When a yet unconverted Lewis was convalescing after a WWI battle wound he says:
It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton's essays. I had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would alomost seem that Providence, or some "second cause" of a very obscure kind, quited overrules our previous tastes when it decides to bring two minds together. ... I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humor was of the kind which I like best--not "jokes" imbedded in the page like currants in a cake, still less (what I cannot endure), a general tone of flippancy and jocularity, but the humor which is not in any way separable from the argument but is rahter (as Aristotle would say) the "bloom" on dialectic itself. The sword glitters not because the swordsman set out to make it glitter but because he is fighting for his life and therfore moving it very quickly. For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or "paradoxical" I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness. ... In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to temain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere--"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous (Surprised by Joy, Harvest, Harcourt, 190-191).
I think we should talk more about the seductiveness of holiness. Enjoying goodness makes one feel clean. Once your soul cultivates a taste for that, victory over sin leaves no regret over cheap pleasures missed. We must remember that it is the "kindness of God" that leads us "to repentance" (Romans 2:4).
1 comment:
I'm glad you're recording Chesterton's "The Ball and the Cross." It's a good book.
Carl
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