Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Excerpts from Micah Clarke, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[In speaking of a letter he's just received, Micah Clarke says] "Tis from the venerable carpenter who hath for many years been my adviser and friend. He is one who is religious without being sectarian, philosophic without being a partisan, and loving without being weak."
p. 1217 (Gutenberg Project edition)

[The carpenter, Zachariah Carpenter, writes to Micah] "I doubt not that you will find among your comrades some who are extreme sectaries, and others who are scoffers and disbelievers. Be advised by me, friend, and avoid both the one and the other. For the zealot is a man who not only defends his own right of worship, wherein he hath justice, but wishes to impose upon the consciences of others, by which he falls into the very error against which he fights. The mere brainless scoffer is, on the other hand, lower than the beast of the field, since he lacks the animal's self-respect and humble resignation."
p. 1220

Friday, January 23, 2009

Carol sent me this

Ad Coelum

At the muezzin's call for prayer,
The kneeling faithful thronged the square,
And on Pushkara's lofty height
The dark priest chanted Brahma's might.
Amid a monastery's weeds
And old Franciscan told his beads;
While to the synagogue there came
A Jew to praise Jehovah's name.
The one great God looked down and smiled
And counted each His loving child;
For Turk and Brahmin, monk and Jew
Had reached Him through the gods they knew.

--Harry Romaine, "Munsey's Magazine", Jan. 1895