“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
~ Romans 8:38–39
“Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.”
~ Psalm 96:11–12
My local newspaper featured the following 6 by 4 inch, relatively speaking, huge personal ad: “Happy 42nd Wedding Anniversary Honey Bunny! I Love you More Today Than Yesterday, But Not As Much As Tomorrow. Love Your Hubby, Blue Eyes.”
I wonder how Honey Bunny reacted to the sobriquet and gut-wrenching, embarrassing show of emotion that her Blue Eyes so gratuitously shared with 75,000 people. One hopes she did not mind — or Blue Eyes might not have a happy 43rd!
Yet, there is something wholesome, real, and invorgorating about a love that can engender such awkwardness among its hearers, and perhaps its recipient. It is extravagant love, love that doesn’t care what others think. Love that goes beyond appearances and etiquette, that forces the recipient to respond. This love is not ordinary, reserved, controlled love. It is love that is excessive, full of risk. Blue Eyes simply did not care how people would react — perhaps even Honey Bunny — because he had to tell the world, in no uncertain terms, that he loves his Honey Bunny. He loves his Honey Bunny more today than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow.
Young people, my prayer for you is that you will experience anew the spontaneous, extravagant love of God Our Father, through His Son our Lord Jesus Christ. A love that loved us yesterday, more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow!
Ephesians 1:15–23: “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of the mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis is using the devil and his nephew Wormwood to tell the Christian community important truths. He wants Christians to laugh at themselves so that they can learn something. In a way, C.S. Lewis is writing what Shakespeare wrote in one of his soliloquies: “O what fools we mortals be” (from Hamlet).
Suggested Vocabulary Words
I [Screwtape] once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The enemy (God) of course was at his elbow in an instant. . . Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defense by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control, and suggested that it was just about time to have some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one cannot quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that this must have been his line, for when I said, “Quite, in fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,” the patient brightened up quite considerably; and by the time I had added, “much better to come back after lunch and go into with a fresh mind,” he was already halfway to the front door.1
Choosing the Best Title
In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of “the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, “in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; today, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence.2 (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
What is the best title?
- It Ain’t all that Bad
- English Hypocrisy
- Wild Times on the Thames
- The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
Tone and Mood
Compare and contrast the mood/tone of the previous passage from The Screwtape Letters with this passage from “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it — I paused to think — what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down — but with a shudder even more thrilling than before — upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.3
General Review
Writing Style
Which part of the sentence below is wrong?
To contend for advantageous monopolies, which are regarded with a dislike and a suspicion (A) which daily (B) increasing; (C) however natural it may be to be annoyed at the loss of that which one has once possessed, (D) is useless.
???Are you reading 50 to 100 pages a day???
Comparison
The Ruby
Another characteristic which, in the eyes of the expert, invariably isolates a real from an artificial ruby is its curious mild brilliance, which as yet has not been reproduced by any scientific method in paste or any other material, but perhaps the safest test of all is the crystalline structure, which identical structure appears in no other stone, though it is possible, by heating alumina coloured with oxide of iron and perhaps also a trace of oxide of chromium to a very high temperature for a considerable time, and then cooling very slowly, to obtain a ruby which is nearly the same in its structure as the real gem; its specific gravity and hardness may perhaps be to standard, and when properly cut, its brilliance would deceive all but an expert. And as in some real rubies there are found slight hollows corresponding or analogous to the bubbles found in melted glass, it becomes a matter of great difficulty to distinguish the real from the imitation by such tests as hardness, specific gravity, dichroism, and the like, so that in such a case, short of risking the ruin of the stone, ordinary persons are unable to apply any convincing tests.4
The Sapphire
The Sapphire is not so easy to imitate, as its hardness exceeds that of the ruby, and imitations containing its known constituents, or of glass, are invariably softer than the natural stone. . . . The blue sapphire is of all shades of blue, from cornflower blue to the very palest tints of this colour, all the gradations from light to dark purple blues, and, in fact, so many shades of tone and colour that they become almost as numerous as the stones. These stones are usually found in similar situations to those which produce the ruby, and often along with them. The lighter colours are usually called females, or feminine stones, whilst the darker ones are called masculine stones. Some of these dark ones are so deep as to be almost black, when they are called “ink” sapphires, and if inclining to blue, “indigo” sapphires, in contradistinction to which the palest of the stones are called “water” sapphires. The colouring matter is not always even, but is often spread over the substance of the stone in scabs or “splotches,” which rather favours imitation, and, where this unevenness occurs, it may be necessary to cut or divide the stone, or so to arrange the form of it that the finished stone shall be equally blue throughout.5
- The ruby is naturally red; the sapphire is naturally blue.
- The sapphire is harder to duplicate because it breaks so easily.
- I
- II
- Both
- None
Multiple Choice Test Strtegies
What is the question asking?
What do I know?
What do I need to know?
Try to eliminate wrong answers first.
Answer the question asked in the problem.
Write out each step.
Choose the best answer.
Does the answer make sense?
Word Problems
1. Samuel is 16 years older than James; 4 years ago he was three times as old. How old is each?
2. Martha is 5 years old and her father is 30. In how many years will her father be twice as old as Martha?
3. George is three times as old as Amelia; in 6 years his age will be twice hers. What is the age of each?
4. Esther is three-fourths as old as Edward; 20 years ago she was half as old. What is the age of each?
5. Mary is 4 years old and Flora is 9. In how many years will Mary be two-thirds as old as Flora?
6. Harry is 9 years older than his little brother; in 6 years he will be twice as old. How old is each?
Go to Answers Sheet