A Chesterton Calendar: Compiled from the writings of 'G.K.C.' both in verse and in prose. With a section apart for the moveable feasts.Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Religion
A Chesterton Calendar: Compiled from the writings of 'G.K.C.' both in verse and in prose. With a section apart for the moveable feasts.
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936 -- Calendars
_'George Bernard Shaw.'_
JULY 9th
There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable--personal
government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not
have rules, they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with
its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal
government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism.
Objecting broad-mindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh--at
least, I know no more philosophic word for it.
_'What's Wrong with the World.'_
JULY 10th
Now, I have no particular objection to people who take the gilt off
the gingerbread: if only for this excellent reason--that I am much
fonder of gingerbread than I am of gilt. But there are some objections
to this task when it becomes a crusade or an obsession. One of them is
this: that people who have really scraped the gilt off the gingerbread
generally waste the rest of their lives in attempting to scrape the
gilt off gigantic lumps of gold. Such has too often been the case with
Shaw. He can, if he likes, scrape the romance off the armaments of
Europe or the party system of Great Britain; but he cannot scrape the
romance off love or military valour, because it is all romance, and
three thousand miles thick.
_'George Bernard Shaw.'_
JULY 11th
'The Church is not a thing like the Athenæum Club,' he cried. 'If the
Athenæum Club lost all its members, the Athenæum Club would dissolve
and cease to exist. But when we belong to the Church we belong to
something which is outside all of us: which is outside everything you
talk about, outside the Cardinals and the Pope. They belong to it, but
it does not belong to them. If we all fell dead suddenly, the Church
would still somehow exist in God.'
_'The Ball and the Cross.'_
JULY 12th
Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these
people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most
horrible is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows anybody
knows how it would work; anyone who knows anyone from the Higher
Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god
within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones.
Let Jones worship the sun or moon--anything rather than the Inner
Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in
his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world,
firstly, in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to
look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and
enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being
a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but
definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the
moon, terrible as an army with banners.
_'Orthodoxy.'_
JULY 13th
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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