"So Shines a Good Deed in a Naughty World"

"How far that little candle throws his beams! 

So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

 

- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice 

Charles Dickens, Marley's Chain and Theophylact of Ochrid

By John Sanidopoulos

 

When Jacob Marley makes his ghostly visit to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes him as a transparent spirit bound by a chain. He describes the chain specifically as follows: "The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel." When during their conversation Scrooge asks trembling why he was fettered, Marley replied: "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Then Marley reveals to Scrooge that the chain he bears is much more ponderous: "Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

The Sense of Death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

The Sense of Death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaard

By Michael K. Macrakis, M.A., Ph. D.

Introduction

Death is a subject which concerns mainly religion, the philosophy religion. «The oldest and most common definition is that religion is the link between man and God». According to this definition, religion derived from religare and originally meant «a bond». This bond, of course, is not between two men, «between the sexes», as Ludwig Feuerbach wishes, but between God and man because religion can not exist without God.

Ten Great Moments in Forgiveness History

8th Century BC: The Sabine women implore the Sabine men not to attack their Roman abductors, who are now their lawfully wedded husbands.

AD 29: Christ forgives from the cross.

13th Century: Genghis Khan (yes, that Genghis Khan) spares the life of blood-brother turned bloody revolt leader Jamukha, who, alas, admits he prefers death.

April 9, 1865: Union general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain salutes Confederate soldiers on the eve of the surrender at Appomattox.

The Rational Man According To St. Anthony the Great

By Dr. Constantine Cavarnos

Introductory Remarks

St Anthony (ca. 250-356 A.D.) is one of the great masters of the spiritual life of Eastern Christendom. He has been held in the highest esteem by Christians of the East from his own time down to the present. One of his eminent admirers was St Athanasius, who knew him personally and wrote a biography of him, which is one of the best sources of information we have about him. Two other outstanding admirers of this great saint are St Macarius, Metropolitan of Corinth (1731-1805) and St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1748-1809). They have included at the beginning of the Philokalia, which was compiled and edited by them and published in 1782, a work containing many sayings and observations which have traditionally been attributed to St Anthony.

25 Worthwhile Quotes From Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period.

1. "A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self."

50 Worthwhile Quotes By Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher.

- We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol.