Urantia Book Society of Oklahoma

Happy is  the man who can call today his own; He who secure within can say: Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
  --Horace (65-8 BC)

P.557 - §10 (48:7.26)  The destiny of eternity is determined moment by moment by the achievements of the day by day living. The acts of today are the destiny of tomorrow.


    Quintus Horatius Flaccus (8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintillian regarded his Odes as almost the only Latin lyrics worth reading, justifying his estimate with the words: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
    Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (Sermones and Epistles) and scurrilous iambic poetry (Epodes). The hexameters are playful and yet serious works, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings". Some of his iambic poetry, however, can seem wantonly repulsive.
    His career coincided with Rome's momentous change from Republic to Empire. An officer in the republican army that was crushed at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became something of a spokesman for the new regime. For some commentators, his association with the regime was a delicate balance in which he maintained a strong measure of independence (he was "a master of the graceful sidestep") but for others he was, in John Dryden's phrase, "a well-mannered court slave".
    His poetry became "the common currency of civilization", and he still retains a devoted following, despite some stigmatization after World War I (perhaps due to popular mistrust of old-fashioned patriotism and imperial glory, with which he was identified, fairly or unfairly). Horatian studies have become so diverse and intensive in recent years that it is probably no longer possible for any one scholar to command the whole range of arguments and issues.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. 
  --L.P. Hartley, writer (1895-1972)

P.1521 - §2 (136:8.2)  In your consideration of the life and experience of the Son of Man, it should be ever borne in mind that the Son of God was incarnate in the mind of a first-century human being, not in the mind of a twentieth-century or other-century mortal. By this we mean to convey the idea that the human endowments of Jesus were of natural acquirement. He was the product of the hereditary and environmental factors of his time, plus the influence of his training and education. His humanity was genuine, natural, wholly derived from the antecedents of, and fostered by, the actual intellectual status and social and economic conditions of that day and generation. While in the experience of this God-man there was always the possibility that the divine mind would transcend the human intellect, nonetheless, when, and as, his human mind functioned, it did perform as would a true mortal mind under the conditions of the human environment of that day.


    Leslie Poles Hartley (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972) was a British writer, known for novels and short stories. His best-known work is The Go-Between (1953), which was made into a 1970 film, directed by Joseph Losey with a star cast, in an adaptation by Harold Pinter. The book's opening sentence, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", has become almost proverbial.
    Hartley was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, where he lived with his parents, Bessie and Harry and his two sisters, Enid and Annie Norah. He then moved to an estate near Peterborough with his family. He was educated in Cliftonville, Thanet, then briefly at Clifton College, where he first met Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin, and at Harrow School.
    In 1915 he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read modern history. There he befriended Aldous Huxley. In 1916 he joined the British Army. He was commissioned as an officer but for health reasons never left the United Kingdom. Invalided out, he returned to Oxford in 1919, where he gathered a number of literary friends, including Lord David Cecil.
    His work was published in Oxford Poetry in 1920 and 1922. He edited Oxford Outlook, with Gerald Howard and A. B. B. Valentine in 1920, and in 1921 with Basil Murray and M. C. Hollis also. At this time he was introduced by Huxley to Lady Ottoline Morrell. Kitchin, who was at Oxford also, introduced him to the Asquiths; Cynthia Asquith became a lifelong friend. Despite being named after Leslie Stephen, Hartley always belonged to the Asquith milieu, and was rebuffed by the Bloomsbury group.
    Success came with having his first writing published and becoming a reviewer after his Oxford degree. Though this gave him rapid social elevation his life remained very strained, and in 1922 he suffered a nervous breakdown. Soon afterwards he started spending much time in Venice; he continued to do so for many years.
    Until the success of The Go-Between he gained little recognition. He was, however, awarded the 1947 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Eustace and Hilda and in 1956 he was awarded the CBE.
    There is a critical analysis of Hartley's ghost stories in Jack Sullivan's book Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu to Blackwood (1978). A critical essay on Hartley's ghost stories appears in S. T. Joshi's book The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004).
    The Hireling was dramatised and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 as its Classic Serial, on 19 and 26 June 2011. The narrator was Kenneth Cranham.

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.
  --Jack Penn (1909-1996)

P.291 - §3 (26:5.3)  That, then, is the primary or elementary course which confronts the faith-tested and much-traveled pilgrims of space. But long before reaching Havona, these ascendant children of time have learned to feast upon uncertainty, to fatten upon disappointment, to enthuse over apparent defeat, to invigorate in the presence of difficulties, to exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity, and to exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable. Long since, the battle cry of these pilgrims became: "In liaison with God, nothing--absolutely nothing--is impossible."


Jack Penn (14 August 1909 – 27 November 1996), M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S.(E.)., Mil. Dec. M.B.E., S.M., was a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, sculptor and author, who was also for a time a Member of the President's Council in South Africa.

To become a father is to experience an infinite dependency on an infinitely small, frail being, dependent on us and therefore omnipotent over our heart.
  --French theologian Louis Evely (1910–1985)

P.1769 - §9  (159:5.7) Other religions had suggested the thought of the nearness of God to man, but Jesus made the care of God for man like the solicitude of a loving father for the welfare of his dependent children and then made this teaching the cornerstone of his religion.


    Louis Evely (1910–1985) was a Christian spiritual writer from Belgium. A Roman Catholic priest, he published several books about the spiritual life. After his marriage he left the priesthood but remained active as a spiritual leader.
    Évely was a pedagogue of the spiritual life and at the same time a publishing wonder. Several of his works sold in the hundreds of thousands and were translated into 25 languages. The fame of Louis Évely was such in the 1960s that one of his sermons was reproduced in its entirety in a film directed by Éric Rohmer. One of his conferences on prayer held in Spain started a riot, as some conservative Catholics were shocked by his freedom of expression.
    Most of Évely's work, rather than the fruit of academic research, stems from preaching at conferences and retreats and from the response that his words worked in the heart of thousands of Christians. Many of his listeners transcribed the text of talks to disseminate them among their churches, often in carbon typescript or photocopies, long before the texts reached editors and printers.

That fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which, therefore, the true value cannot be assigned.
  --Dr Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784)

P.1579 - §1 (140:7.5)  One week of this varied experience did much for the twelve; some even became over self-confident. At the last conference, the night after the Sabbath, Peter and James came to Jesus, saying, "We are ready--let us now go forth to take the kingdom." To which Jesus replied, "May your wisdom equal your zeal and your courage atone for your ignorance."


    Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
    Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write miscellaneous pieces for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes", and the play Irene.
    After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship." This work brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare's plays, and the widely read tale Rasselas. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.
    Johnson had a tall and robust figure, but his odd gestures and tics were confusing to some on their first encounter with him. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome (TS), a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After a series of illnesses he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In the years following his death, Johnson began to be recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and even as the only great critic of English literature.

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.
  --Frank A. Clark (1911-1991)

P.1557 - §1 (139:5.7) He [Philip] would not hesitate to interrupt Jesus in the midst of one of the Master's most profound discourses to ask an apparently foolish question. But Jesus never reprimanded him for such thoughtlessness; he was patient with him and considerate of his inability to grasp the deeper meanings of the teaching. Jesus well knew that, if he once rebuked Philip for asking these annoying questions, he would not only wound this honest soul, but such a reprimand would so hurt Philip that he would never again feel free to ask questions. Jesus knew that on his worlds of space there were untold billions of similar slow-thinking mortals, and he wanted to encourage them all to look to him and always to feel free to come to him with their questions and problems. After all, Jesus was really more interested in Philip's foolish questions than in the sermon he might be preaching. Jesus was supremely interested in men, all kinds of men.


    Clark was born in Elkhart on Oct. 10, 1911, the son of Ralph Atherton Clark, a banker who later sold insurance, and Bethania McKinstry Clark, who died in 1917. The senior Clark remarried, and his second wife, Elizabeth, brought up Frank and his brother, Tom, who was one year older.
    As a student in Elkhart, Frank Clark participated in school plays and speech events, says Clark's son, Bruce, of Bellevue. Later in life, Clark would feel at ease when speaking before groups of people about "The Country Parson."
    In 1929, Clark enrolled at Drake University, hoping to become a Disciples of Christ minister. Bruce Clark says his dad worked part time as a janitor at the Equitable Building to help meet expenses.
    Clark found New Testament and Greek courses difficult, prompting a switch a year later to Drake's Liberal Arts College, where he majored in math and minored in physics.
    Graduating in 1933, Clark took a job on the information desk at the Des Moines Register and Tribune. He soon talked his way into writing a science column, selling the Sunday magazine editor on his idea for a weekly feature. Carrying the byline F. Atherton Clark, "Odd, Isn't It?" was based on little-known scientific facts. The success of "Odd, Isn't It?" helped Clark become a features writer.
    In 1938, Clark married his high school sweetheart, Gladys, who had become a music teacher. They had three sons, Mark, Paul and Bruce.
    In 1941, Clark moved to the Register and Tribune Syndicate as assistant managing editor and was later promoted to managing editor.
    In a 1980 interview, Clark told longtime Register and Tribune religion writer William Simbro that "most of the good things that have happened to me in my career happened by accident when I was trying to help someone else."
    In the case of "The Country Parson," he was helping Minnesota cartoonist Wally Falk, who wanted to get a second feature started with the R&T Syndicate after his first, "Kickin' Around," proved successful.
    He pitched the idea of "The Country Parson" to Clark, who agreed to provide the one-liners for the daily feature if Falk drew the illustrations. "Parson" made its debut on April 4, 1955.
    At the end of that year, 28 newspapers were carrying the feature.
    Clark and Falk worked as a team until Falk's death in 1962. At that time R&T artist Dennis Neal took over illustration duties.
    When asked about his role in making "The Country Parson" successful, Clark explained that "I hear a lot of sermons, and I read a lot of others. I just boil them down to one sentence, which probably is all they should have been in the first place."
    But he added that many preachers would take his one-liners and blow them up into full-scale sermons again.
    Today, Gladys Clark says her husband was proud of "The Country Parson" and took the work seriously.
    "He spent a lot of time on it - both at his office downtown and at home," she says. She also says her husband was often asked to speak at conventions and before church groups and clubs about the feature.
    Clark worked three months in advance, sending his written homilies to the illustrator so that the R&T Syndicate could send six panels weekly to member newspapers.
    The Des Moines Tribune ran "Parson" on Page One for a long period, then moved it to Page Three, publishing it Monday through Friday, using five of the six panels offered. When the Tribune closed in 1982, the Register carried the feature for a time.
    During his career, Clark was able to work alongside his brother Tom, the Register's financial and markets editor for 30 years. It was he who, as a young R&T library clerk, had tipped off Frank about the initial job opening that launched his career.
    In later years, Frank Clark was the R&T Syndicate's business manager and served on its board of directors. He retired from his full-time job in 1976, but continued to write for "The Country Parson."
    At age 80, on Dec. 11, 1991, Clark died of a kidney ailment at a Des Moines hospital. He donated his body to medical research at the forerunner of Des Moines University, and memorial services were held at Des Moines' First Christian Church, where Clark had long been an active member.

It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity.
  --John Ruskin, (1819-1900)

P.1104 - §6 (101:1.3) The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward.

P.1808 - §1 (163:6.7)  To you and to all who shall follow in your steps down through the ages, let me say: I always stand near, and my invitation-call is, and ever shall be, Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am true and loyal, and you shall find spiritual rest for your souls.


    John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
    He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
    Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.