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<i>And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.</i><br>
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<td width="90" height="73" colspan="3" align="left" xpos="234" content valign="top" csheight="20">-<i>Rev. 12:7-9</i></td>
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<p><b><font size="5">IF</font></b> one could spread out a magic canvas and project upon it all the activities of the world’s stages and screens since the beginnings of drama in the festivals of Dionysus, the spectator would observe a theatric-dramatic life that has fallen from the divine to the profane. Our pageant would sweep from majestic Greek tragedy with its high nobility and sheer purging beauty, through the glorious play structure and unforgettable portraits in poetry of Shakespeare, to the perfect wisdom and vivid loveliness of Goethe and Schiller. From this lofty mount our dramatic course would take a downward slide to the social and intellectual dramas of Shaw, Tolstoy and Ibsen; thence a swift descent, with moments of joyous uplift, into the prying decadence of the last fifty years...and a denouement threatening even greater darkness. The war against God in the Arts is ongoing and insidious. The State of the Arts in America and in the resultant world drama, is perilous. Never has the stage and its actors been farther from the divinity which marked, with ecstasy and fervor, all other eras. Mephistopheles, himself, could not have asked for better odds when he wagered with The Lord that he would wrest the soul of Dr. Faust from its heavenward course. <font size="2">(1)</font><br>
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The actor, through whose artistry the drama speaks to us, has a history that spans a vast gulf between priesthood and bawdry. Honored and revered as servants of the gods in Greece, where the great tragedies were performed within the Temple circle, actors fell to sad depths in Rome, thereafter were honored by some kings and queens, and banished as vagabonds and rogues by others. The Church called them into service to perform Passion Plays but also excommunicated them as persons of “besmirched character.” In our century just passed, actors have been knighted by governments and, with the rise of the motion picture industry, accorded a celebrity, god-like stature unsurpassed in any other profession. Unfortunately, the intrinsic purpose of the actor as the mentor of humanity’s nobler nature, has not held companionship with the meteoric rise of his ‘persona’. With rare exceptions, the actor today is a panderer to men’s vilest appetites and a mimic of all that is <i>not</i> made in the image and likeness of God. <br>
<br>
The story of how actors are trained in the dramatic arts is less panoramic. In Greece, stateliness of movement and beauty of diction constituted the art of acting. Masks and voluminous costumes were worn to suit religious convention. In each succeeding age, in Rome, in Renaissance Italy, in France, Germany and England through the great acting era of the eighteenth century, actors groped toward a more naturalistic style, suggesting something more human, and more real. Today, there are many schools of acting and as many philosophies taught though all have continued the trend towards a life-like representation of familiar men and women. <br>
<br>
My training as an actress was English with its preference for elocution and technical eminence. British actors still train this way in the renowned institutes of Speech Training and Dramatic Art. Before the advent of movies an aspiring actor attended such schools and applied himself to a stagecraft of skilled beauty. Live theater was the ultimate expression of an actor’s art; ‘transcendent greatness’ won only amidst the living and critical spirit of its playgoers. To the stage then the actor fixed his star. The celluloid magic of the screen, however, changed all of that. The camera and not the actor projected the moving drama. Action, reaction and interaction could be artificially created through camera angles, lighting, retakes and editing. Actors who looked great in a screen test were signed and scripts commissioned to further enhance their starry 'essence'...and the golden age of glamor, type casting and big studio profits was ushered in. Though the Romantic years of World War II and post period exacted a higher integrity of talent and versatility from the leading studio players, the abandonment of the “old school of the stage” had become a fact. <br>
<br>
In the classical disciplines - ballet, opera, musical instrument - technique is the first requirement. To it the artist brings his own inspiration and spiritual light. Together they compose his individual artistry. The classical milieu has never moved from its lofty station because technique is an immovable and impersonal standard. The artist’s reputation is built upon it. His fame has no default to an original persona or culture-cool 'sex' appeal. Classical disciplines secure their patronage because they ensure the highest integrity of performance while expressing the most sublime of human sentiments. Broadway may adapt a less than erudite <i>Miss Saigon</i> from Puccini’s <i>Madame Butterfly, </i>but the Metropolitan Opera will be true to the original masterpiece employing technically brilliant artists to execute its exquisite beauty and pathos. The training of a classical artist does not tamper with the components of his personality because it is technique or craft-oriented. Thus the psyche of a young opera student or violinist or ballet dancer remains intact - enhanced we trust, but never invaded. Teachers and directors do not feel the necessity to 'liberate' his natural inhibitions or deeply held religious constraints in the name of 'freeing' him as an artist.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately this does not hold for the training of popular actors. 'Method' influenced schools teach that the actor cannot achieve honest emotional responsiveness or psychological truthfulness without personal experience of and empathy with the depths of the human condition. This means all conditions, whether morally approved of or not. Thus the golden calf of 'realism' demands emancipation of the actor’s total personality and his unconditional immersion in the roles he undertakes. This kind of training, Imprimatur: Hollywood, leaves young impressionable students vulnerable not only to a mire of dark emotion that forbids moral correction, but to the <i>agenda</i> of their teachers. Rigorous sessions of psychoanalysis of the actor or the character are not necessary for giving a convincing and dramatically effective performance. Skilled technique alone can do the job while lending the actor an intellectual force that illumines his presence and assures the self-restraint and control he needs to stay separated from his character even as he gives it birth. I do not believe it necessary for any actor to <i>become</i> the character he is acting out, anymore than one might expect the pianist to become his concerto or the sculptor to become his ‘tour de force’ in clay. <br>
<br>
An actor should have an integrated sense of emotional and spiritual values before he draws into himself the vista of human emotions that make up his artist’s palette. Otherwise he can become lost in the creative labyrinth which, for today’s actors, is like being lost in Hades. Faith is the most essential possession in anyone’s life, but especially for an actor, who needs it every day to ensure that the 'frail barque' of his fortunes remains anchored in safe harbor and does not get swept away by the dangerous currents of his profession. <br>
<br>
The original Method acting concepts, introduced by Stanislavski at the turn of the century in his book, <i>An Actor Prepares,</i> added richness and inspiration to the actor’s craft. And in the 30’s and 40’s, when studios were regulated to maintain “the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion picture production,” their translation to the stage and screen added much. However, in the last fifty years, with aggressive moral deregulation in our society, production values have been notoriously compromised pandering to the most inferior moral and intellectual taste. Theater schools are increasingly being run by amoral progressives in a progressively amoral society. Young actors, even on eclectic campuses, must undergo invasive surgery of their hearts, minds and souls, with all residue of the ‘old morality’ removed. As these ‘experts’ relentlessly work to tear down all restraints, the soul of the young artist is diminished and his psyche carefully engineered to take on the prejudices of a liberal ideological elite of producers, directors, playwrights, and media publicists.<br>
<br>
The purpose of this Hollywood Harvard elite ever has been the reconstruction of a new society that celebrates wholesale artistic and personal freedom. Such a society must discard all discernible traces of moral judgment and adherence to ethical codes of conduct. In collusion with sex and gender activists and liberal minded politicians, they see themselves as the great reformers in the tradition of all social scientists, Marxists and Maoists. Their animus against God, against all that is literate, beautiful, and sacred in our Judeo-Christian heritage, is evident as the entertainment industry they feed and control has become a protected swampland of social and moral whoredom. <br>
<br>
What part do actors play in all of this? They have become the human sacrifices on the altar of 'artistic freedom', unwisely employing their gifts to serve a plethora of roles that would make Pandora blush. Sex and violence have become the box-office sell-outs for young adults and children. In the westerns and war films of the past we saw violence but it was always within a moral or patriotic context. The hero was acting in self-defense or in behalf of a principle of freedom or justice. Evil was clearly defined. Good was the end in view. If the hero acted out violence, it was to redress a wrong rather than commit a wrong. Violence in newer films stems from a deep, dark place in the psyche that is cruel and sinister and often perverted. Anger, revenge, animosity and hate are common character motivations. Films with violence as the center of their story line have desensitized and confused their audiences as to how they should behave and what is right and wrong. Indeed, in the downward course of our dramatic life, we see the realization of Gabriel's words in <i>Faust:</i> "A paradise of brightness changes to awful shuddering depths of night." <font size="2">(2)</font><br>
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Tragically it is the women who have created the darkest presence. As Eve brought down Adam, so actresses today, with rare exceptions, have descended to an all time low in their betrayal of the true nature of woman, of her most revered virtues: purity, grace, joy, selflessness, dignity, steadfast courage, and a submissive spirit. In a deluge of emotion churning soap operas, sit-coms and high-tech alien culture movies we see women degraded to the coarsest and most shameless of human interactions. Anything of the traditional woman is not only ridiculed but despised. A generalized anger toward men, relentless ambition, sexual fizzle and what can only be described as a kind of paranoid upsmanship is a trademark of Hollywood feminist heroines. They vamp across the screen with a hollow, deadening, repetitive pulse. <br>
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It is very important for young actresses entering the profession today to understand exactly how radical feminism has shaped the kind of roles women play, both on and off the screen. Phyllis Schlafly, writing in a 1998 issue of the <i>Texas Review of Law and Politics,</i> hit the nail on the head: “Feminism falsely teaches young women that marriage is a cage, that casual sex means freedom, that divorce leads to liberation, that child care is an unfair burden, that abortion is a woman’s right, and that devoting themselves to careers in their 30s and 30s will surely bring fulfillment.” Robert Bork, in his book,<i> Slouching Towards Gomorrah,</i> further elaborates that feminists view religion as a man-made vehicle for keeping women in submission. And they are for big government because they look to a powerful bureaucracy and liberal judiciary to correct their imagined wrongs. Sadly, nearly every leading actress in Hollywood carries the feminist union card.<br>
<br>
I am reminded of Figaro’s words in the last Act of the opera, <i>Le Nozze di Figaro</i> when, on the night of his wedding to Susannah, he (mistakenly) believes that his bride has conspired to a tryst with the Count. In his despair and imagined betrayal, he bursts forth in Recitative and Aria an indictment that could well apply to our modern feminist players.<br>
<br>
Ah, to put faith in woman, in woman!<br>
Foolish beginning!<br>
Like witches with sorcery, they charm and decoy,<br>
Like sirens with treachery, they sing and destroy.<br>
They flatter their vanity and cater to fashion,<br>
They cause us unhappiness and show no compassion.<br>
Like roses with biars,<br>
Like soft-spoken liars,<br>
Appearing delightful,<br>
Yet vicious and spiteful.<br>
Deceitful and jealous,<br>
To love they are callous,<br>
Their heart is of stone,<br>
Yes, made of stone! <font size="2">(3)</font><br>
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These ‘sirens’ of illicit sex and adultery parading across our screens in prime time are a far cry from the beloved icons of a more gracious era when love of home and family and the roles of the good ‘mom’ and cherished husband were not so demeaning after all. Could these words spoken of Greer Garson by Christopher Plummer be applied to any of our current female stars: “Here was an artist who had depth, strength, dignity, and humor, who could inspire great trust, suggest deep intellect and... melt your heart away!” <font size="2">(4)</font> Or the words of Roddy McDowall: “In her screen appearance as Mrs Miniver, all her unique accomplishments fused with the peak of World War II, and she became the personification of female courage, dignity, grace, humanity, and stamina. She was a stunning figurehead during very bleak days.” <font size="2">(5)</font> Add to this Academy Award winning role, Paula Ridgeway of <i>Random Harvest</i>, the young Mrs. Chips of <i>Goodbye, Mr Chips,</i> Edna Gladney of<i> Blossoms in the Dust,</i> Elizabeth Bennett of <i>Pride and Prejudice,</i> Mary Rafferty of <i>The Valley of Decision,</i> and Madame Curie of the same film, and we find that Miss Garson indeed combined the ideal qualities that speak of ardent and lovely womanhood, of compassion, gentility, and refinement - soul deep. <br>
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It is interesting to note that in the opera, <i>Le Nozze di Figaro,</i> it is the Countess who redeems woman by rising above her own suffering and betrayal inflicted by the constant infidelity of her husband, the Count. Are they over, she asks herself, “those cherished moments, hours together so sweetly shared?” She chooses not to descend to the same low behavior but to summon her love and devotion as his wife to “change his false and ungrateful heart.” <font size="2">(6)</font> And in fact, she beautifully succeeds!<br>
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In the Spring of 1999 I had the opportunity to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon in England and attend the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream.</i> With an all-star stage cast and world renowned director, I sat horrified, in disbelief, as Titania paraded before us as ‘The Great Whore' - her fairies, sluts of differing preferences, one of whom bawdily seduced Puck in the opening scene. Oberon, his bald head and open breast marked with cultish symbols, wove a dark, satanic presence as he performed ‘mudras’ over the players and the audience - all this to an original voodoo music score. Oberon and Puck both made their entrances from beneath the stage floor emerging out of a red smoke that reminded one of the "mist and murk" of Hell's maw from which the conjuring Lemurs rose in <i>Faust.</i> Hermia and Helena made their appearances in 1930’s vamp fashions while their two lovers, Lysander and Demetrius, entered wearing gangster trenchcoats and carrying machine guns. The scenes of Bottom and Titania in her fairy bower fit an R to X rated category of public exhibition. And every possible sexual/homosexual innuendo was read into or superimposed over Shakespeare’s verse. The performance left me with the deepest sense of betrayal not only by a company of actors I had long revered but by my own sex in my own beloved profession.<br>
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If few women’s roles inspire toward a nobler kind of womanhood, so even fewer men’s roles project traditional masculinity in all its gallantry and honor. Swashbuckling, chivalrous depictions of clean hearted heroes are ridiculed today or mixed in with enough moral usury to deny a real hero’s claim. The recent Broadway presentation of <i>The Scarlet Pimpernel</i> proved that the characterization of noble intent and high manly spirits so well associated with Baroness Orczy’s classic can easily be played down to wanton and unabashed effeminization and trite melodrama in this politically correct culture. <br>
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The industry of child actors, too, is a deplorable exploitation and has gone far and beyond where “angels fear to tread”. Children are treated like small adults. They are made up to look gaudily glamorous for the stage, taught affectations, and given dialogue unsuited to their natural innocence or psychology. It is harmful and frankly unholy to expose a child to human realities that are darkly dysfunctional before that child has the co-measurement of what is wholesome and true. <br>
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The common fare of movies and television shows reckon on the lowest possible audience taste. The preponderance of sexual language tears relentlessly at the fragile veil of inexperience. There is no place for a child to retire in her innocence and let God unfold knowledge gently and beautifully. The roles in which children are cast today are so street wise as to make one blush with anger and shame. The children act with a cynicism and savoir faire that has no connection at all with the reality of childhood or the reality of normal, descent people. As Maria Montessori taught, children are rare indelibles and we must lay the proper foundations of beauty, order, reason, intelligence, and worship to cultivate the divine flame within - a flame she likened to the burning bush revealed to Moses. <br>
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Benjamin Franklin believed Virtue to be an Art and that children “must be taught the principles of the art, be shown all the methods of working, and how to acquire the habits of using properly all the instruments; and thus regularly and gradually he arrives, by practice, at some perfection in the art.” <font size="2">(7)</font> Today it is not the Art of Virtue that is revered, celebrated and publicly enshrined in our theater houses and on our screens; it is the Art of Evil. So far has our society deteriorated morally and intellectually that studios make no bones about portraying evil as an equal and acceptable alternative to good. Indeed, good has become associated with what is boring, old-fashioned and religiously bigoted, while evil carries a magnetism of power, seduction and adventure. It is no longer depicted in a way that shocks, reviles and causes outrage. Story subjects of sex, violence, and corruption have already benumbed a visually saturated populace. Not to forget a liberal administration that aggressively promotes such 'freedom of expression.' Federal agencies, like the National Endowment for the Arts, are using millions of our tax-paying dollars to facilitate the creation and exhibition of some of the most lurid and perverse expressions of the human heart ever visited upon a civilization since the days of Babylon. <br>
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Decadence, of course, has long made its ugly appearance on the stage of life, but it is only in <i>this</i> present age that it is being accepted as a valid expression of human life - and one requiring no moral repercussion. Darkness has become so much a weave of our everyday lives that it is no longer identified for its intrinsic evil. This is what is so terrifying. In the conduct of men and women today, what “feels right” is the new commandment; emotion (in its rawest exposure) has replaced reason; ignorance has assumed equal pride of place with wisdom; individual expression (meaning whatever anyone wants to do or say at any time as long as it isn’t a form of prayer to God) has been installed as the sacred cow to which all must defer or suffer the peril of being sued by misguided zealots backed by an always acquiescent ACLU! The “consciousness” of all beauty, holiness and righteousness that flows from God has been usurped by the “consciousness” of abomination. The Arts has fallen fatal victim of this takeover and not without calculated purpose for the Arts are powerful indoctrinators and trend setters - even more so than the schoolrooms.<br>
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During Hollywood’s Golden Age, movie fans and filmmakers knew that the big studios like MGM were the places where the world’s most talented artists defined, captured and sustained the highest integrity (that this age could allow) in entertainment. The far reaching impact of the film media is no better seen than in the response by Winston Churchill to the poignant war-time drama of an upper middle class family in Britain during the time of Hitler’s blitz. The film was <i>Mrs. Miniver,</i> starring Walter Pigeon and Greer Garson. Churchill predicted that the film’s contribution to defeating the Axis powers would be more powerful than a fleet of battleships and urged President Roosevelt to press for an immediate wide release - especially in England. Louis B Mayer, who headed MGM which produced the film, did as he was told and <i>Mrs. Miniver</i> premiered June 4, 1942, coinciding with the second anniversary of Churchill’s famous “We shall never surrender” address to the English people. It was an exalting tribute to the British and to far more than that - to the finest qualities in men and women that make them rise above extraordinary circumstances with a fortitude born of a faith in what is right, and a deep trust in God to defend that right. <font size="2">(8)</font><br>
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People are moved just as much today by romantic, idealistic stories rich in family virtues and faith, for they touch the deepest parts of our souls where dreams are born and hope blossoms even amidst misfortune. But America suffers her own blackout because of an enemy within her own borders - a Godless Hollywood power elite. Because there is no searchlight of conscience sweeping that blackout sky their blitz is far more insidious and devastating. With a dishonesty and perniciousness hardly recognizable as “Made in the USA’, they have done a heartbreaking violence to our children, to our cadre of performers, to society, to our educational institutions, and to our core political and moral heritage. Theirs is a conscious, calculated agenda. They have mined and booby-trapped the Arts - and these having contingent traps in themselves. Where we have hearts on fire for God, their hearts are wastelands wherein no spark of God’s illuminating Light remains to stir the soul to godly purpose. They play for high stakes because they have already sold out their country, their profession, and their souls. By their fruits we <i>have</i> known them.<br>
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Much like the Jester in <i>Faust</i> who admonished the Poet that his drama should “cheer and edify the multitudes,” <font size="2">(9)</font> Mervin LeRoy, a producer of MGM films in the 40’s, stated that in motion picture making, “if you have a message, let it cheer.” The films of today, of course, certainly have social commentary but of the carefully concocted, leftist propaganda kind that leaves one feeling hopeless or cynical. Mr. LeRoy directed roles that typified the sailor’s dream: a happy home, a family, and a good wife. He also believed that it is more effective for an actor to understate emotion so that his presence on the screen holds a quality of dignity and self-restraint especially when depicting a love story. A love story, he held, should be sacred ground and the men and women of moral substance. Needless to say, his modern counterparts prefer ‘encounters’ to traditional unions of love, and turgid lust to eloquent self-possession. To our secular filmmakers, nothing is sacred; their realism is vulturism. In fact their films urge the public that they should demand that no difficulties exist along their happy way in the pursuit of pleasure. <br>
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It is significant to note here that great plays, like great operas, can deal with the darkest or most immoral aspects of human conduct and yet, written or directed with a Godly perspective, the audience can experience a purging joy and clarity. Take, for instance, Sophocles' <i>Oedipus.</i> The play treats the subject of murder, incest and suicide. The poetry carries us through inexhaustible depths as it is revealed to Oedipus and his wife that they are really mother and son and that Oedipus has unknowingly killed his own father. As the Messenger tells of the Queen’s terrible despair and immediate demise; of Oedipus’ wrenching sorrow and subsequent self-blinding, we are shaken - and yet there is a glow of beauty in our souls, a healing that is deep and sure. Oedipus suffers the consequences of his own evil actions though that evil had not been intended. He reaches deep into his broken soul and gropes his way forward, calling on the gods, glorying that he has made himself a dungeon, “dark, without sound...self-prisoned from a world of pain.” <font size="2">(10)</font> No god or God could exact a more poignant justice and Oedipus accepts it nobly. Somehow his soul seems to stand up and take the light, naked and glorious... And somehow we are cleansed by the tragic beauty of it all. We have not shuddered at Sophocles’ telling, nor have we been repulsed; our suffering and grief, like that of the players in the drama, have been kept on some loftier plane where our spirits are inundated and become one with God’s spirit and his healing love. This is nobly proportioned theater. It is the art that in its ultimate simplicity and obedience to the laws of God, achieves completeness. <br>
<br>On the opposite side of the coin, just as we can take difficult subject matter and create, through the elements of play structure, a transmutation of suffering into joy, so modern screen writers and directors have taken the literary classics of Bronte, Austin, Hodgson-Burnett, Montgomery, Dumas et al and projected character motivations and narrative distortions that the author could never approve. They literally steal the purity, goodness and light of these great stories and enshroud them with their own shadowed viewpoints. It's just like dimming the lights on a beautiful scene. Somehow the original brightness and glory is now seen by the audience "through a glass darkly." The average moviegoer, not aware of the subtle layers, does not experience the joy, uplift and beauty that the original novels hold within their folds.</p>
<p>With the exception of the classical disciplines, some community theaters, church and religious programs, and the rare entrepreneurial producer, the artist today has removed himself from the tradition of greatness and nobility in his craft and allowed himself to contribute to the lowest order of cultural pollution ever witnessed in American history. We have no choice but to resolutely stand against this “tsunami” of evil and reclaim Virtue as the bedrock and highest aspiration of the Arts before she is jettisoned from us in hardwire judicial legislation much like Roe vs Wade jettisoned the ineffable reverence for life replacing it with a mesmerizing culture of death. And the Poet spoke:<br>
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<td width="360" height="167" colspan="7" align="left" xpos="254" content valign="top" csheight="152"><i>Enveil from me the billowing mass compelling<br>
Us to its vortex with resistless might. <br>
No, lead me to the tranquil, heavenly dwelling <br>
Where only blooms for poets pure delight, <br>
Where Love and Friendship give the heart their blessing, <br>
With godlike hand creating and progressing. <br>
What gleams is born but for the moment’s pages; <br>
The true remains, unlost to after-ages.</i><br>
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<p>- Goethe, <i>Faust </i><font size="2">(11</font>)<br>
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<td width="620" height="370" colspan="13" align="left" xpos="70" content valign="top" csheight="337">I always tell my students that the true magic of theater is when actor and audience share a transcendent ‘moment’ together, a moment that becomes alive and radiant in the heart because it touches on God’s spirit. And you become one with that spirit in its beauty and clarity. It is a moment that may precipitate a thousand watchers into joyful tears or a cleansing grief, or into perfect understanding. This is the ‘moment’ toward which all drama tends, as the Greeks so exquisitely understood. It is the moment of healing, of resolve, of glory because your Spirit has addressed the Spirit of your audience. It is the highest communication of the Artist. And this, in a world from which divinity and mystery have been shorn, is truly a ‘moment’ that raises actor and audience toward a higher revelation of a life more divine. This Magic Moment is the true experience and end of theater. When, as an Artist, you become a transparency for the noblest, purest and most beautiful thoughts of God, your ‘magic’ will surely be as luminous as the fairest Star! <br>
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Just as homeschoolers and some parochial schools have decided to come apart and work together to bring the highest and best education to our children, so those of us who cherish the Arts as a sublime expression of the noblest in man, must also come apart and create forge fires of community theaters and enrichment programs across the country sharing and building upon our best inspired resources of literature and history. My goal with Family Playhouse is to not only provide students with the tools to be effective performers but to encourage a new and loftier perspective of the Arts. I want them to know that they have an opportunity to bring their own rare gifts of grace, stamina, wit, sweetness, purity, intelligence, and liveliness of heart to each acting assignment and to an industry that desperately needs their virtue. Their contributions will bear many blossoms when they derive their strength and inspiration from that part of self that strives toward the beautiful and true and gives God the glory.<br>
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The war against God in the Arts is as much about the ultimate destinies of individuals as it is of the fate of the Arts. It behooves us to seek His guidance in the proper way to resist, lest we lose that which is more irreplaceable than our nation or her dramatic life: that part of the individual which is truly immortal - the soul. The ultimate victory is God’s, with us aiding His efforts, as He sees fit to direct us. The stakes are very high for each one of us as Americans. The ultimate reckoning will affect us not alone as a nation conceived in Liberty but as individuals conceived in the image and holy purpose of God. <br>
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The odds are against us but with resolution and courageous trust we seize The Lord’s words spoken to Mephistopheles in <i>Faust:</i><br>
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<td width="346" height="200" colspan="7" align="left" xpos="250" content valign="top" csheight="151"><i><font size="3">Mankind’s activities can languish all too easily,<br>
A man soon loves unhampered rest;<br>
Hence, gladly, I give him a comrade such as you,<br>
Who stirs and works and must, as devil, do.<br>
But ye, real sons of God, lift up your voice,<br>
In living, profuse beauty to rejoice!<br>
May that which grows, that lives and works, forever,<br>
Engird you with Love’s gracious bonds, and aught<br>
That ever may appear, to float and waver,</font></i><br>
<i><font size="3">Make steadfast in enduring thought!</font></i> <font size="2">(12)</font><br>
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<td width="620" height="92" colspan="13" align="left" xpos="70" content valign="top" csheight="70">It is with joy and trust that I offer my own life’s work as one alternative, as a building block for others. The task before each of us is necessary and possible because our children are our highest ambition and our most cherished investment...And, noblesse oblige, God requires it! <br>
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Lives of great men all remind us <br>
We can make our lives sublime <br>
And departing, leave behind us <br>
Footprints on the sands of time. </i>
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<p>- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow <font size="2">(13)</font></p>
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<td width="540" height="222" colspan="11" align="left" xpos="10" content valign="top" csheight="200"><font size="2">(1) <i>Faust,</i> by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Translated by George Madison Priest, 1941<br>
(2) Ibid, p. 11.<br>
(3) <i>Le Nozze di Figaro,</i> Opera Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte/Ruth and Thomas Martin, 1947<br>
(4) <i>A Rose for Mrs. Miniver,</i> by Michael Troyan, 1999, Flyleaf<br>
(5) Ibid, Foreward<br>
(6) <i>Le Nozze di Figaro, </i>Opera Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte/Ruth and Thomas Martin, 1947<br>
(7) <i>Benjamin Franklin’s The Art of Virtue,</i> Ed George L. Rogers, 1996 p. 3<br>
(8) <i>A Rose for Mrs. Miniver,</i> by Michael Troyan, 1999, p. 147<br>
(9) <i>Faust,</i> by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Translated by George Madison Priest, 1941 p. 8<br>
(10) <i>Oedipus,</i> by Sophocles, Translated by Gilbert Murrary, 1929<br>
(11) <i>Faust,</i> by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Translated by George Madison Priest, 1941 p. 6<br>
(12) Ibid, p 14<br>
(13) A Psalm of Life, <i>Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,</i> Castle publ. p. 5</font></td>
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