodehouse’s masterpieces. Sadly, Wodehouse felt he’d done as much as he could with the character and went on to focus on Bertie Wooster, Lord Emsworth, and the rest. ....

...[R]ecently I had the opportunity of reading a really good one. Psmith Journalist sees Psmith holidaying in New York City, where he meets a Wild West journalist, Billy Windsor, chafing silently in the undereditorship of a cozy little paper for cozy little families. With the editor away on a rest cure, Psmith entices Windsor to leap into a little psensational journalism. ....

Before you can say “psychology” Psmith and Windsor are neck-deep on the hit list of an unpscrupulous real estate magnate and playing a dangerous game among the rival street gangs of New York. ....

Through this two-fisted tale of the New York lowlife walks the dandified figure of Rupert Psmith, quoting Pshakespeare and Latin tags, and occasionally needing an interpreter .... (more)

manybooks.net has a lengthy list of "Free ebooks by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse" — all of them available in Kindle format — which list includes several Psmith titles, including Psmith, Journalist. (I downloaded it, along with Psmith in the City.)

In Which I Read Vintage Novels: Psmith, Journalist by PG Wodehouse (the book illustration is also from Suzannah's post)

On C.S. Lewis

Thomas Kidd favorably reviews Alister McGrath's C.S. Lewis - A Life:

Alister McGrath's C.S. Lewis: A Life comes with endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and perhaps most weightily given the topic, from my soon-to-be Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs, who calls it “a meticulously researched, insightful, fair-minded, and honest account of a fascinating man’s life.” As I have written earlier, I admire Jacobs' own Lewis biography, The Narnian, and his assessment of McGrath's book is apt. McGrath's book is a judicious and accessible treatment of Lewis's remarkable but controversial career. ....

This is not fawning hagiography, but an honest, charitable assessment of a great but flawed man.

The aspect of the book that I found most fascinating is Lewis's handling of fame and his role as a public intellectual. Until World War II, Lewis was a little-known Oxford scholar, but The Screwtape Letters and his wartime talks on the BBC launched him into international fame for which he was ill prepared. ....

I liked Jacobs' The Narnian very much. It is my favorite of all those I have read about Lewis. I have begun to read McGrath and it thus far seems very good.

C.S. Lewis, Public Intellectual

Bid my anxious fears subside

Sean Curnyn has just discovered one of the greatest of great hymns:

.... It is a song from Wales. The lyric is by a great 18th century Welsh writer named William Williams, also known as Williams Pantycelyn (there being so many “Williamses” in Wales that it is necessary to give them nicknames in order to be sure that everyone receives the appropriate royalties). The song became what it is today, however, sometime around 1904/05, when the English version of the lyric was wedded to a recently-composed tune by yet another great Welshman named John Hughes, i.e. the tune titled “Cwm Rhondda,” after the Welsh valley of the same name. This was during what is known as a Great Awakening or religious revival in Wales, and one that spread (not unlike the tune) to many other quarters.

This marriage of words and music was one made in heaven, apparently, as the song became very quickly and deeply beloved of the Welsh. It has ultimately come to be known as the unofficial national anthem of Wales, and can be heard sung ceremonially at important sporting events (i.e. rugby matches).

In Wales itself, it is generally known either as “Bread of Heaven” (a line from the first verse) or as “Cwm Rhondda,” the name of the melody. ....

It is a hymn which derives its imagery and narrative directly from the story of the Israelites, led from slavery in Egypt and guided to the Promised Land, as in the Bible from Exodus through Joshua. Key touchstones from that story are invoked to convey the prayer of just one poor sinner, wishing for God’s guidance, trusting in His grace, and offering humble praise. .... [more]

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell’s destruction
Land me safe on Canaan’s side:
Songs and praises, songs and praises,
I will ever give to thee;
I will ever give to thee.

Cwm Rhondda – Bread of Heaven – Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer | The Cinch Review

McGrath's top five

Alister McGrath, who has just published C.S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (which I have just begun reading), lists and comments on his "Top Five Books" which include, unsurprisingly, two Lewis titles.

His list:

• C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
• Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
• G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
• St. Augustine, Confessions
• C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy

Alister McGrath: My Top Five Books

Uncle Abner

I am a native of West Virginia and although I didn't live there for more than a few months after I was born I did return every summer while I was growing up and periodically since then. My mother's family were early settlers in that part of Virginia that became West Virginia. My identification with the place is primarily familial and nostalgic and I have many friends with a less tenuous claim to familiarity. Nevertheless, when I come across some piece of history or literature related to the state I usually pay attention. Some years ago I discovered that one of the great American mystery writers was Melville Davisson Post, a West Virginian. I just downloaded several of his books from the Many Books site: Free ebooks by Melville Davisson Post. I noted that one of the stories in Dwellers in the Hills [1901] refers to Lost Creek, a West Virginia location familiar to me and to many of my Seventh Day Baptist friends. Many of Post's stories are set in the state. Post's most famous collection of mystery stories is Uncle Abner [1918] - about which I've posted before.

Joseph Bottum wrote

There is a case to be made that the Uncle Abner stories—the twenty-two tales of the Virginia hills written by Melville Davisson Post between 1911 and 1928—are among the finest mysteries ever written. .... [H]igh as Post's tales rank in general mystery fiction, they stand at the very top of the subgenre of religious mysteries. In the deliberate tone of the stories and the matching of the writing's pitch to its subject, in the uniting of the religious element with the detective's action and the sense of good's battle against evil in the solution of a crime, only G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown belongs beside Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner. ....

Uncle Abner is another of Post's books available, free, as an e-book for Kindle, Nook, and other electronic formats: Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries by Melville Davisson Post - Free eBook.

Just beyond the grasp of consciousness

Via The Wittenberg Door:

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else....It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. ...All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it. (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940)

And regarding CSL, this has just been published: C.S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, by Alister McGrath.

And, also, a site I just discovered: Essential C.S. Lewis.

The Wittenberg Door: Notable Quote: C.S. Lewis

Free e-books

I came across this site yesterday: ManyBooks.net - Ad-free eBooks for your iPad, Kindle, or eBook reader. There are thousands of older — out-of-copyright — titles here. I have downloaded a couple — each is available in many formats including those indicated in the link above. Exploring the site I discover, for instance, 48 titles by G.K. Chesterton. The variety is so great that it is almost necessary to know beforehand what you are looking for.

Ascending to glory

Philip Jenkins on why we are certain March 1 was the day the patron saint of Wales died and why "death days" were so important:

St David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales

...[W]e really know very little about David that is historically solid and can only guess at his dates, or his main areas of activity. A death about 590 is a reasonable guess, but we could easily slip fifty years either way. Oddly though, we can be sure that he died on March 1, whether in (say) 532 or 632 AD. Through the Middle Ages, hagiography was a vast area of cultural effort, when almost any outrageous achievements could be credited to a saint. (No, David did not really make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was ordained by the Patriarch). The one thing that we know these writers did keep faithfully was the death day – the date not the year – because that marked the hero’s ascension to glory, the promotion to heaven. In a particular church or community, those days were critical, as marking the annual celebration of the beloved local saint.

Argue as much as you like, then, about precise years, achievements, martyrdoms and areas of activity, about the number of lepers cured and tyrants opposed – but don’t quarrel with death days.

Death days.

It’s an interesting term. I know my birthday. I also know that at some future point I will die, and that that will befall on a particular date. Let me be optimistic and assume that it will be a distant event, say on July 23, 2049. Each year, then, I pass through July 23 happily unaware that I am marking my Death Day, surely as significant a milestone as my birthday, but not one I can ever know with certainty until it occurs. Nor is it something we really ever contemplate, as we all know, in our hearts, that we are immortal.

I suppose though that it is something we can learn from those medieval monks, that the Death Day is not just a key event in anyone’s life, but literally the only one we can take with absolute confidence. [emphasis added]

THAT’LL BE THE DAY THAT I DIE

St. David's Day

Today is St David's Day. It is the national day of Wales, the country from whence came some of my ancestors. Wikipedia explains who the man was:

Dewi Sant – St. David was born towards the end of the fifth century. He was a scion of the royal house of Ceredigion, and founded a Celtic monastic community at Glyn Rhosin (The Vale of Roses) on the western headland of Sir Benfro, at the spot where St. David's Cathedral stands today. David's fame as a teacher and ascetic spread throughout the Celtic world. His foundation at Glyn Rhosin became an important Christian shrine, and the most important centre in Wales. The date of Dewi Sant's death is recorded as 1 March, but the year is uncertain – possibly 588. As his tearful monks prepared for his death St David uttered these words: "Brothers be ye constant. The yoke which with single mind ye have taken, bear ye to the end; and whatsoever ye have seen with me and heard, keep and fulfill."

For centuries the first of March has been a national festival. St David was recognised as a national patron saint at the height of Welsh resistance to the Normans. ....

More, from James M. Kushiner at Touchstone Magazine:

We don't know a great deal about David, and while you will find the usual skeptical opinion—"he is so shrouded in legend and overlaid with later hagiography that maybe he never existed"—there is enough historical evidence to believe that he existed, that he taught in Wales, and that he made a mark that lasted and spread. (The earliest surviving reference to him may well be an early 7th-century inscription on a gravestone: "Here lies Idnert, the son of Jacob, who was killed defending the church of holy David from pillage.") ....

We see someone who takes the Gospel seriously, gives his or her entire life to living it and spreading it, counting themselves as servants of Jesus Christ, and a previously pagan society some years or generations later has become populated with churches, monasteries, scriptural knowledge, increasing literacy, with a downturn in things such as human sacrifice and infanticide. .... (more)

Re-posted from 2010.

Saint David's Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: David of Wales

What is Communion for?

Charles Clark, who apparently grew up in church not unlike mine, tells us what he's learned about Communion from other traditions:

Growing up, my church observed “Lord’s Supper” once a quarter. Every three months, an extra line would appear in the bulletin’s Order of Service between “Message” and “Special Music.” After spending a silent minute “examining our hearts,” trays bearing a species of super-dense oyster crackers and tiny plastic cups of grape juice would be passed along the pews, offering plate-style. In a tradition that generally deprecated ritual, this practice was clearly an anachronism, a holdover that would have been mildly embarrassing if not insulated from inspection by a thick coat of cognitive dissonance. What it all meant I couldn’t have told you, other than that it had something to do with “remembering Jesus.” ....

Before engaging with the sacraments, I thought about grace almost exclusively in terms of the forgiveness of sins. The accompanying images were of removal: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” ...[A]n exclusive focus on grace as forgiveness implies that except for our assorted wrongdoings, we are basically whole and healthy. On the one hand, I understood that was inaccurate: the phrase “spiritual growth” was in my religious vocabulary. But I lacked a vision for how grace operated not merely to cleanse but also to edify.

The act of eating, as appropriated by the Communion rite, makes this other aspect of grace unmistakeable. As C.S. Lewis puts it, God “uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us.” This correctly pictures our incompleteness, our brokenness and hunger, our need for God that exists apart from our need for forgiveness. Grace builds us up in addition to washing us off. In receiving grace as sustenance, we are called into a more substantial life; like the narrator in The Great Divorce, we are becoming more solid as we draw near to God. ....

Of course, the tradition I grew up in was not entirely without additive spiritual practices. The study of Scripture was commonly discussed in quasi-sacramental terms. .... We naturally understand that filling our heads with holy writ could tend to give us the mind of Christ. But that by filling our stomachs with bread and wine we partake in the divine life comes as something of a surprise. It reminds us of our need for God to act on us and for us, that grace is an intervention. It cures us of our native Pelagianism.

I fully understand that, for many traditions, the mechanics behind the transmission of grace through the sacraments are of great importance. While I don’t particularly share that concern, I respect that opinions differ. My hope is that this is one of many areas in which a thicker Christian practice will develop across denominational lines. .... (more)

What I’ve Learned from Communion

Toward what is permanent

This post at Paul W Manuel, "Worshiping in the House of God," is a reflection on Psalm 84. Paul translates verse 4:

"O the advantage of those who dwell in your house, [for] they are ever praising you."

and then explains what the advantage of praise in worship is:

...The advantage of praise is that it directs you away from what is temporary and toward what is permanent. When struggles and striving distort your view of life, making you worry and fret, praise refocuses your attention by reminding you who it is that holds your life and cares for you. The psalmist is exclaiming what a real advantage it would be to remain in the temple praising God and to have that clarity of perspective all the time.

You cannot go to the temple in Jerusalem for the festivals, but you have set aside a time and place to praise God, which means that you too can enjoy the advantage that praise brings. Some people view praise as just an emotional expression of devotion of God—and praise can certainly be an emotional experience—but if you leave here with only a good feeling, you have missed one of the most important benefits of praise, which is the renewed perspective on life that a clear view of God brings. So when you come here, use the music and readings to sweep away the clutter of the week and to refresh your vision of the One you serve. ....

Paul W Manuel: Worshiping in the House of God

Souls in order

William F. Buckley, Jr., died five years ago. NRO provides us with "Bill Buckley and Final Truths":

.... In 1962 Bill had written to the editors of The Individualist, the newsletter of [the] Young Conservative Club of Walt Whitman High School (in the Bronx), responding to their inquiry about something he had written in Up from Liberalism concerning "final truths." ....

In the passage you quote from Up From Liberalism I intended, indeed, to refer to the religious truth that is our central heritage and to the moral philosophy and human insight that derive from it. Sometimes this position is referred to (in a phrase going back, I believe, to the days of the Roman Empire) as “the morality of the last days”—by which is meant the world-view of men who know that death is close. But, in the long view, we all stand sentenced to death, and whether it comes in 1995 or tomorrow makes no difference. That is why the morality of the last days always applies to what is “finally important in human experience.” All our techniques of social welfare, all our science, all our comfort, all our liberty, all our democracy and foreign aid and grandiloquent orations—all that means nothing to me and nothing to you in the moment when we go. At that moment we must put our souls in order, and the way to do that was lighted for us by Jesus, and since then we have had need of no other light. That is what is finally important; it has not changed; and it will not change. It is truth, which shall ever abide in the future. And if it is “reactionary” to hold a truth that will be valid for all future time, then words have lost their meaning, and men their reason.

Bill Buckley and Final Truths - By Jack Fowler - The Corner - National Review Online

Libraries

Alan Jacobs remembers only two teachers from whom he learned anything, but:

.... Most of what I now know that I consider worth knowing I learned not at school but at these libraries. By the standards of many cities and towns, including the one I live in now, they were not large or well-stocked; but they contained enough to keep a boy’s mind occupied and excited for many years. And when the schools let me down, the libraries did not. .... (more)

On Libraries | The American Conservative

Inadequacy

Philip Jenkins, on George Herbert's poem "Aaron":

[Herbert] was a huge inspiration for many modern writers, especially T.S. Eliot. For all his achievements, though, Herbert's candle burned out very early, as he died a few weeks short of his fortieth birthday, in 1633. ....

Above all, Herbert was a clergyman, a priest of the Church of England. Perhaps nobody has better conveyed the gap between the aspirations of that position – the priest of the Living God! – and the frail mortal who dared to fill the job. His poem, Aaron, makes the contrast still more precise, comparing the glorious priesthood of the brother of Moses with Herbert’s own feeble efforts. Christ, though, makes up all deficiencies:

HOLINESS on the head, Light and perfection on the breast, Harmonious bells below raising the dead To lead them unto life and rest. Thus are true Aarons drest.	Only another head I have another heart and breast, Another music, making live, not dead, Without whom I could have no rest: In Him I am well drest.
Profaneness in my head, Defects and darkness in my breast, A noise of passions ringing me for dead Unto a place where is no rest: Poor priest! thus am I drest.	Christ is my only head, My alone only heart and breast, My only music, striking me e’en dead; That to the old man I may rest, And be in Him new drest.

So holy in my Head,
Perfect and light in my dear Breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come, people Aaron's drest.

THE PRIEST IN THE TEMPLE

"To be merely modern..."

G.K. Chesterton:

THE HIGHEST use of the great masters of literature is not literary; it is apart from their superb style and even from their emotional inspiration. The first use of good literature is that it prevents a man from being merely modern. To be merely modern is to condemn oneself to an ultimate narrowness; just as to spend one's last earthly money on the newest hat is to condemn oneself to the old-fashioned. The road of the ancient centuries is strewn with dead moderns. Literature, classic and enduring literature, does its best work in reminding us perpetually of the whole round of truth and balancing other and older ideas against the ideas to which we might for a moment be prone. ....

From time to time in human history, but especially in restless epochs like our own, a certain class of things appears. In the old world they were called heresies. In the modern world they are called fads. Sometimes they are for a time useful; sometimes they are wholly mischievous. But they always consist of undue concentration upon some one truth or half-truth. .... The heretic (who is also the fanatic) is not a man who loves truth too much; no man can love truth too much. The heretic is a man who loves his truth more than truth itself. He prefers the half-truth that he has found to the whole truth which humanity has found. ....

G.K. Chesterton: On Reading

"The bright light of salvation..."

Several hard things happening to good friends and acquaintances recently, as well as several things I've been reading [see the post about a Russell Moore essay below], reminded me of this, originally posted in January, 2010:

Right Wing Bob likes this version of "Death is Not the End" better than the only one Dylan recorded:

Someone who heard the song from a bootleg tape of those Infidels sessions was the singer Mike Scott of a combo called the Waterboys. He heard a different kind of spirit in the song, and, while performing live on an Irish radio show (The Dave Fanning Show) round about 1986 he and bandmates Steve Wickham and Anthony Thistlethwaite belted it out with some gusto, vigor and a fair bit of vim. .... [more]

Oh the tree of life is growing
Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation
Shines in dark and empty skies
RightWingBob.com » Death is not the end

Denominational identification

Is it more important to be considered "open-minded" or to be considered "honest"? Christianity Today reports on a survey of both churched and un-churched people asking "Should Your Church's Name Include Its Denomination?" From the findings:

"When a church does not reference its denomination in the church name, unchurched people tend to see that church as less formal, rigid, and old-fashioned," notes the Phoenix-based market research firm in a news release. "But this also makes them feel more uncertain and wonder whether the church is trying to hide its beliefs."

The most interesting findings:

1) Churches with denominational references (vs. none) in their name are:

Four times more likely to be perceived as "formal." Three times more likely to be perceived as "old-fashioned." Almost three times more likely to be perceived as "structured and rigid." Three times less likely to be perceived as "open-minded."

2) By contrast, churches with no denominational references in their name are:

Less than twice as likely to be perceived as "honest." More than twice as likely to give people "feelings of uncertainty." Almost five times more likely to be perceived as "trying to hide what they believe." ....

...Sellers suggested that a church with a denominational reference can have a contemporary and friendly logo and sign to help deal with any perceptions that it’s rigid, while a church without the denomination in its name might use a catchy tagline to communicate something about its beliefs, to help overcome any uncertainty people may feel. He said, “There are ways of dealing with these perceptual issues as long as you know what they are.” ....

.... “There is some belief out there that the unchurched run away from anything that says ‘Baptist’ or ‘Lutheran’ or some other denomination, but the fact is only a minority of the unchurched have negative perceptions about denominational names in general. .... Even younger adults often are not coming down strongly on one side or the other. Churches need to take a lot of different things into consideration in this decision – it’s not as simple as ‘Give it a non-denominational name and it will be a lot more attractive to young people and the unchurched.’" [more]

The image came from this site.

Christianity Today Gleanings: Should Your Church's Name Include Its Denomination?

Pleasures forevermore

From Psalm 16:

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
In the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me;
Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
My flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
Or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
[Psalm 16: 6-11, ESV]

"The term is over, the holidays have begun"

Russell Moore on why Christians get it wrong when they envision eternity as an "afterlife":

The gospel tells us that Satan keeps unbelievers bound by fear of death (Heb 2:14-15). Believers, too often, dread death also, though not as much from fear than from boredom. We see the story of our lives as encompassing this span of seventy or eighty or a hundred years. The life to come is our “great reward” in “the afterlife.”

But just think about that word “afterlife.” It assumes eternity is an endless postlude to where the action really happens. It’s “after;” our “reward” happens after we’ve lived our lives. ....

Too many Christians see the hope of resurrection life as a capstone on their lives now. We implicitly assume that our focus in the new creation is a backward focus on our lives as they are now.

We talk about all the questions we’ll ask about why this or that happened. .... We talk about our reunion with loved ones, but even they often implicitly have a past focus.

A high school reunion can be fun. You catch up with old friends, and remember good and bad times. But the focus is usually on “remember when” and “whatever happened to” conversations. That’s great for an hour or four, but four trillion years of that would be hell. That’s not what Jesus promised us. He promised us life. ....

Your eternity is no more about looking back to this span of time than your life now is about reflecting on kindergarten. The moment you burst through the mud above your grave, you will begin an exciting new mission—one you couldn’t comprehend if someone told you. And those things that seem so important now—whether you’re attractive or wealthy or famous or cancer-free—will be utterly irrelevant in the face of an exhilarating new purpose, one that you were prepared for in this era but one that is far more than a mere sequel to your best life now.

Let’s talk about eternity. But it’s no mere “afterlife.” Instead let’s start thinking of this little puff of time, the next eighty or so years, as what it is: the pre-life. [more]

Moore to the Point – Why the Afterlife Bores Us

Engraved on the conscience

John Courtney Murray:

.... The philosophy of the Bill of Rights was also tributary to the tradition of natural law, to the idea that man has certain original responsibilities precisely as man, antecedent to his status as citizen. These responsibilities are creative of rights which inhere in man antecedent to any act of government; therefore they are not granted by government and they cannot be surrendered to government. They are as inalienable as they are inherent. Their proximate source is in nature, and in history insofar as history bears witness to the nature of man; their ultimate source, as the Declaration of Independence states, is in God, the Creator of nature and the Master of history. The power of this doctrine, as it inspired both the Revolution and the form of the Republic, lay in the fact that it drew an effective line of demarcation around the exercise of political or social authority. When government ventures over this line, it collides with the duty and right of resistance. ....

...[T]he men who framed the American Bill of Rights understood history and tradition, and they understood nature in the light of both. They too were individualists, but not to the point of ignoring the social nature of man. They did their thinking within the tradition of freedom that was their heritage from England. Its roots were not in the top of anyone’s brain but in history. Importantly, its roots were in the medieval notion of the homo liber et legalis, the man whose freedom rests on law, whose law was the age-old custom in which the nature of man expressed itself, and whose lawful freedoms were possessed in association with his fellows. The rights for which the colonists contended against the English Crown were basically the rights of Englishmen. And these were substantially the rights written into the Bill of Rights. ....

...[T]he Bill of Rights was an effective instrument for the delimitation of government authority and social power, not because it was written on paper in 1789 or 1791, but because the rights it proclaims had already been engraved by history on the conscience of a people. The American Bill of Rights is not a piece of eighteenth century rationalist theory; it is far more the product of Christian history. Behind it one can see, not the philosophy of the Enlightenment but the older philosophy that had been the matrix of the common law. The “man” whose rights are guaranteed in the face of law and government is, whether he knows it or not, the Christian man, who had learned to know his own personal dignity in the school of Christian faith.

Where Did Americans Get Their Liberties? | Intercollegiate Review