In his recent book on Austen Farrer ( Light in a Burning-Glass ), Robert Slocum notes that farrer recognized that human beungs are never themselves by themselves. Children are “like idiots in the cradle” who would remain so “if no one had smiled them into smiling back, or talked us into talking.” We become humans when we “we are smiled and talked into being so.” So too, we are “talked and loved into religious belief.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
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First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
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