“ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
~ 1 Corinthians 15:55–57
“We proclaim to you what we
have seen and heard, so that you
also may have fellowship with us.
And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
~ 1 John 1:3
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then it is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.1
Emily Dickinson, a 19th century recluse, was the first modern American poet. She wrote in free verse and she discussed topics often ignored (e.g., birds on sidewalks). She also wrote about death.
Many think that Dickinson refused to commit her life to Christ. Perhaps that haunted her for her whole life. I think so. When I read her poems I hear that forlorn cry.
Dickinson presages the cry of modern man’s cry for relevance and meaning and life in the midst of inhumanity.
If I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
It is sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!2
I am so glad I know who my Redeemer is! He snatches me from the tentativeness and hopelessness of modernity!
Main Idea
In 1800, for the first time in history, a democratically elected government peacefully replaced an entirely different ideological government. The major political parties we know today did not exist in 1800. That contest was Democratic Republicans vs. Federalists. Nonetheless, it is remarkable and a credit to the American civilization that two candidates could vigorously debate issues and remain friends and colleagues after one was elected. Though Federalists lost and the Democratic-Republicans won, the whole world won when the young nation transferred its power without bloodshed. Contrast this with what was happening in France! France decapitated its deposed king; the United States honorably retired its losing president.
Nation-building invites dissension, discord, and violence. These elements were remarkably absent from the young American nation, 1800–1828. Let’s look more closely at the 1800 election.
The Federalist John Adams had been elected in 1796 without much opposition. But in 1800, the Republicans left no stone unturned in their efforts to discredit the Federalist candidate. President Adams, blamed for the unpopular Alien and Sedition laws, made a poor campaign. Federalists tried to discredit Thomas Jefferson with epithets of “Jacobin” and “Anarchist.” When the vote was counted, it was found that Adams had been defeated; the Republicans had carried the entire South and New York and secured 8 of the 15 electoral votes cast by Pennsylvania.
Jefferson’s election, however, was still uncertain. By a strange provision in the Constitution, presidential electors were required to vote for two persons without indicating which office each was to fill, the one receiving the highest number of votes to be president and the candidate standing next to be vice president. Remember, there were no political parties. Aaron Burr, the Republican candidate for vice president, had received the same number of votes as Jefferson; as neither had a majority the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, where the Federalists held the balance of power. Although it was well known that Burr was not even a candidate for president, his friends and many Federalists promoted his election to that high office. Had it not been for vigorous opposition by Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr (later convicted of treason) would have been the third president of the United States. Not until the 36th ballot on February 17, 1801, was Jefferson officially president.4 (James Stobaugh, American History)
The best title for this passage is:
- The Revolution of 1800
- Jefferson Steals the Election
- Hamilton Is the Hero
- President Aaron Burr?
“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally — and often far more — worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”3
— C.S. Lewis
A Man Without a Country and Other Tales
Edward Hale
Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was in the “Legion of the West,” as the Western division of our army was then called. When Aaron Burr made his first dashing expedition down to New Orleans in 1805, at Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he met, as the Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright young fellow, at some dinner-party, I think. Burr marked him, talked to him, walked with him, took him a day or two’s voyage in his flat-boat, and, in short, fascinated him. For the next year, barrack-life was very tame to poor Nolan. He occasionally availed himself of the permission the great man had given him to write to him. Long, high-worded, stilted letters the poor boy wrote and rewrote and copied. But never a line did he have in reply from the gay deceiver. The other boys in the garrison sneered at him, because he sacrificed in this unrequited affection for a politician the time which they devoted to Monongahela, hazard, and high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre, and poker were still unknown. But one day Nolan had his revenge. This time Burr came down the river, not as an attorney seeking a place for his office, but as a disguised conqueror. He had defeated I know not how many district-attorneys; he had dined at I know not how many public dinners; he had been heralded in I know not how many Weekly Arguses, and it was rumored that he had an army behind him and an empire before him. It was a great day — his arrival — to poor Nolan. Burr had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he asked Nolan to take him out in his skiff, to show him a canebrake or a cotton-wood tree, as he said — really to seduce him; and by the time the sail was over, Nolan was enlisted body and soul. From that time, though he did not yet know it, he lived as A Man Without a Country.5
Suggested Vocabulary Words
A. That story shows about the time when Nolan’s braggadocio must have broken down. At first, they said, he took a very high tone, considered his imprisonment a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and all that; but Phillips said that after he came out of his state-room he never was the same man again.
B. When Captain Shaw was coming home — if, as I say, it was Shaw — rather to the surprise of every body they made one of the Windward Islands, and lay off and on for nearly a week. The boys said the officers were sick of salt-junk, and meant to have turtle-soup before they came home. But after several days the Warren came to the same rendezvous.
C. He looked very blank when he was told to get ready to join her. He had known enough of the signs of the sky to know that till that moment he was going “home.” But this was a distinct evidence of something he had not thought of, perhaps — that there was no going home for him, even to a prison.
Use context clues to determine meaning. For instance, what is the meaning of the underlined word in this sentence?
Organ transplants are often rejected by the host.
(A) a musical instrument, (B) a part of a symphony, (C) part of a body. Clearly the answer is C. An organ, of course, is a musical instrument but its context demands another definition. Another one: The judge questioned the witness’s character. (A) an actor in a play, (B) integrity, (C) a badge of honor. The answer is B.
Test-Taking
Ten Wrong Assumptions
Here are three wrong ACT assumptions:
1. You can’t study for the ACT. That is wrong. The ACT, an achievement, knowledge-based test is particularly responsive to ACT preparation and coaching.
2. Different states have different ACTs. Different states have different assessment tests but there is only ONE ACT that everyone takes.
3. The ACT has a passing score. Americans score about 21.1 on the ACT, so if you score higher than that you are in gravy! Schools like to see above 26 before they give scholarships, but that is all relative.
Writing Style
Which part of the sentence below is wrong?
The spirit of Liberty and the spirit of Nationality were once for all dead; (A) it might be for a time a pious duty, but it could not continue always expedient or (B) profitable to (C) mourning (D) for their loss. Yet this is the (E) feeling of the age of Trajan.6
Word Problems
1. A merchant bought a bale of cloth containing just as many pieces as there were yards in each piece. The whole number of yards was 1,089. What was the number of pieces?
2. A regiment, consisting of 5,476 men, is to be formed into a solid square. How many men must be placed in each rank?
3. What is the depth of a cubical cistern which contains 5,000 gallons of water? (1 gallon = 231 cubic inches)
4. A farmer plants an orchard containing 8,464 trees, and has as many rows of trees as there are trees in each row. What is the number of trees in each row?7
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”8
— James Baldwin
Usage
Which part of the passage below is wrong?
God never wrought a miracle to refute atheism, because His ordinary works refute it. (A) A little philosophy inclines man’s mind to atheism: depth in philosophy brings men’s minds back to religion. (B) While the mind of man looks upon second causes, it may sometimes rest in them; (C) when it beholds the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must acknowledge a Providence. (D) That school which is most accused of atheism most clearly demonstrates the truth of religion.9
Use semicolons and colons with alacrity and sparingly.
Drawing Conclusions
It is in the second and third years of the child’s life that the rapidity of the development of the mental processes is most apparent, and it is with that age that we may begin a closer examination. At first sight it might seem more reasonable to adopt a strictly chronological order, and to start with the infant from the day of his birth. Since, however, we can only interpret the mind of the child by our knowledge of our own mental processes, the study of the older child and of the later stages is in reality the simpler task. The younger the infant, the greater the difficulties become, so that our task is not so much to trace the development of a process from simple and early forms to those which are later and more complex, as to follow a track which is comparatively plain in later childhood, but grows faint as the beginnings of life are approached.
At the age, then, of two or three, the first quality of the child which may arrest our attention is his extreme imitativeness. Not that the imitation on his part is in any way conscious; but like a mirror he reflects in every action and in every word all that he sees and hears going on around him. We must recognise that in these early days his words and actions are not an independent growth, with roots in his own consciousness, but are often only the reflection of the words and actions of others. How completely speech is imitative is shown by the readiness with which a child contracts the local accent of his birthplace. The London parents awake with horror to find their baby an indubitable Cockney; the speech of the child bred beyond the Tweed proclaims him a veritable Scot. Again, some people are apt to adopt a somewhat peremptory tone in addressing little children. Often they do not trouble to give to their voices that polite or deferential inflection which they habitually use when speaking to older people. Listen to a party of nurses in the Park addressing their charges. As if they knew that their commands have small chance of being obeyed, they shout them with incisive force. “Come along at once when I tell you,” they say. And the child faithfully reflects it all back, and is heard ordering his little sister about like a drill sergeant, or curtly bidding his grandmother change her seat to suit his pleasure. If we are to have pretty phrases and tones of voice, mothers must see to it that the child habitually hears no other. Again, mothers will complain that their child is deaf, or, at any rate, that he has the bad habit of responding to all remarks addressed to him by saying, “What?” or, worse still, “Eh?” Often enough the reason that he does so is not that the child is deaf, nor that he is particularly slow to understand, but simply that he himself speaks so indistinctly that no matter what he says to the grown-up people around him, they bend over him and themselves utter the objectionable word.
We all hate the tell-tale child, and when a boy comes in from his walk and has much to say of the wicked behaviour of his little sister on the afternoon’s outing, his mother is apt to see in this a most horrid tendency towards tale-bearing and currying of favour. She does not realise that day by day, when the children have come in from their walk, she has asked nurse in their hearing if they have been good children; and when, as often happens, they have not, the nurse has duly recounted their shortcomings, with the laudable notion of putting them to shame, and of emphasising to them the wickedness of their backsliding — and this son of hers is no hypocrite, but speaks only, as all children speak, in faithful reproduction of all that he hears. Those grown-up persons who are in charge of the children must realise that the child’s vocabulary is their vocabulary, not his own. It is unfortunate, but I think not unavoidable, that so often almost the earliest words that the infant learns to speak are words of reproof, or chiding, or repression. The baby scolds himself with gusto, uttering reproof in the very tone of his elders: “No, no,” “Naughty,” or “Dirty,” or “Baby shocked.”10
According to this passage, what is true?
- Nervous boys can aggravate their parents.
- Nervousness is congenital
- Nervousness is a bio-chemical issue, not a psychological issue
- I
- II
- III
- All
- None
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