LIBERALS

'I really think that in our days it is the 'undogmatic' & 'liberal' people who call themselves Christians that are the most arrogant & intolerant. I expect justice & even courtesy from many Atheists ... from Modernists, I have come to take bitterness and rancour as a matter of course.'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.112.

REAL CHILDREN

'I'm glad you liked 'The Lion'. A number of mothers, and still more, schoolmistresses, have decided that it is likely to frighten children, so it is not selling very well. But the real children like it, and I am astonished how some very young ones seem to understand it. I think it frightens some adults, but very few children ...'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.93.

DOUBT

'I do get that sudden feeling that the whole thing is hocus pocus and it now worries me hardly at all. Surely the mechanism is quite simple? Sceptical, incredulous, materialistic ruts have been deeply engraved in out thought, perhaps even in our physical brains by all our earlier lives. At the slightest jerk our thought will flow down those old ruts. And notice when these jerks come. Usually at the precise moment when we might receive Grace. And if you were a devil would you not give the jerk just at these moments? I think that all Christians have found that he is v. active near the altar or on the eve of conversion: worldly anxieties, physical discomforts, lascivious fancies, doubt, are often poured in at such junctures ... But Grace is not frustrated. One gets more by pressing steadily on through these interruptions than on occasions when it all goes smoothly ...'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.93.

HAPPINESS

'It is hard on God really. To how few of us He dare send happiness becuase He knows we will forget Him if He gave us any sort of nice things for the moment ... '

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.93.

HAPPINESS

'Indeed the best thing about happiness itself is that it liberates you from thinking about happiness - as the greatest pleasure that money can give us is to make it unecessary to think about money.'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.93.

EDUCATION

' ... Equality of Opportunity in practice means ruthless Competition during those very years which, I can't help feeling, nature meant to be free and frolicsome. Can it be good, from the age of 10 to the age of 23, to be always preparing for an exam, and always knowing that your whole worldly future depends on it: and not only knowing it, but perpetually reminded of it by your parents and masters? Is this the way to breed a nation of people in psychological, moral, and spiritual health? (N.B. Boys are now taught to regard Ambition as a virtue. I think we shall find that up to the XVIIIth Century, and back into Pagan times, all moralists regarded it as a vice and dealt with it accordingly).'

CS Lewis in Walter Hooper (Ed.), The Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol III, p.17.

THE BIBLE

'And so this quality of the Bible draws us wonderfully into relationship. I read it. I want to grasp it, to gain insight, to understand. But I cannot do that simply by sitting there with it in front of me, studying it. It is his book, and the key to unlock it is in his hands. And therefore my desire to understand it leads me to the Keeper of the key. The very nature of the Bible draws me into loving dependence upon him.'

Christopher Ash, Bible Delight, p. 53.

FOOLISHNESS

'Piglet looked up, and looked away again. And he felt so Foolish and Uncomfortable that he had almost decided to run away to Sea and be a Sailor, when suddenly he saw something.'

AA Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, p.50.

HOLINESS

'Sometimes I consider myself there as a stone before a carver, whereof he is to make a statue; presenting myself thus to God, I desire Him to form His perfect image in my soul, and make me entirely like Himself.'

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, p.21.

KNOWING GOD

'We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our hearts will be with our treasure.'

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, p. 32.