June 19 1995

ARTICLE TOOLS

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GOD ALONE MATTERS

I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious. To stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and to give oneself again to God, what more could a man ask? Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth. I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap, in mercy, He shall give me a host of children that I may lead through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose fingers' ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, smell His garments, and smile into my Lover's eyes, ah, then, not stars, nor children, shall matter-only Himself.

- Jim Elliot in

"The Journals of Jim Elliot;" entry of January 16, 1951

OBEDIENCE OF A HIGHER ORDER

[Thomas More] was a friend of the king. … But why did a man so utterly absorbed in his society, at one particular point disastrously part company with it? How indeed was it possible-unless there was some sudden aberration? But that explanation won't do, because he continued to the end to make familiar and confident use of society's weapons, tact, favor, and, above all, the

letter of the law. For More … the answer to this question would be perfectly simple (though again not easy); the English Kingdom, his immediate society, was subservient to the larger society of the Church of Christ, founded by Christ, extending over Past and Future, ruled from Heaven. There are still some for whom that is perfectly simple …

-Robert Bolt in his preface to

"A Man for All Seasons"

A CORPORATE BURDEN

Mieczyslaw Malinski writes: "It's easiest to see the cross on Jesus's shoulders. It's ...