As for our writing personally to each other, how often do you hear people complain that emails subtract the tone of voice; that it’s hard to tell if someone is joking or not? Clicking on “send” has its limitations as a system of subtle communication. Which is why, of course, people use so many dashes and italics and capitals (“I AM joking!”) to compensate. That’s why they came up with the emoticon, too–the emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 192 🙂

Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, “Good food at it’s best”, you deserve to be struck by lighting, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 44

Jerome commented that in the early church, when visitors used to come, they were commonly frightened at the amen–it had the sound of thunder, said by people who understood it.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: And let all the people say, Amen. Praise the Lord. (Ps. 106:48)

– Doug Wilson, Mother Kirk, 152

Here is our Gilligan’s Island Song Lyrics:

The verbs that take the dative case
With indirect command,
Are impero, mando, & persuadeo,
And persuadeo

The verbs that take accusative with Indirect Command,
Just happen to be these verbs three
Moneo, oro, rogo,
Moneo, oro, rogo.

At last we come to postulo, quaero, & peto,
These are the verbs that choose to take
Ablative with the prep.
Ablative with the prep.

And if you want the actual image, click HERE.

[EDIT] Click HERE to listen to the B Class singing the song!

The nature of the apostles’ function is clear from this command: “Go, preach the Gospel to every creature” [Mark 16:15]. No set limits are allotted to them, but the whole earth is assigned to them to bring into obedience to Christ, in order that by spreading the gospel wherever they can among the nations, they may raise up his Kingdom everywhere. Accordingly, Paul, in desiring to prove his apostleship, recalls that he did not gain any one city for Christ but propagated the gospel far and wide, and did not put his hands to another man’s foundation but planted churches where the name of the Lord was unheard [Rom. 15:19-20]. Apostles, then, were sent out to lead the world back from rebellion to true obedience to God, and to establish his Kingdom everywhere by the preaching of the gospel, or if you prefer, as the first builders of the church, to lay its foundations in all the world [1 Cor. 3:10].

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 4, ch. 3.4

Wine itself is quite a miracle. It’s something like the birth of a child. A man and woman mix and then create a being wholly distinct from themselves, yet with deep family traits–new and yet the same. A ripe grape contains two parts, unmarried–an interior sugar juice and an exterior skin full of yeast. But if you marry and mix these parts by crushing a grape, it will start toward creating wine, a third distinct thing, new and yet the same–a “wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps. 104:15).

Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 83

God has surrounded us with so many amazing tastes, and yet we Americans are barely scratching the surface. The Anglo streak in the American heritage has certainly put a tight squeeze on the breadth of our palates. American food is really so bland and tame we don’t even recognize it anymore. And we pass on our picky eating to the next generation. Pure criminality. But even the English know that for good food you have to leave the country. They like France, but the entire world awaits us. We have much to learn from the feastings of Asia and the Latin countries, especially that land of feasts–Italy.

-Doug Jones, Angels in the Architecture, 82

And, I might add, France. 🙂

Every new $900,000 summer house in the north woods or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe railings, ramps, hob-tread metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, banks of tungsten-halogen lamps, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery. I once saw the owners of such a place driven to the edge of sensory deprivation by the whiteness & lightness & leanness & cleanness & bareness & spareness of it all. They became desperate for an antidote, such as coziness & color. They tried to bury the obligatory white sofas under Thai-silk throw pillows of every rebellious, iridescent shade of magenta, pink, and tropical green imaginable. But the architect returned, as he always does, like the conscience of a Calvinist, and he lectured them and hectored them and chucked the shimmering little sweet things out.

– Tom Wolfe

Article temporarily removed. Will post later with more author information.

Pictures and Video coming soon!

[EDIT] Here are the promised videos:

• Part 1 (110 MB)
• Part 2 (13.4 MB)
• Part 3 (97.4 MB)

I am somewhat pleased when I occasionally hear of a brother’s being locked up by the police, for it does him good, and it does the people good also. It is a fine sight to see the minister of the gospel marched off by the servant of the law! It excites sympathy for him, and the next step is sympathy for his message. Many who felt no interest in him before are eager to hear him when he is ordered to leave off, and still more so when he is taken to the station. The vilest of mankind respect a man who gets into trouble in order to do them good, and if they see unfair opposition excited they grow quit zealous in the man’s defence.

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures To My Students, 264.

It looks like all the fuss the Intoleristas are making about Doug Wilson is creating a similar type of phenomena here in Moscow. 🙂

The true Christian is the only happy man, because he has sources of happiness entirely independent of his world. He has something which cannot be affected by sickness and by deaths, by private losses and by public calamities, the “peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” He has a hope laid up for him in heaven ; he has a treasure which moth and rust cannot corrupt ; he has a house which can never be taken down. His loving wife may die, and his heart feel rent in twain ; his darling children may be taken from him, and he may be left alone in this cold world ; his earthly plans may be crossed ; his health may fail: but all this time he has a portion which nothing can hurt. He has one Friend who never dies ; he has possessions beyond the grave, of which nothing can deprive him: his nether spring may fail, but his upper springs are never dry. This is real happiness.

J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 250.

The most miserable creature on earth is the man who has nothing to do. Work for the hands or work for the head is absolutely essential to human happiness. Without it the mind feeds upon itself, and the whole inward man becomes diseased. The machinery within will work, and without something to work upon, will often wear itself to pieces.

J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, 239.

Here is the picture I took of the projector with all the names that we will need to know: PICTURE.
If you zoom in, you should be able to see all the names without any trouble.

I made a summary of the Latin Subjunctives learned so far, and how to recognize them. If you think it can benefit you, here it is: Latin Subjunctives Summary

Well, this was a great Sabbath! A wonderful sermon by Pastor Wilson, a party at the Courtney’s home, and beautiful concert!

I posted pics from the party, and a few from the concert. Thank you to Kathryn and the Courtney boarders for organizing the party. It was a lot of fun!

Click HERE for the pics.

Who ought to come to the table of the Lord?

Those who are displeased with themselves for their sins, and who nevertheless trust that these sins have been forgiven them and that their remaining weakness is covered by the passion and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and improve their life. The impenitent and hypocrites, however, eat and drink judgment to themselves.

Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on, ‘Tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reglected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel’s paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton’s Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore,
Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.

-William Blake

Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body–which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, or beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, ch. 5

Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there must be such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity