The Catholic Church and conversionChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Religion
The Catholic Church and conversion
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Conversion -- Catholic Church
But though the influence came
through many centres, it always came from one. It came through the
Romantic Movement, a glimpse of the mere picturesqueness of mediævalism;
but it is something more than an accident that Romances, like Romance
languages, are named after Rome. Or it came through the instinctive
reaction of old-fashioned people like Johnson or Scott or Cobbett,
wishing to save old elements that had originally been Catholic against a
progress that was merely Capitalist. But it led them to denounce that
Capitalist progress and become, like Cobbett, practical foes of
Protestantism without being practising followers of Catholicism. Or it
came from the Pre-Raphaelites or the opening of continental art and
culture by Matthew Arnold and Morris and Ruskin and the rest. But
examine the actual make-up of the mind of a good Quaker or
Congregational minister at this moment, and compare it with the mind of
such a dissenter in the Little Bethel before such culture came. And you
will see how much of his health and happiness he owes to Ruskin and what
Ruskin owed to Giotto; to Morris and what Morris owed to Chaucer; to
fine scholars of his own school like Philip Wicksteed, and what they owe
to Dante and St. Thomas. Such a man will still sometimes talk of the
Middle Ages as the Dark Ages. But the Dark Ages have improved the
wallpaper on his wall and the dress on his wife and all the whole dingy
and vulgar life which he lived in the days of Stiggins and Brother
Tadger. For he also is a Christian and lives only by the life of
Christendom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account