Let Him Be Nourished!

There once were four men; to each man was born a son.

The first man, when handed his child, said, "I neither know nor care if this babe is family, but since it is here, and we all eat, let it eat as well."

The second man, when handed his child, said, "This babe is not family, but perhaps when it is of age it will become family. If it proves that it is family, then we will let it eat."

The third man, when handed his child, said, "This babe is family! When he is old enough to reason and demonstrate that he knows what being a member of this family is about, then we will let him be fed."

The fourth man, when handed his child, said, "This babe is family, so let him be nourished!"

A Desperate Romance.

"If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy-tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy-tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy-tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasing contempt: it must be one particular proportion of the two–which is exactly right.

"We must have in us enough reverence for all things outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have enough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion, spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good or happy) must be combined, not in any combination, but in one particular combination. The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction of animals. It will be an exact and perilous balance; like that of a desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them" (Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

The Murder of All Men.

"I put these things not in their mature logical sequence, but as they came: and this view was cleared and sharpened by an accident of the time. Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, an argument arose whether it was not a very nice thing to murder one's self. 
"Grave moderns told us that we must not even say 'poor fellow,' of a man who had blown his brains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them out because of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer even suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. 
"In all this I found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. 
"Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes—for it makes even crimes impossible" (Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

One of the Commonest Signs of a Rotter.

"Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world. Yet I had heard it once too often, and I saw suddenly that there was nothing in it. The publisher said of somebody, 'That man will get on; he believes in himself.' 
"And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written 'Hanwell.' I said to him, 'Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.'
"He said mildly that there were a good many men after all who believed in themselves and who were not in lunatic asylums. 'Yes, there are,' I retorted, 'and you of all men ought to know them. That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself. That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself. If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has "Hanwell" written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.' 
"And to all this my friend the publisher made this very deep and effective reply, 'Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?' After a long pause I replied, 'I will go home and write a book in answer to that question.' This is the book that I have written in answer to it" (Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

Love is Bound.

"The devotee is entirely free to criticize; the fanatic can safely be a skeptic. Love is not blind—that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound. And the more that it is bound, the less it is blind" (Chesterton, Orthodoxy).

We are the New Eve.

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

“And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen 2:21-24).

God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam—a sleep like death (Mat 27:50; Mar 15:37; Luk 23:46; Jhn 19:30)—and while he slept, the Lord stretched out His hand and divided the man's side (Jhn 19:34) like He divided the waters of the Red Sea (Exd 14:21). The Lord then passed a rib out of the midst of the man and closed up the flesh of his side—just as the Israelites passed through the Red Sea on dry ground and the Lord returned the waters to their place, overthrowing the Egyptians who pursued (Exd 14:22ff). From the man's bone and flesh (1Cor 10:16, 11:29, 12:12-27; Eph 2:16, 4:12, 16; Eph 5:30), the Lord built (1Cor 3:9, 16, 17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:20-22, 1 Pet 2:5) a woman—the bride (Rev21:2, 9; 22:17), the wife (Eph5:23ff; Rev 19:7, 21:9), the mother of us all (Gen 3:20; cf. Gal4:26)—and He brought her to the risen man (2Cor 4:14, 11:2; Col 1:22, 28)—blemishless, without spot or wrinkle (2 Cor 11:2; Eph 1:4, 5:27; Col 1:22, 28; 1 The 5:23; Hbr 12:23; 2Pet 3:14; Jud 1:24).

Christ is the New Adam and we are the New Eve.

Coverings for Sin.

“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (Gen 3:7).

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (v. 21).

. . .

“And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
“And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
“But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell” (4:3-5).

Evolution Really is Mistaken for Explanation.

"But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing can turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.’ For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species" (Chesterton, The Everlasting Man).

Blasphemy is an Artistic Effect.

“Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion” (Chesterton, Heretics).