From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Sat, 9 Sep 2017 23:53:29 -0700 (PDT), simo.runnel@gmail.com wrote:   
      
   >How popular is Thomas Carlyle in the world today?   
   >I have translated his books "Past and Present" and "On Heroes, Hero-Worship,   
   and The Heroic in History".   
      
   I don't think I've read anything by Carlyle.   
      
   But G.K. Chesterton mentions him:   
      
   "Much vague and sentimental journalism has been poured out to the   
   effect that Christianity is akin to democracy, and most of it is   
   scarcely strong or clear enough to refute the fact that the two things   
   have often quarrelled. The real ground upon which Christianity and   
   democracy are one is very much deeper. The one specially and   
   peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle  --  the idea that   
   the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is   
   Christian, this is heathen. If our faith comments on government at   
   all, its comment must be this  --   that the man should rule who does   
   NOT think that he can rule. Carlyle's hero may say, "I will be king";   
   but the Christian saint must say "Nolo episcopari." If the great   
   paradox of Christianity means anything, it means this  --  that we   
   must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in dry places and   
   dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself   
   unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got to crown   
   the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crown the   
   much more exceptional man who knows he can't."   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   http://khanya.wordpress.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)