E.D.E.N. Southworth and Literature Festivals!!

Hello!

We've been really busy this past week, and so this blog has sort of fallen off the face of the earth :P

Well...first of all... yesterday we attended a literature festival with tons of old booksellers and speakers and authors!!! It was tons of fun browsing through all those old books--especially the ones that were marked over $600!!

Whilst browsing near the end of the day, imagine my joy to find a 1908 edition of E.D.E.N. Southworth's The Lost Lady of Lone!!

I was so excited that I read the entire book within a couple of hours.

However!! Imagine my surprise, horror and frustration when I discovered that The Lost Lady of Lone is merely the first book in a two-part story.

And so, after scouring the internet for a long time this morning--including being distressed at not being able to even find a copy on Ebay--I found an online version at Project Gutenburg for free (and there isn't a copyright--probably because no one has bothered to renew it!)

I am having it printed and professionally bound (I don't know about you, but it is very difficult to curl up in a cosy chair with your computer screen--and no book binding smell!!)

So... the long and short of it is: I very much enjoyed the festival, E.D.E.N. Southworth's The Lost Lady of Lone and am looking forward to the sequel when it arrives in hard copy. Need summer reading: I highly recommend Southworth!!

Cheers!

~Laura

Cardinal John Henry Newman :)

Hello!

I just thought you might want to meet the guy who's going to get something in the middle of September...

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Born in 1801, baptised in the Church of England, Newman became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford in 1822, an Anglican clergyman in 1825 and Vicar of the Oxford University Church in 1828.

The Anglican Newman was a pastor of souls, a University teacher, and a student of Christian history and theology. His studies were never purely theoretical. Informed by pastoral experience, they were above all shaped by his insight into the needs of the present.

Newman's point of reference was the Church of the Apostles and 'the Fathers', the great teachers of the first Christian centuries. At school he experienced the attractions of atheism, and all his life showed unusual sympathy with religious doubt. But also at school he underwent a conversion granting him an abiding sense of God's presence. At the same time, Newman acquired the conviction that Christianity is a doctrinal religion, and that doctrine and religious experience are in harmony, not opposed. In Christianity, Newman believed, mind and heart, dogma and experience, come together. With the doctrinal and sacramental faith unfolding in him from his conversion, Newman desired to revive Christianity for a culture descending into unbelief.

Teachings

Some of Newman's Anglican works retain startling relevance. In Arians of the Fourth Century (1833) he conveys through Christian history the very contemporary drama of the battle for orthodox Faith against politically-inspired compromise and apostasy. In his Parochial and Plain Sermons (1834-1843), against a background of nominal, demoralised Christinaity, he unfolds the Mysteries of Faith and awakens the depth and grandeur of the Christian life.

In the Tracts For The Times (1833-1841), Newman and his friends in the 'Oxford Movement' addressed the Church of England in the hope that it could be renewed in the Apostolic Faith. Gradually, it dawned on Newman that this was impossible. The Church of England could not embrace the truth Newman taught.

Embracing the Catholicism

1842-5 were his 'wilderness' years, out of the public eye, secluded in prayer and study. At Littlemore, outside Oxford, he worked on the still deeply influential Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). The book studies the ways in which Faith has unfolded in history; Newman saw an analogy with how Faith unfolds in individual minds, including his own. At last he was convinced that the Faith of the Apostles and Fathers was the Faith of Roman Catholicism. The Church of Christ was the Church of Rome. Embracing the Catholic Church as the 'One Fold of Christ' Newman was received at Littlemore by Blessed Dominic Barberi on 9th October 1845.

read the rest here... it gets really good :P