Fact Explains Nothing. On The

Isaac Watts, Of Course, Is A Hymn Writer In The Tradition Of Congregationalism Who Lived In The Seventeenth And Early Eighteenth Century. He Is Very Interesting And Important Because He Was Also A Metaphysician. He Knew A Great Deal About What Was, For Him, Contemporary Science. He Was Very Much Influenced By Isaac Newton, For Example. There Are Planets And Meteors And So On Showing Up In His Hymns Very Often. But, Again, The Scale Of His Religious Imagination Corresponds To A Very Generously Scaled Scientific Imagination.

John Calvin's Theology Emphasizes The Sanctity Of Conscience, The Sanctity Of Companionate Marriage, And The Obligation Of Those In Power To Attend To The Well-being Of The People In General, Especially The Poor. Interestingly, For The Interpretation Of Hamlet, For Example, He Forbids Even The Thought Of Revenge. This Is Not The Calvin Of Myth, But When The Elizabethans Read Him There Was No Such Myth, Nor Would There Be Now, If He Were Read.

That's The Strangest Thing About This Life, About Being In The Ministry. People Change The Subject When They See You Coming. And Then Sometimes Those Very Same People Come Into Your Study And Tell You The Most Remarkable Things. There's A Lot Under The Surface Of Life, Everyone Knows That. A Lot Of Malice And Dread And Guilt, And So Much Loneliness, Where You Wouldn't Really Expect To Find It, Either.

It Seems To Me Some People Just Go Around Lookin' To Get Their Faith Unsettled. That Has Been The Fashion For The Last Hundred Years Or So.

A Letter Makes Ordinary Things Seem Important.