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01 October 2016

Commonplace Book: September

Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative Council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of how can legislation in there several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal policy, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed...
-Continental Congress, Declarations and Resolves, Founders Constitution 1:2


 "If you could just hold onto it," said Portia, sitting back on the warm grass. Her knees were stiff from kneeling.
 "Onto what? The weather?" Aunt Hilda sat back on the grass, too, and pushed her tumbled hair away from her brow with the back of her muddy hand.. She was a very pretty woman.
 "The weather partly, but mostly time. June like this, and everything starting to be. Summer starting to be. Everything just exactly right."
 "But if it were this way every day, all the time, we'd get used to it. We'd toughen to it," said Aunt Hilda. "People do. It's just because it doesn't and can't last that a day like this is so wonderful."
 "Good things must have comparers, I suppose," said Portia. "Or how would we know how good they are?"
 "Exactly." Aunt Hilda went back to her weeding; and after a minute Portia did, too.
-Gone-Away Lake, p65


The term “laws of nature” was equivalent to the well-known common law term the “law of nature,” which was the will of God revealed in nature and was composed of all the “immutable laws of human nature … the eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the Creator himself in all his dispensations, conforms” (Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England).

Second, the term “laws of nature” was not equivalent to “natural law.” The former was established and stated by God; the latter was derived from Scripture and stated by men.

Third, the “laws of nature,” being the exact expression of God’s will for all of creation, were binding over the entire globe, in all countries and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this (Blackstone, Commentaries).

Fourth, the phrase “laws of nature and of nature’s God” was equivalent to Blackstone’s phrase “the law of nature and the law of God.” The two terms were placed in tandem by Blackstone and the Declaration because they were equivalents coming from the same source—God—but in different ways and at different times.

-The Christian Influence Behind the Declaration of Independence


Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child's mind, waiting to be discovered...
-Charlotte Mason, 1:231


The points to be borne in mind are, that he should have no book that is not a child's classic; and that, given the right book, it must not be diluted with talk or broken up with questions, but given to the boy in fit proportions as wholesome meat for his mind, in the full trust that a child's mind is able to deal with its proper food.
-Charlotte Mason 1:232


"You ask: Have we then no rights ourselves, and have other people no duties towards us? We have indeed rights, precisely the same rights as other people, and when we learn to think of ourselves as one of the rest, with just the same rights as other people and no more, to whom others owe just such duties as we owe to them and no more, we shall, as it were, get our lives in focus and see things as they are."
-Charlotte Mason, vol. 4 p. 139



God give us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands!
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy:
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor, men who will not lie:
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish pride, lo Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.

    —J. G. Holland 



I have seen ants, whose heads tottered under tremendous load, exhaust themselves in getting to the top of the mound. In jostling their companions, they seemed to say: See how I work! And nobody could blame them, for the pride of work is a noble pride.
-Storybook of Science, p12 
 

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