In May 1757, Christopher Smart, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, renowned poet, writer for John Newbery, was involuntarily incarcerated in a London madhouse, where he spent the next seven years.
His crime: Spontaneous public prayer, which arose from his conviction that it was a crime to resist the impulse to pray, no matter what the circumstances.
And, according to his Samuel Johnson, “Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen.” Johnson might have risked confinement himself, for he added “I have no passion for it.”
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
