Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category

How to write 19th century pulp 2

Grenville Kleiser is a name that will doubtless continue to be revered in many years time. His pretensions are apparent in his bibliography (here considerably abbreviated): Business Building and Speech Efficiency; Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases: A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English; How to Build Mental Power; How to Develop Power and Personality in Speaking; How to Develop Self Confidence in Speech and Manner; Make Your Life Worth Living; Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study; Talks on Talking; Talking for Results; The Training of a Public Speaker; and Training for Power and Leadership.

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Lilith 0

George Macdonald wrote a number of books that explore the imaginative ways of expressing Christian truths. Most notable among these are At the Back of the North Wind, Phantastes and Lilith. C.S. Lewis was profoundly influenced by Phantastes, which he described as baptising his imagination. According to Lewis, it gave him a new way to perceive the world. He wrote:

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Amazing Grace 0

It can be very easy to begin to think that salvation is cheap, or even that it is deserved. “Well, of course a loving God should save people.” Indeed, often the question that is asked is why God doesn’t save everyone. There’s a lovely passage from Piers Plowman that begins to capture the impossibility of salvation:

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The Message of the Old Testament 0

I particularly enjoy my periodic visits to Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. The preaching is solidly based on the Bible and the church family is warm and welcoming. The senior pastor at CHBC, Mark Dever, is well-connected with the church in England, having spent some time in Cambridge while taking his doctorate.

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