“An American cannot converse, but he can discuss, and his talk falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting; and if he should chance to become warm in the discussion, he will say ‘Gentlemen’ to the person with whom he is conversing.”
-Alexis de Tocqueville
“The invention of firearms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace.”
-Alexis de Tocqueville
“The poorest labourer upon the shore of the Delaware thinks himself entitled to deliver his sentiment in matters of religion or politics with as much freedom as the gentleman or scholar… Such is the preavailing taste for books of every kind, that almost every man is a reader.”
-1772, Jacob Duche
quoted by Neil Postman in his book, Amusing ourselves to Death
FROM THE OFFICE
SOCIAL EVENTS
Fellow Freshmen, I thought this blog may be a useful and fun means of communication on which we can give updates, post announcements, discuss homework or assigments, post pictures of school events, etc. Anyone can easily comment, and if you didn’t get an invitation to be a blog member (to be able to post), email me at daniel@foucachon.com .
if you want your url added, or have a suggestion for the layout etc., make sure and tell me.
Have a good weekend!
-Daniel Foucachon
Hello Fellow Freshman, this is the first post just to try things out.
“We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?–Is he in hell?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel.
Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-Shakespeare
“The carnal mind sees God in nothing, not even in spiritual things, THe spiritual mind sees Him in everything, even in natural things….”
-Robert Leighton
“As the apple is not the cause of the apple tree, but a fruit of it: even so good works are not the cause of our savlation, but a sign and fruit of the same.”
-Daniel Cawdray
“Take God into thy counsel. Heaven overlooks hell. God at any time can tell thee what plots are hatching there against thee.”
-William Gurnall
“If God were not my friend, Satan would not be so much my enemy.”
-Thomas Brooks
Pray often; for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.
-John Bunyan
“The conclusion of the Spanish-American War left the United States with an overseas empire. The nations of Europe watched to see if the United States would exploit her newly acquired possessions for her own economic benefit, without regard for the good of the peoples in the possessed lands. Instead, the American Republic began a program of building, developing, and benefiting her her newly aquired regions of the world. America bestowed upon her possessions new health and sanitation programs, new standards of education, new financial opportunities, and a generally higher level of civilization. In a series of steps, each new possession came to enjoy new levels of self-government. Most important of all, wherever the American flag went, it was followed by Christian missionaries who took the gospel to the native people. “
-United States History: Heritage of Freedom p.436
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;–
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
-Robert Herrick
Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you–it is Christ; it is not your joy in Christ that saves you–it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument–it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not to your hope, but to Christ the source of hope; look not to your faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of your faith; and if you do that, ten thousand devils cannot throw you down. There is one thing which we all too much confuse in our preaching, namely the great truthy that it is not prayer, it is not faith, it is not our doings, it is not our feelingsupon which we must trust–butupon Christ, and on Christ alone. We are apt to think that we are not in a right state, that we do not feel enough, instead of remembering that our business is not with self, but with Christ. Let me beseech you, look only to Christ; never expect deliverance from yourself, from ministers, or from any means of any kind apart from Christ; keep your eye simply on Him; let His death, His agonies, His groans, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon your mind; when you wake in the morning look to Him; when you lie down at night look for Him.
-Charles Spurgeon
from one of his early sermons
Murderer: Where is your husband?
Lady Macduff: I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.
Murderer: He’s a traitor
Son: Thou liest, thou shag-ear’d villain.
Murderer: What, you egg?
A man rarely stands taller than when he stands for a lady.
As we speak, by order of the court, Terry Schiavo is being starved to death in Florida. But there are other victims, among them the godly use of words. When men want to obscure their lusts, or hide their greed, they always create a fog of words. Obscure, deny, lie, evade, change, slice, spin, and counterattack.
All this to say something that should be obvious — food is not medical treatment. We are not talking about a genuinely difficult ethical dilemma created by some marvel of medical technology. There are times when some artificial means of keeping a body alive are a form of doctors trying to play God. But giving someone food does not fall into that category. The standard here is not life, or death. The standard is always found in answer to the question, “Who do we think we are? God? Or men answerable to God?”
The court is not “letting Terry die,” and this is what I meant when I said these scoundrels are doing more than just killing her. They are murdering words so that they may do as they please with men and women. Withholding food is not “letting someone die.” Smothering Terry with a pillow would not be “letting her body take its natural course when oxygen is not present.” And inability to follow an argument of this nature is a profound moral failing.
-Douglas Wilson (3/22/05)
True compassion and love for people is doing good to them in a personal way whenever possible. False humanitareanism promises love that is done at a distance in an impersonal way. This false humanitarianism has created a system of wealth redistribution that steals from several classes of citizens to create another class of citizens that becomes dependent upon constant bureaucratic handouts. The Bible places the responsibility to care for the poor in the hands of God’s people at the local level where the potential for an uncontrolled bureaucracy can be alleviated.
-I foud this in “draft,” for some reason I never posted it. I also forget where I got it, but I think it’s from God and Governement, by Gary DeMar.
“But liberty always implies a standard, and this standard always brings with it an antithesis. This means that he who says ‘free from’ must also assert a specified ‘free to.’ A man cannot turn away from something without simultaneously turning to something. Liberty always assumes an appeal to law”
Douglas Wilson – Future Men
“The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation. “
-William McKinley
25th President
President McKinley, not wanting to leave his invalid wife to do the traditional campaigning around the country, conducted his whole campaign from the front porch of his home in Canton, Ohio. People from around the country would come to his home to hear him speak. McKinley won that election!
While President Cleveland was in office, a portion of the state of Texas had undergone a drought. Congress proposed a bill that would give the people of that region the modest, yet effective sum of $10,000 for seed. On February 17, 1887, President Cleveland vetoed that bill saying:
____________
“It is the represented that a long-continued and extensive drought has existed in certain portions of the State of Texas, resulting in a failure of crops, and consequent distress and destitution.
Though there has been some difference in statements concerning the extent of the people’s needs in the localities thus affected, there seems to be no doubt that there has existed a condition calling for relief; and I am willing to believe that, notwithstanding the aid already furnished, a donation of seed grain to the farmers located in this region, to enable them to put in new crops, would serve to avert a continuence or return of unfortunate blight.
And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.
A prevalent tendency to disregard this limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
President Cleveland – 1887