"But, the old weather-beaten Christian, who has learnt by sorrowful experience how weak he is in himself, and what powerful subtle enemies he has to grapple with, acquires a tenderness in dealing with bruises and broken bones, which greatly conduces to his acceptance and usefulness."
~John Newton, Letter to Captain Scott
God of the Ages
Margaret Clarkson, 1981
1. God of the ages, history’s Maker, planning our pathway, holding us fast,
shaping in mercy all that concerns us: Father, we praise you, Lord of the past.
2. God of this morning, gladly your children worship before you, trustingly bow:
teach us to know you always among us, quietly sovereign — Lord of our now.
3. God of tomorrow, strong Overcomer, princes of darkness own your command.
What then can harm us? We are your people, now and forever kept by your hand.
4. Lord of past ages, Lord of this morning, Lord of the future, help us, we pray:
teach us to trust you, love and obey you, crown you each moment Lord of today.
“When a man’s heart is cold and unconcerned about religion – when his hands are never employed in doing God’s work – when his feet are not familiar with God’s ways – when his tongue is seldom or never used in prayer and praise – when his eyes are blind to the beauty of the kingdom of heaven – when his mind is full of the world, and has no room for spiritual things – when these marks are to be found in a man, the word of the Bible is the right word to use about him, and that word is, ‘Dead.’”
~ J.C. Ryle
Old Paths, p. 124
"...Education, as always, began as character. Parents should wish to avoid the rearing of children who are "bold without shame, rash without skill, [and] full of words without wit," because children with these traits become adults with the same tendencies--plus the cleverness and guile to make the world suffer their deficiencies and vices. Virtue, like knowledge, may be "hard and irksome in the beginning, but in the end easy and pleasant." For "where will inclineth to goodness, the mind is bent to truth."
~The ideas of Roger Ascam as quoted by T. L. Simmons, Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin
Turn your Eyes Upon Jesus by Helen Lemmel (1922)
1. O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!
* Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
2. Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!
3. His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!
"Half of the harm that is done in the world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm - but the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves."
- T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
Schools like those found at Mantua, Ferrara, Vicenza, and Cremona taught the skills that later made the civilized man and woman possible. They sowed the seeds and, more importantly, watered the plants and kept the garden weeded. Although many of the commoners attending Casa Giocosa went on to Padua or Bologna to study Law or Medicine, Vittorino did not set out to prepare them for their professions. He set out to civilize and cultivate them. Anything less or other would not have squared with Humanist tenets.
~T. L. Simmons, Climbing Parnassus, p.100
“What the Lord expects from us at such seasons is not to abandon ourselves to unreasoning sorrow, but trustingly to look sorrow in the face, to scan its features, to search for the help and hope, which, as surely as God is our Father, must be there. In such trials there can be no comfort for us so long as we stand outside weeping.
If only we will take the courage to fix our gaze deliberately upon the stern countenance of grief, and enter unafraid into the darkest recesses of our trouble, we shall find the terror gone, because the Lord has been there before us, and, coming out again, has left the place transfigured, making of it by the grace of his resurrection a house of life, the very gate of heaven.”
~Gerhardus Vos
...Christianity naturally leads to classical education because Christianity teaches respect for the mind as part of the image of God in man, for the world as God's intelligent, designed creation, and respect for human words because words, for the Christian, are not merely humanly invented labels for the commerce of writing and speaking. Rather, words dimly reflect their ultimate divine origin. "In the beginning was the Word." In turn, classical education seeks all truth for its own sake, is open to all truth, is a truth-seeking missile; and according to Christ, all who seek, fine. Non-Christians are not seekers, or, if they are, they are not non-Christians for long.
~Peter Kreeft, "What Is Classical Education," Spring 2009 issue of The Classical Teacher from Memoria Press
Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles.
~Mortimer Adler, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning”
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling for you and for me;
See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
Refrain
Come home, come home,
You who are weary, come home;
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, O sinner, come home!
Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?
Refrain
Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me;
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
Coming for you and for me.
Refrain
O for the wonderful love He has promised,
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon,
Pardon for you and for me.
Refrain
One of the functions of the teacher is to raise the dead, to make their authors present. How? Not by doing anything to the authors, but to the readers: by getting students to read the great authors as their authors intended them to be read, namely actively, questioningly, in dialogue with the author, who will speak to them from beyond the grave or from a distance if, and only if, the reader asks the right questions, the logical questions. The reader may thus get the alarming sense that he is being haunted by the ghost of the writer. A great book, properly read, becomes not just a dead object but a living subject, a person, or the ghost of a person.
~Peter Kreeft, "What Is Classical Education", Spring 2009 issue of The Classical Teacher, Memoria Press
