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Dedicated to writer R. A. Lafferty (1914-2002), about whom the NY Times said:
"…a prolific science fiction writer best known for his short stories and his fresh, eccentric style …had a strong, satirical style and pushed the limits of his genre. One story asked what would happen if everyone on earth had a gun, and another created a world in which fads were created, peaked and died all in a day. A Roman Catholic, he was known for the theological content of his writing.
He wrote more than 200 short stories and 21 novels – historical novels as well as science fiction. Mr. Lafferty received the Hugo Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1973 for his short story 'Eurema's Dam.'"
From Slow Tuesday Night (1960):
"It had been a slow Tuesday night. A few hundred new products had run their course on the markets. There had been a score of dramatic hits, three-minute and five-minute capsule dramas, and several of the six-minute long-play affairs. Night Street Nine—a solidly sordid offering—seemed to be in as the drama of the night unless there should be a late hit.
Hundred-storied buildings had been erected, occupied, obsoleted, and demolished again to make room for more contemporary structures. Only the mediocre would use a building that had been left over from the Day-Flies or the Dawners, or even the Nyctalops of the night before. The city was rebuilt pretty completely at least three times during an eight-hour period." … more
From The Six Fingers of Time (1960):
"In the street there was no motion, no real motion. A truck, first seeming at rest, moved very slowly. There was no gear in which it could move so slowly. And there was a taxi which crept along, but Charles Vincent had to look at it carefully for some time to be sure that it was in motion. Then he received a shock. He realized by the early morning light that the driver of it was dead. Dead with his eyes wide open!
Slowly as it was going, and by whatever means it was moving, it should really be stopped. He walked over to it, opened the door, and pulled on the brake. Then he looked into the eyes of the dead man. Was he really dead? It was hard to be sure. He felt warm. But, even as Vincent looked, the eyes of the dead man had begun to close. And close they did and open again in a matter of about twenty seconds.
This was weird. The slowly closing and opening eyes sent a chill through Vincent. And the dead man had begun to lean forward in his seat. Vincent put a hand in the middle of the man's chest to hold him upright, but he found the forward pressure as relentless as it was slow. He was unable to keep the dead man up." … more
In a 1973 interview with Alien Critic, R. A. Lafferty told Paul Walker 1:
"I write as clearly as I am able to. I sometimes tackle ideas and notions that are relatively complex, and it is very difficult to be sure that I am conveying them in the best way. Anyone who goes beyond cliche phrases and cliche ideas will have this trouble."
In a 1979 interview, R. A. Lafferty told Robert J. Whitaker 2:
"You seem to posit a real world, but that is doubtful. There isn't any reality except the various consensus realities. And no two persons belong to quite the same consensus. So the world that a person lives in is largely a world that he has fictionized, whether he is a fictioner by trade or not. Whatever frustrations we find in the cantankerous combo-world is partly from our own inability to shape things just the way we want to.
Pax, paz, peace, iri'ni, salaam, scholem, heiwa, amani, perdamaian, sulh, rusha, pokój, fred, vrede, frieden, síocháin, mirno."
Lafferty's list of sixteen non-English words concluded his 1979 interview.
To see the language name, you can hover your mouse pointer over each word, or click the word. Lafferty knew the Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch language well, with a reading or speaking knowledge of Greek, Gaelic, Malay, Tagalog, Hebrew, Arabic and Slavic languages. 3
For a list of stories and novels written by R. A. Lafferty, see his Works and quotes.
"Lafferty is our unheralded American Garcia Marquez …" —Terry Bisson 4
"Lafferty has the power which sets fire behind your eyeballs. There is warmth, illumination, and a certain joy attendant upon the experience." —Roger Zelazny 5
"…like Gulliver's Travels, almost all of Lafferty can be read as enchanting entertainments, or as sharply-etched political cartoonery, or as analogs of a superbly thought-out philosophy concerning human nature and human conduct. In other words, you get out of Lafferty, as out of Swift, whatever you're equipped to bring in." —Theodore Sturgeon 6
"R. A. Lafferty… was undoubtedly the finest writer of whatever it was that he did that ever there was. He was a genius, an oddball, a madman. His stories… are without precedent." —Neil Gaiman 7
"Lafferty's Stories, like Philip K. Dick's, are not susceptible to being confused with the work of any other writer." —Fred Saberhagen 5
"He is our most original writer… Just about everything Lafferty writes is fun, is witty, is entertaining and playful. But it is not easy, for it is a mingling of allegory with myth, and of both with something more." —Gene Wolfe 8
"Lafferty gives the impression of a sort of bumbling, provincial rube, but underneath the strategic humility is a steel-trap mind and a terrifying erudition." —Iao 9
"Lafferty belongs to a select group that includes James Joyce and Amos Tutuola, of writers who have reinvented the language of literature for themselves from the ground up… Lafferty has drawn strongly from the oral tradition of the American tall tale." —Michael Swanwick 10
"Wild, subtle, demonic, angelic, hilarious, tragic, poetic, a thundering melodrama and quest into the depths of the human spirit… R.A. Lafferty has always been uniquely his own man." —Poul Anderson 4
"The history of the Choctaw Indians has been told before and is still being told, but it has never been told in the way Lafferty tells it…Hannali is a buffalo bull of a man who should become one of the enduring characters in the literature of the American Indian." —Dee Brown 4
"Lafferty unfailingly puts us, in his own words, 'into a different juxtaposition with all things else in the world.' Nobody else does it better. In fact, nobody else does it at all–not like this. Lafferty is one of a kind, a magician of strange images made fleetingly recognizable, of familiar emotions made strange and new and haunting. A delight." —Nancy Kress 4
"You read a few of his stories and you begin to feel him rewriting your brain and opening new possibilities of what fiction, and science fiction especially, are capable of doing." —Andrew Ferguson 11
"No [science fiction] writer, so far, has really felt the need to push the limits… [like Lovecraft]. The only exception might be the strange author, very strange, who is RA Lafferty. More than science fiction, Lafferty sometimes seems to create a kind of philosophy fiction, unique in that ontological speculation plays a more important role than sociological, psychological or moral questions." —Michel Houellebecq 12
"It is a minor miracle that a serious philosophical and speculative work should be written so colorfully and so lyrically. There is, happily, no way to categorize the book: it has elements of science fiction, of pure fantasy, of poetry, of historical fiction." —Judith Merril 4
"Some day the taxonomists, those tireless obsessives who put labels on everything, will have to categorize literature as Westerns, fantasies, romances, lafferties, science fiction, mysteries…" —Theodore Sturgeon 13
"To the memory of Raphael A. Lafferty, The elf from Oklahoma, Who could do things with words that most writers can only do with dreams." —Alan Dean Foster 14
Interview by Paul Walker, Alien Critic Volume 6, 1973 ↩
Interview by Robert J. Whitaker, At The Sleepy Sailor, The Sons of the Sand, 1979 ↩
JABberwocky Literary Agency Inc., Praise for R.A. Lafferty ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
Introduction to Bright Flightways, Chrysalis Volume 3, 1978 ↩
R.A. Lafferty obituary, Washington Post, April 4, 2002 ↩
Introduction to Episodes of the Argo, 1990 ↩
Iao, Amazon.com , 2007 ↩
Introduction to Iron Tears, 1992 ↩
UVA Today, Grad Student's Focus on Science Fiction Author Leads to Book-Collecting Prize, April 12, 2012 ↩
Sortir du XXème siècle, Michel Houellebecq ↩
Introduction to Quiz Ship Loose, Chrysalis Volume 2, 1978 ↩
Alan Dean Foster, Dedication, Impossible Places, 2002 ↩


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THE "HILARIOUS" NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • "A satirical but apt addition to the culture's fraught conversation about race" — New York Times Book Review
200 years ago, white people told black folks, "'I suggest you pick the cotton if you don't like getting whipped." Today, it's "comply with police orders if you don't want to get shot." Now legendary comedian/activist D. L. Hughley confronts and remixes white people's "advice" in this "hilarious examination of the current state of race relations in the United States" (Publishers Weekly).
In America, a black man is three times more likely to be killed in encounters with police than a white guy. If only he had complied with the cop, he might be alive today, pundits say in the aftermath of the latest shooting of an unarmed black man. Or, Maybe he shouldn't have worn that hoodie … or, moved moreslowly … not been out so late … Wait, why are black people allowed to drive, anyway?
This isn't a new phenomenon. White people have been giving "advice" to black folks for as long as anyone can remember, telling them how to pick cotton, where to sit on a bus, what neighborhood to live in, when they can vote, and how to wear our pants. Despite centuries of whites' advice, it seems black people still aren't listening, and the results are tragic.
Now, at last, activist, comedian, and New York Times bestselling author D. L. Hughley offers How Not to Get Shot, an illustrated how-to guide for black people, full of insight from white people, translated by one of the funniest black dudes on the planet. In these pages you will learn how to act, dress, speak, walk, and drive in the safest manner possible. You also will finally understand the white mind. It is a book that can save lives. Or at least laugh through the pain.
Black people: Are you ready to not get shot! White people: Do you want to learn how to help the cause? Let's go!
* Publishers Weekly

subset: commoncrawl


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Those that believe in creation believe that the universe and all human life is the result of divine creation. For creationists, God is responsible for the creation of the entire cosmos.
While there are differing opinions among Christians regarding creation (e.g. young earth creationism, gap creationism, theistic evolution), almost half of Americans now consider themselves to be creation believers, with almost all of those acknowledging that God created the universe, as described in the Biblical accounts. A recent article in the Daily Mail states that:
"Nearly half of Americans believe God created mankind in a single day about 10,000 years ago, a literal interpretation of the Bible, according to a new survey that shows the view toward evolution in the United States hasn't changed in 30 years.
About 46 percent of people say creationism explains the origin of humans. Just 15 percent say humans evolved without the assistance of God." (Read the article)
With so many now believing in the creative work of God, it's important to look at why creation continues to stand up, in spite of modern scientific theories which appear to contradict the Biblical accounts. We hope this list of four reasons to believe in Biblical Creationism will inspire your faith in God's creative work, and strengthen it.
- The Bible Reveals Creation
The Bible states over 30 times that God created all life including plant, animal and human.
The first two books of the Bible are even specifically devoted to the accounts of God's creative activity and our origins. Genesis functions as the foundational book of the Bible and tells the story of the beginnings of the universe, the earth and humanity. The accounts of God's creation serve to help us understand the book we are about to read, and to grasp God's redemptive plan for the world.
As a complete work, the Bible reveals the nature of God through his creation, and through his relationship to creation – from Genesis to Revelation. The Primeval History laid out in Genesis 1-11 is referred to over 100 times throughout the New Testament alone, and is referred to by every New Testament author. The importance of the Genesis accounts of creation cannot be overstated.
A belief in evolution is a misreading of scripture as it cannot be reconciled with passages such as Genesis 1 or Exodus 20:11 which states:
"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
Beliefs in anything other than God's creation of the universe are inconsistent with the omnipotent, omniscient and redemptive picture of God that the Bible paints.
- Jesus Confirmed Creation
Jesus referred to Genesis himself, on several occasions – always affirming his belief in the accounts as historical realities.
In Mark he states that:
"But at the beginning of creation, God made them male and female." (10:6)
And in Matthew Jesus responds to the Pharisees questions on divorce:
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (19:3-6)
Jesus confirmed the accounts of Genesis: Adam and Eve were real people, as were Cain and Abel. Jesus also affirms the historical validity of Noah and the flood later on in Matthew.
For Jesus, the events described in Genesis were real events with real people. The historicity of The Primeval History is bound up with much of Christ's teaching on theological matters. Understanding Jesus relies on our understanding of, and belief in, the creation narrative.
- The Authority of Scripture Relies On It
If we deny creation, or allege that some passages should be understood as mere myth or allegory, then we are putting the authority of the canon at risk for two reasons:
Firstly, if these stories do not describe events as they state, then what other parts of the Bible might be misleading? Deciding not to believe in the creation accounts of Genesis will inevitably lead to questions about the reliability of other parts of the Bible, and the Bible as a complete work.
Secondly, if the Bible is in fact unreliable, then we undermine our own belief in God's inerrant word. If we do not subscribe to the creation accounts which appear throughout the Bible, then we open the Bible up to be considered full of errors and not divinely inspired – as Christians usually understand it.
- God's Character is Grounded in Creation
The Bible reveals God's nature through his creation. In the beginning we are created in his image. Throughout the Old Testament the people are called to be the people of a creative God and in the New Testament we see God revealed through Jesus, who was with the father at the creation:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." (John 1:1-3)
The New Testament even closes with the promise of a new creation, in which God will carry out his redemptive plans and see his kingdom reign on earth. In order to understand God, we must believe and recognise him as the creator of the entire cosmos. The Psalmist wrote that:
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (19:1)
To exist within creation is to exist within the presence of God. God is deeply embedded into his creation.
To celebrate God's creation, sign our petition to establish Creation Day as an official holiday
- 4 Reasons to Believe in Creation - October 7, 2015
- How Many Of Each Animal Was On The Ark? - October 3, 2015
- Living A Christian Life In A Culture of Consumption - October 3, 2015


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Paul Manafort has "breached" his plea agreement with the Justice Department by lying to the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's office two months after he started cooperating in the Russia probe, prosecutors said in a new court filing Monday.
The filing was an astonishing break from the bare-bones updates given by the special counsel's office in other cases where cooperators continue to help Mueller pursue Russian interference in the 2016 US election and alleged coordination with the Trump campaign.
The brief but remarkable development indicates that not only has the former Trump campaign chairman shared extensive information with Justice Department prosecutors since he began cooperating, but that prosecutors also believe they are able to verify or refute that information. And it signals that Mueller's team may be prepared to reveal the depths of what they have learned.
Manafort lied "on a variety of subject matters," violating his plea agreement, prosecutors allege in the three-page filing signed by both the defense team and the prosecution. The special counsel's office says it will provide more details at a later date.
Both sides ask the judge to now move Manafort's case toward sentencing.
The filing says Manafort does not agree with prosecutors' assertion that he has lied.
"He believes he has provided truthful information and does not agree with the government's characterization or that he has breached the agreement," it says.
It's rare for criminal defendants' cases to near their end in this manner. Large-scale criminal conspiracy investigations are often built around prosecutors' ability to turn criminals into cooperators, who guide them to other, more significant targets or testify against their former colleagues in court.
It's not immediately clear what impact the development has on Mueller's work or on other possible criminal cases. But the announcement raised the possibility that President Donald Trump could again see Manafort as an ally and antagonist of Mueller, and consider pardoning him.
Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy and witness tampering on September 14, almost a year after he was first charged and following his conviction by a jury in a separate but related case on eight tax and banking crimes.
Manafort, though he has not made public statements since his plea, was thought to be the star cooperator in the special counsel's ongoing probe. In September and October, he met with Mueller's team at least nine times, amounting to hours of discussions.
As part of his plea deal, Manafort admitted to committing a host of money laundering and foreign lobbying crimes and fraud, giving the federal prosecutors leverage over him. The cases that Mueller's team brought against Manafort largely focused on his Ukrainian political consulting work, his US lobbying over the last decade and the financial management of his business proceeds. Except for one aspect of their bank fraud case, in which Manafort appeared to dangle access to the Trump campaign in exchange for a bank loan, the cases did not publicly describe Manafort's work as campaign chairman.
For more than a year now, Manafort has been at the heart of several unresolved threads of the Mueller investigation. He had been in the room for the Trump Tower meeting with Russians who touted they had incriminating information about Hillary Clinton; he had allegedly offered private briefings on the campaign to a Russian oligarch to whom he was indebted, according to The Washington Post; and he had overseen the Trump campaign in the months when Russian military intelligence allegedly hacked Democratic Party officials.
One of Manafort's closest business contacts for several years has been Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russia-based political operative who prosecutors have alleged has ties to the same Russian military intelligence service that allegedly hacked the Democrats.
Manafort has been held in a Virginia jail since June, after he and Kilimnik were accused of attempting to tamper with possible witnesses before his trial. Kilimnik, though also charged by Mueller, has not surfaced in the US court system.
When he was last seen in public, in a Virginia federal courtroom about a month ago, Manafort was in a wheelchair and suffering from a health issue similar to gout. He'll be sentenced in February in his criminal case in Virginia, which he took to trial and lost. It's not clear how Monday's development might affect his situation there.
Even though Mueller's team alleges he's breached his plea agreement, Manafort must comply with the prosecutors' demands going forward. With a circumstance like this, only one side of the deal gets torn up -- and that's the prosecutors' promises of mercy, they said in the filing Monday.
The judge in DC District Court who received the update Monday night has not yet weighed in, and a sentencing for Manafort's guilty plea has not yet been scheduled.


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Finally, you should take advantage of any free trial offers that the casino has available. Many casinos offer free bonus codes that can be used on their site. Free deposit bonuses are often also offered by online casinos. The more free bonuses you receive, the better off you will be.


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Posts Tagged 'Product'
A product line analysis saves $200,000 annually
Client: Bricks and mortar retailer. Situation In an effort to compete with online sales, our client had introduced a new product line that was not sold on the web. They had not taken into account that this new product line had a much lower profit margin and they were not able to raise the sale…
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Friday, December 14, 2012
"Game-changing" leak from the IPCC reports? Please.
The supposedly game-changing evidence - that there may have been a great change in the sun's impact on the climate than previously thought - is just a classic case of rhetoric trumping data.
Notice there are no numbers in most of the quotes that Alec Rawls pulled from the IPCC report. Just because something is greater than previously thought does not mean it is a lot greater or a lot more important [besides, as Skeptical Science nicely reminds us, Rawls explanation makes no sense].
A couple years ago, I discovered that I am actually half an inch taller than what I had previously thought, a funny thing to discover at my age. That doesn't mean I'm going to try out for a NBA team, though I do suspect my 4-19 hometown Toronto Raptors could use some help at small forward.
The science is almost irrelevant here. The real issue is the nature of the IPCC. It does not conduct original research. The IPCC reviews and assesses the scientific literature on climate change through an exhaustive multi-year process. If there was some "game-changing" discovery about the sun's impact on the climate or any other key issue in the IPCC draft reports, that discovery would already have been reported by scientists in the literature that the IPCC reviewed.
At the absolute minimum, the discovery would be have been reported in scientific papers submitted to a journal before the long-passed deadline for the IPCC, and if the papers were by now published or publicly available, the contents would have been presented by the authors at prominent scientific conferences like last week's AGU meeting, which is so well reported that "AGU" was actually trending on twitter for half of the week.
If there was some "game-changing" discovery, we probably would have already heard about it in the news and we certainly would have heard it on blogs like Watts up with that.
5 comments:
- EliRabett said...
But we did
The post at WUWT is simple mouth breathing. No one doubts that cosmic rays can leave ion tracks in the atmosphere, and no one doubts that this is an important mechanism for ionization in the atmosphere. The question is whether it is rate limiting for forming clouds and the answer to that one appears to be no. - 7:58 p.m.
- Simon Donner said...
Even if the proposed mechanism was a driver of cloud formation, the signal is in the wrong direction the past few years, suggesting it could not be a significant player.
- 8:15 p.m.
- david lewis said...
Richard Alley discussed the Svensmark hypothesis that cosmic rays are a significant climate factor during his 2009 AGU Bjerknes Lecture, at the 42 minute 5 second mark:
He described the hypothesis: "People say the Sun doesn't change much but the Sun modulates the cosmic rays, the cosmic rays modulate the clouds, the clouds modulate the temperature, so the Sun is amplified hugely...."
Then he pointed to the paleo evidence that weighs against it:
"Now the Sun modulates cosmic rays...but so does the magnetic field".
"About 40,000 years ago the magnetic field basically zeroed out in what we call the LasChamp anomaly for a millenium or so. And when it did, cosmic rays came screaming into the Earth system and you see, in basically all sedimentary records, this peak of cosmic ray produced nuclides".
(He displayed this chart)
"We had a BIG cosmic ray signal, and the climate ignores it. And its just about that simple. These cosmic rays didn't do enough that you can see it."
Stephen Chu, at the height of Climategate, challenged the civilization threatening insanity of the attitude of many in the media who report what deniers concoct as if their statements are in some way equal to the opinions of legitimate scientists, as if there were two poles in a "debate". He said this:
"If you look at the climate skeptics, I would have to say honestly, what standard are they being held to?"
- 12:58 p.m.
- hengist mcstone said...
Its game-changing though we have to take it seriously. To get this into perspective Ive searched WUWT for "game changer" and found nine separate game changers. And still the AGW beast will not die
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=%22game+changer%22 - 3:56 p.m.
- Simon Donner said...
Well, it's hard to kill physics, chemistry and data.
- 4:26 p.m.


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You can export changed scripts (in fact it asks me to do that when I quit the editor) so couldn't you just bundle these with your map?
Too bad there's not a way to to export those classes so other people can use them, along with their scripts. I regular unreal you would just need the .u files associated with the class.
You can export changed scripts (in fact it asks me to do that when I quit the editor) so couldn't you just bundle these with your map?
Originally Posted by Riktar
Hmm, some testing needs to be done here I think. I thought that the only way to share those scripts from what I've read is by sharing that gamesys file, hopefully that's not the case.
The Department of Stupid Missions presents...
Operation Cat Squash!
The stuff shown in this thread is AMAZING. If only I could afford to download the Editor on my dial-up...I am waiting for my friend for send it on CD so that I give it a shot. Keep up the good work guys.
Operation Cat Squash!
I'm very much liking what I'm seeing from everyone so far, despite us all being so early into this. Already it's easy to see a variety of talented individuals coming through in their work...
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's looking forward to losing yet more sleep.
You guys have already seen two shots from me, but I've already been losing sleep just to T3Ed alone... I haven't mapped for anything in ages, and being able to come back to it for Thief 3 is rousing up the overzealous dork in me.
Basically I'm giving my best shot at building the creepiest atmosphere I can muster, which so far involves an ominous setting nobody in the City knows much about (other than wildly inconsistent rumors), uplifting readables containing happy feel-good sunshine rays, and custom-made atmospheric music that does not actually work in-game (spooky! yes. i know.) For those of you who aren't fond of cave missions, fret not; the caverns seen here are only a precursor to a variety of other strange places.
Right then. Nap time.
There are actually people out there that didn't like cave mushrooms? What the hell?
wow nice ground mist I dont know why (maybe its the mission shown before :P) but that second screenshot of Ghandaiah's looks like it needs a ferrel cat - maybe its just me
Ooooh Spooooky! I'm loving that purple/green lighting from those lamps, it's giving everything a heavy ominous look. Those DEFINATELY are some caves that Garret probably should have stayed out of.
I began my journey into editing a week ago... so this surely isn't the masterpiece of masterpieces, but it's a little something.
At least I'm proud of myself.
ahh looks good man, keep it up. We want missions
Originally Posted by OrbWeaver
I won't be using T3Ed or making an FM with it, but here's a little lighting tutorial I'm working on - just a picture on how to do radiosity without decreasing performance.
(radiosity = bouncing light, to soften those ugly hard shadows, where even if a light is burns like the surface of the sun, it still casts pitch-black shadows, and you can't see *anything* in them.)
(test room and screenshot of it with radiosity)
You can lighten the shadows from LevelProperies then AmbientBrightness too of course, but too high a number will make your level look washed out.
What I always fear is if people have their monitor brightness low, and I have mine high, obviously ill map my lighting to my monitor setting and people will find my map soooooooo dark
Not to be too picky, but this is not really radiosity is it ? Radiosity is when a light source can strike a surface, and then reflect/refract off it, and light other surfaces which don't have direct line of sight to the light source, which is what happens in real life.Originally Posted by Dario
As far as I know the Thief3 engine doesn't support true radiosity ? In other words this is not radiosity, but simply filling in the shadows a bit to prevent pitch black shadows ?
And what happens if the dynamic shadow casting light source is turned off ? Is there a way to link the ambient light sources to it so they too turn off ? (Probably, using trigger scripts etc)
Another problem with your map is that the ambient light sources cause the light gem to be almost full brightness in nearly every position in your demonstration map, even when the surroundings look like you should not be very visible. Bit of a gameplay killer that
Perhaps there is a property that can be applied to ambient lights so they don't affect the lightgem ?
Please please please DONT do this people. Using the AmbientBrightness setting looks SO awful, no matter what level you use.Originally Posted by Stardog
For a map set during the day time, an ambient light level like this is legitimate to some extent, but for a game set in the dark its not. Instead, please use non-shadow casting omni's for fill in in areas where the shadows should be softened a bit.
One of my grips with TDS original maps was that many of them simply have too much ambient blue lighting and it really detracts from the atmosphere of the first two games. 0 ambient level and just enough fill in light sources looks much more atmospheric, like the original games...
Last edited by Mandrake; 14th Mar 2005 at 15:22.
*lurks around, sees Cat Squash, puts OrbWeaver on personal kill list*
edit: duh, wrong person on list. edited. sorry.
That should not be a problem. If you can link a switch to one light, you can link it to more than one light at once (unless there is some limit in the scripting system that prevents this, but it was certainly possible in Dromed).Originally Posted by Mandrake
ClassicOriginally Posted by OrbWeaver
Care to put the file for that map up ?
A question though, where did the barrels go in the last picture ? Did they all break, or roll out of sight ? And did you try it with guards ? Heh. In one of my test maps I had a large heavy pillar at a lean set up to fall when a guard touched it........
Yes, there is:Originally Posted by Mandrake
Properties - LightLevel - LightLevelWeight
Turn it to zero and it's done.
Great. I thought there must be something like that.Originally Posted by Donnerwetter
So ambient light sources used for shadow filling probably should have this property set to zero or at least right down low, otherwise when you walk "through" or really close to it, your light gem is going to be really bright for no good reason.
Also looks like careful attention needs to be paid to testing out the light gem visibility of garrett in all the different areas of the map to make sure that what the lightgem says is realistic and appropriate compared to how the level actually looks....
I can think of a few places in the original missions where this is not the case, and there are lightgem readings that seem out of whack with the visible appearance of the map...
So be careful to get this right all you Taffers
I'll put it up if you can find someone to host it...Originally Posted by Mandrake
I think in that run through, all the barrels broke. They will break if they fall on an AI, and sometimes two or more of them break together. On other attempts some or all of the barrels survive (even the cats do sometimes ).
I think it would be quite cool to see more of this sort of thing in serious missions. Perhaps a stack of precariously-balanced barrels or crates that you could push onto a guard, or whatever, like the heavy gear in the Pagan Sanctuary. Or maybe they could be all lined up behind a grate, that you could open with a lever.
We tried to do this in DX:IW and could never get it to work right. We tried setting up a big stack of cylindrical barrels with a little breakable bar holding them in. When you shot the bar, the front barrel would roll out and the rest would just shift a little bit and sit there It was really lame. Something like this may be possible with a lot of tweaking of physics settings, or by making new, more rounded collision hulls for the barrels. The collision hulls for most of the objects had to be made sort of blocky to save on performance, which doesn't make for very good rolling objects.Originally Posted by OrbWeaver
is that the bit in the ravens loft (name?) level where there's the guard in front olf the entrance. I shot at him, he chased me, I shot some more, accidentally hit a wooden beam and the whole load of barrels came crashing down on him. aye, 'twas funny.


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Greetings. About one month has passed since I posted my first COVID 19 update, I figured I'd send out another one.
In the past few weeks and even days, I've started realizing all the things I used to take for granted. I used to take for granted meeting up with a friend for lunch. I never even considered the fact that I would be unsafe walking past someone on the sidewalk. I took for granted being able to run to the grocery store real quick when we ran out of eggs. Now it's a lengthy discussion with Andrew as to who's going to go, what we want to eat for the next couple of days and if we have all the ingredients, fun snacks and even to make a note to look out for toilet paper (which we're running dangerously low on!). Needless to say, it's a crazy time where I've been feeling a lot of ups and downs. When I'm feeling up, I am productive doing things that make me happy.
When I'm feeling down, I try my best to journal or write at least write down the things that I'm grateful for. Going on neighborhood walks has helped. Sitting down and expressing my feelings out to Andrew or friends on the phone has been great too. I'm still constantly thinking about what's going to happen after all of this is done, when it's going to be done but I just know all this uncertainty can't be answered right now. When I catch myself feeling like this, I try to remember how I'm blessed to even have my health and almost instantly feel better.
I've also realized that every time I step foot outside my house, I'm concerned about the coronavirus. Even if it's just to walk Frankie, I'm on the lookout to see who's about to come near us and I feel so disturbed having those feelings. This has also hindered my photography. I'm not going out nearly as much as I used to but still feel the urge to capture images. I've taken a few pictures around my neighborhood and surrounding areas which has been nice.
One day, Andrew and I just needed to get out so we decided we'd go fo a car ride. It was great to get out but so weird to see the streets of DC so quite. Frankie loved the little outing too. I also need to make a mental note that whenever I leave the house, I should bring my camera. I want to get better at that, especially since it doesn't happen very often.
While I'm home, I've been working on a few personal projects. One project that I've mentioned in my newsletter and on Instagram is that I've been scanning old family pictures. Luckily, my mom gave me a few photo albums before everything really broke out so it's been keeping me busy. I've also taken the time out to scan images from high school.
But a majority of the time I've been trying to learn more. I want to take this time to try to improve my own photography. I love watching youtube videos of other photographers and attending webinars. I've learned that one thing that I don't want to take for granted now is all this extra time we've been given. No more time spent stuck in traffic, no more time even commuting anywhere or even running mindless errands has given me so much "extra" time. All those things that I use to say that I would do if I had more time, I'm going to try to do them now!
But I think one of the most rewarding experiences so far has been running again. It's been a great release for me. Andrew and I used to run a lot together when we first started dating. But after I ran a half marathon in 2015, I haven't ran much. Running now has shown me how much stronger I have gotten over the years just by working out at the gym (which has now been replaced by virtual workouts). But in general, I feel less winded and my mile has definitely gotten faster. I am starting to feel really good when I go out for a run too. After all of this, I'm not sure if I'll still continue running. But for now, I'm am grateful to be able to concentrate more on my health.
That's all from me. This update was kind of all over the place with all the things I've been thinking about and doing but I hope you enjoyed it. Sending you much love and well wishes. Stay safe!
PS If there are any particular blog posts or photo content that you'd like to see from me, please let me know in the comments below! I'd love to use my skills to try to make you feel safe and more comfortable at home.


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The Washington Post has a flattering profile of a young Wikipedian, Adam Lewis, who worked on the article for Washington, D.C. The punchline comes a few paragraphs in:
Lewis joined thousands of other amateurs toiling in obscurity on Wikipedia, where facts are more important than the star historians who tend to dominate the popular view of history. On Wikipedia, anyone can be a historian.
I think this is suspect in a couple of ways (do "star historians" really dominate the popular view of history? what does "historian" mean in the Wikipedia context, where the policy is "no original research"?) but the spirit of the remark is right on, and relevant beyond just Wikipedia.
The history profession hasn't yet been much affected by the "pro-am revolution", but it's increasingly possible for amateur historians to do original work with professional quality (even if that work is unlikely to much resemble academic history writing). Some academic fields–astronomy is the most dramatic example–have already started benefiting greatly from the contributions of amateurs. But history seems slow on the uptake, with frustratingly little appetite for collaborative projects and little interest in taking the work of amateur historians seriously (the exciting projects of George Mason's Center for History and New Media notwithstanding).
Will that change dramatically? Will a pro-am revolution come to the history profession? The case of history of science may be instructive here. History of science has actually had a vibrant "pro-am" community (of scientists who write science history) since well before the Internet made relevant sources and publishing venues easily accessible to other interested groups of amateur historians. Nevertheless, historians of science have not drawn closer to pro-am scientist-historians in recent decades–just the opposite, they've withdrawn from scientist-historians and often dismiss their work as hopelessly naive or self-interested. If history of science is any guide, I fear that history as a whole may view the coming rise of "pro-am" history as more of a threat than an opportunity.


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Where are the Caves?
The IKC does not facilitate or encourage cave visitation! Those who are interested in caving as a recreational activity should visit one of the commercial caves in Indiana, including:
- Bluespring Caverns (Lawrence County), RR 11 Box 988, Bedford, IN 47421. Phone (812)279-9471. The northernmost of the commercial caves; an interesting and educational seasonal boat tour. The state-endangered, sightless Northern Cavefish (Amblyopsis hoosieri) and blind crayfish can often be observed on the tour.
- Indiana Caverns (Harrison County), 1267 Green Acres Dr SW, Corydon, IN 47122. Phone (812) 734-1200. Come see a portion of the longest cave in Indiana. Features include ice-age fossil remains, nice formations, a boat ride and a waterfall.
- Marengo Cave National Landmark (Crawford County), PO Box 217, Marengo, IN 47140. Phone (812)365-2705. A very beautiful cave in south-central Indiana, Marengo offers two different cave tours, camping, and canoeing on the Blue River.
- Squire Boone Caverns and Village (Harrison County) PO Box 411, Corydon, IN 47112. Phone (812)732-4382. Another very attractive cave with waterfalls and an interesting history. For those who aren't inclined to visit the cave, the pioneer village has its own appeal.
- Wyandotte Caves (Crawford County), O'Bannon Woods State Park, 7234 Old Forest Road SW, Corydon IN 47112. Phone (812) 738-8232. Two very interesting caves managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The larger cave has considerable archeological significance. From November to March, the federally- endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) hibernates in " Big Wyandotte."
- Twin Caves (Lawrence County), Spring Mill State Park, 3333 State Road 60 E, Mitchell, IN 47446. Phone (812) 849-3534. A short but interesting seasonal boat trip managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The Northern Cavefish and blind crayfish are often seen on these trips.
Several of these commercial caves also offer a more strenuous trip for the adventurous - often including equipment rental. For more information about commercial caves, visit the home page of the National Caves Association.
Those who are interested in a more rugged cave experience are encouraged to contact a local "grotto" (chapter) of the National Speleological Society. Joining a grotto will put you in touch with people who can give you some training; recommend proper gear; instill a conservation ethic; provide some leader-led grotto trips; and in time, provide you with cave locations.
Visit other pages about Indiana Caves:


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A high-profile legal battle over genetically modified crops continues. The US Supreme Court in a 7-1 decision yesterday (June 21) did not accept a lower court's total nationwide ban on GM alfalfa. But it did agree that the seeds could be dangerous and did not allow Monsanto to proceed with selling them. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) must now complete a study examining whether the seeds will harm the environment before approving them for restricted planting, a process that could go into next year, and which could lead to more litigation.
Why is this such an important issue?
Alfalfa, the fourth most widely grown crop in the US, is fed to dairy cows. Our friends at Center for Food Safety (CFS), on behalf of organic farmers, sued to ban the GM alfalfa out of the very real concern that it would spread uncontrollably and take over US pasturelands. When we wrote about this court case in May, we noted that GM foods cause sterility in hamsters, and that the real long-term risks to human health from these foreign molecules are still unknown. True organic beef and dairy products would become an impossibility since all cows would be potentially exposed to the GM alfalfa.
Some quick background
Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology company based in Missouri. It is also the leading producer of genetically modified seed, and sells 90% of the US's GM seeds. Its development and marketing of GM seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation, political lobbying practices, seed commercialization practices, and "strong-arming" of the seed industry and especially of farmers have given the company the nickname "the evil empire" in many quarters. In ANH's opinion, this nickname is well deserved.
Monsanto is the world's leading producer of the extremely toxic herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup™. Several weed species, known as superweeds, have developed Roundup resistance largely because of repeated exposure. So Monsanto has created genetically engineered crops—soy, corn, canola, cotton, and alfalfa (with wheat currently in development)—which tolerate the herbicide; they are known as Roundup Ready® crops. Alfalfa is different from the others because it will spread and propagate itself without replanting.
The court case
In 2007, a federal district judge found that the USDA had failed to consider the environmental impact before it had approved the GM alfalfa seeds for commercial planting. He then canceled the USDA's approval of the seeds, and imposed a national ban on planting them. But the Supreme Court, in yesterday's 7-to-1 decision, found that the lower court judge had gone too far. The blanket ban prevented the USDA from considering a partial approval of the seeds, a process known as deregulation.
Monsanto cheered the ruling and got its version of events into many major media stories. However, the Supreme Court left in place the lower trial court's ruling barring the USDA from deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa, and sent the case back down to the lower courts for further proceedings. What this means, as a practical matter, is that the USDA will have to complete the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, including considering more than 200,000 public comments it has received since issuing a draft EIS in December of 2009.
"It should be no surprise that Monsanto's PR machine is working hard to spin the truth about the decision," according to Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. "Despite what the biotech seed giant is claiming, today's ruling isn't close to the victory they were hoping for…. While the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto by reversing an injunction that was part of the lower court's decision, more importantly, it also ruled that the ban on GMO alfalfa remains intact, and that the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa remains illegal."
"This point, which seems to be lost in some news reports, is actually a huge victory," Kimbrell continued. "The Supreme Court ruled that an injunction against planting was unnecessary since, under lower courts' rulings, Roundup Ready alfalfa had become a regulated item and was therefore illegal to plant. In other words, the injunction was 'overkill' because our [earlier] victory in lower federal court determined that USDA violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws when it approved Roundup Ready alfalfa. The court felt that voiding the USDA's decision to make the crop legally available for sale was enough."
The L.A. Times quoted Paul Achitoff, a lawyer for Earthjustice, as saying, "To the extent that Monsanto is claiming this a victory, it's a very hollow one since no one can plant their crops."


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Brian Wilson Is Not Planning to Retire
Brian Wilson is nearing the end of two years worth of dates bringing the Beach Boys' legendary Pet Sounds record around the world. But even though he said back in 2016 that this was going to be the last go-round for the full-album performances of Pet Sounds, and currently has no dates scheduled for 2018, he's not yet ready to quit the road.
"I think we're gonna end up Pet Sounds on this trip," he told Cindy McMullen of Central New York's 96.1 the Eagle, which you can hear in full above. But he added, "I'm not gonna retire. ... I love touring."
Wilson recalled what prompted the writing of that record's songs, which famously broke away from the Beach Boys' formula into more personal territory. "I was tired of doing surf songs and car songs," he said, adding that he wanted to venture "into a new area that hadn't been before. .. It took us two months to write it and three months to record it. I worked with the Wrecking Crew. They had great musicians."
Even with the thrill of playing one of rock's most beloved albums every night, Wilson said that his favorite song to perform on these dates has been "California Girls." He also had nothing but praise for the other original Beach Boy on this tour, Al Jardine, not just as a singer, but for being easy to work with and for handling a lot of the master of ceremonies chores during the show.
Wilson closed with a bit of advice for young musicians. "My advice is for them to sit down and not take drugs, for one thing, and to try to write a song."
The Top 100 Rock Albums of the '60s


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Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering
Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon
1989 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors
In April, 1831, Charles Simeon was 71 years old. He had been the pastor of Trinity Church, Cambridge, England, for 49 years. He was asked one afternoon by his friend, Joseph Gurney, how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his 49-year ministry. He said to Gurney:
My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory" (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.).
Patience in Tribulation
So I have entitled this message, "Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering." I have a very definite biblical aim in choosing this theme and this man for our meditation. I want to encourage you all to obey Romans 12:12: "Be patient in tribulation." I want you to see persecution and opposition and slander and misunderstanding and disappointment and self-recrimination and weakness and danger as the normal portion of faithful pastoral ministry. But I want you to see this in the life of a man who was a sinner like you and me, who was a pastor, and who, year after year, in his trials, "grew downward" in humility and upward in his adoration of Christ, and who did not yield to bitterness or to the temptation to leave his charge — for 54 years.
Escaping Emotional Fragility
What I have found — and this is what I want to be true for you as well — is that in my pastoral disappointments and discouragements there is a great power for perseverance in keeping before me the life of a man who surmounted great obstacles in obedience to God's call by the power of God's grace. I need very much this inspiration from another age, because I know that I am, in great measure, a child of my times. And one of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. I feel it as though it hung in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. Our faith breaks easily. Our happiness breaks easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.
A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, "If that's the way they feel about me, then they can find themselves another pastor." We see very few models today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials" (James 1:3). When historians list the character traits of the last third of twentieth century America, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem. It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, and self-enhancement, and self-realization. And if you think that you are not at all a child of your times just test yourself to see how you respond in the ministry when people reject your ideas.
We need help here. When you are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when you see a good bit of this ethos in yourself, you need to spend time with people — whether dead of alive — whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, "Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for you the faith and the patience of Charles Simeon for your inspiration and imitation.
Simeon's Life and Times
Let me orient you with some facts about his life and times. When Simeon was born in 1759, Jonathan Edwards had just died the year before. The Wesleys and Whitefield were still alive, and so the Methodist awakening was in full swing. Simeon would live for 77 years, from 1758 to 1836. So he lived through the American Revolution, the French Revolution and not quite into the decade of the telegraph and the railroad.
His father was a wealthy attorney, but no believer. We know nothing of his mother. She probably died early, so that he never knew her. At seven, he went to England's premier boarding school, The Royal College of Eton. He was there for 12 years, and was known as a homely, fancy-dressing, athletic show off. The atmosphere was irreligious and degenerate in many ways. Looking back late in life, he said that he would be tempted to take the life of his son than to let him see the vice he had seen at Eton.
He said later he only knew one religious book besides the Bible in those twelve years, namely The Whole Duty of Man, a devotional book of the 17th century. Whitefield thought that book was so bad that once, when he caught an orphan with a copy of it in Georgia, he made him throw it in the fire. William Cowper said it was a "repository of self-righteous and pharisaical lumber." That, in fact, would be a good description of Simeon's life to that point.
How God Saved Him
At nineteen he went to Cambridge. And in the first four months God brought him from darkness to light. The amazing thing about this is that God did it against the remarkable odds of having no other Christian around. Cambridge was so destitute of evangelical faith that, even after he was converted, Simeon did not meet one other believer on campus for almost three years.
His conversion happened like this. Three days after he arrived at Cambridge on January 29, 1779, the Provost, William Cooke, announced that Simeon had to attend the Lord's Supper. And Simeon was terrified. We can see, in retrospect, that this was the work of God in his life. He knew enough to know that it was very dangerous to eat the Lord's Supper unworthily.
So he began desperately to read and to try to repent and make himself better. He began with The Whole Duty of Man but got no help. He passed through that first communion unchanged. But knew it wasn't the last. He turned to a book by a Bishop Wilson on the Lord's Supper. As Easter Sunday approached a wonderful thing happened.
Keep in mind that this young man had almost no preparation of the kind we count so important. He had no mother to nurture him. His father was an unbeliever. His boarding school was a godless and corrupt place. And his university was destitute of other evangelical believers, as far as he knew. He is nineteen years old, sitting in his dormitory room as Passion Week begins at the end of March, 1779.
Here is his own account of what happened.
In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord's Supper, I met with an expression to this effect — "That the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering." The thought came into my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus; and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning, Easter-day, April 4, I awoke early with those words upon my heart and lips, 'Jesus Christ is risen to-day! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!' From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul; and at the Lord's Table in our Chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Saviour. (Moule, 25f)
Bearing Fruit Worthy of Repentance
The effect was immediate and dramatic. His well-known extravagance gave way to a life of simplicity. All the rest of his life he lived in simple rooms on the university campus, moving only once to larger quarters so that he could have more students for his conversation gatherings. When his brother left him a fortune, he turned it down and channeled all his extra income to religious and charitable goals. He began at once to teach his college servant girl his new biblical faith. When he went home for holidays he called the family together for devotions. His father never came, but his two brothers were both eventually converted. And in his private life he began to practice what in those days was known as "methodism" — strict discipline in prayer and meditation.
You can catch a glimpse of his zeal from this anecdote about his early rising for Bible study and prayer.
Early rising did not appeal to his natural tendency to self-indulgence, however, especially on dark winter mornings. . . . On several occasions he overslept, to his considerable chagrin. So he determined that if ever he did it again, he would pay a fine of half a crown to his "bedmaker" (college servant). A few days later, as he lay comfortably in his warm bed, he found himself reflecting that the good woman was poor and could probably do with half a crown. So, to overcome such rationalizations, he vowed that next time he would throw a guinea into the river. This [the story goes] he duly did, but only once, for guineas were scarce; he could not afford to use them to pave the river bed with gold. (Moule, 66)
The Call to Trinity Church, Cambridge
In spite of this disciplined approach to spiritual growth, Simeon's native pride and impetuousness did not disappear overnight. We will see shortly that this was one of the thorns he would be plucking at for some time.
After three years, in January, 1782, Simeon received a fellowship at the university. This gave him a stipend and certain rights in the university. For example, over the next fifty years he was three times dean for a total of nine years, and once vice provost. But that was not his main calling. In May that year he was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church, and after a summer preaching interim in St. Edwards' Church in Cambridge he was called to Trinity Church as vicar, or pastor. He preached his first sermon there November 10, 1782. And there he stayed for fifty-four years until his death November 13, 1836.
Simeon never married. I have found only one sentence about this fact. H.C.G. Moule said he "had deliberately and resolutely chosen the then necessary celibacy of a Fellowship that he might the better work for God at Cambridge" (Moule, 111). This too requires a special kind of endurance. Not many have it, and it is a beautiful thing when one finds it. Who knows how many men and women Simeon inspired with the possibility of celibacy and chastity because of his lifelong commitment to Christ and his church as an unmarried man.
I find it interesting that John Stott, who is also an evangelical Anglican and Cambridge grad, and long-time pastor and celibate, has a great admiration for Simeon and wrote the introduction for Multnomah Press's collection of Simeon's Sermons. Stott is a latter-day Simeon in other ways as well — for example, his social concern and his involvement in world evangelization through the Lausanne movement.
Global Impact
In his fifty-four years at Trinity Church, Simeon became a powerful force for evangelicalism in the Anglican church. His position at the university, with his constant influence on students preparing for the ministry, made him a great recruiter of young evangelicals for pulpits around the land. But not only around the land. He became the trusted advisor of the East India Company, and recommended most of the men who went out as chaplains, which is the way Anglicans could be missionaries to the East in those days.
Simeon had a great heart for missions. He was the spiritual father of the great Henry Martyn. He was the key spiritual influence in the founding of the Church Missionary Society, and was zealous in his labors for the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. In fact, on his death bed he was dictating a message to be given to the Society about his deep humiliation that the church has not done more to gather in the Jewish people.
A Preacher Without Labels
Probably most of all, Simeon exerted his influence through sustained biblical preaching year after year. This was the central labor of his life. He lived to place into the hands of King William the Fourth in 1833 the completed 21 volumes of his collected sermons.
This is the best place to go for researching Simeon's theology. You can find his views on almost every key text in the Bible.
He did not want to be labeled a Calvinist or an Arminian. He wanted to be biblical through and through and give every text its due proportion, whether it sounded Arminian as it stands or Calvinistic. But he was known as an evangelical Calvinist, and rightly so. As I have read portions of his sermons on texts concerning election and effectual calling and perseverance he is uninhibited in his affirmation of what we would call the doctrines of grace. In fact he uses that phrase approvingly in his sermon on Romans 9:19–24 (Horae Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 358).
But he had little sympathy for uncharitable Calvinists. In a sermon on Romans 9:16, he said,
Many there are who cannot see these truths [the doctrines of God's sovereignty], who yet are in a state truly pleasing to God; yea many, at whose feet the best of us may be glad to be found in heaven. It is a great evil, when these doctrines are made a ground of separation one from another, and when the advocates of different systems anathematize each other. . . . In reference to truths which are involved in so much obscurity as those which relate to the sovereignty of God mutual kindness and concession are far better than vehement argumentation and uncharitable discussion (Horae Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 357).
A Conversation with John Wesley
An example of how he lived out this counsel is seen in the way he conversed with the elderly John Wesley. He tells the story himself:
Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?
Yes, I do indeed.
And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?
Yes, solely through Christ.
But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?
No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.
Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?
What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?
Yes, altogether.
And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?
Yes, I have no hope but in Him.
Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree. (Moule, 79–80)
But don't take this to mean that Simeon pulled any punches when expounding biblical texts. He is very forthright in teaching what the Bible teaches and calling error by its real name. But he is jealous of not getting things out of balance.
He said that his invariable rule was "to endeavor to give to every portion of the word of God its full and proper force, without considering what scheme it favours, or whose system it is likely to advance" (Moule, 79). "My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding" (Moule, 77).
He makes an observation that is true enough to sting every person who has ever been tempted to adjust Scripture to fit a system.
Of this he [speaking of himself in the third person] is sure, that there is not a decided Calvinist or Arminian in the world who equally approves of the whole of Scripture . . . who, if he had been in the company of St. Paul whilst he was writing his Epistles, would not have recommended him to alter one or other of his expressions.
But the author would not wish one of them altered; he finds as much satisfaction in one class of passages as another; and employs the one, he believes, as freely as the other. Where the inspired Writers speak in unqualified terms, he thinks himself at liberty to do the same; judging that they needed no instruction from him how to propagate the truth. He is content to sit as a learner at the feet of the holy Apostles and has no ambition to teach them how they ought to have spoken. (Moule, 79)
With that remarkable devotion to Scripture, Simeon preached in the same pulpit for fifty-four years. What drew me to him was his endurance — not just because of the length of time, and not just because it was in the same place for all that time, but also because it was through extraordinary opposition and trials.
The Unripe Self
That is what I want to turn to now. First his trials, and then finally, the resources that enabled him to press on to the end and not give up. How was he able to be "patient in tribulation"?
The most fundamental trial that Simeon had —and that we all have — was himself. He had a somewhat harsh and self-assertive air about him. One day, early in Simeon's ministry, he was visiting Henry Venn, who was pastor 12 miles from Cambridge at Yelling. When he left to go home Venn's daughters complained to their father about his manner. Venn took the girls to the back yard and said, "Pick me one of those peaches." But it was early summer, and "the time of peaches was not yet." They asked why he would want the green, unripe fruit. Venn replied, "Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon."
Simeon came to know himself and his sin very deeply. He described his maturing in the ministry as a growing downward. We will come back to this as the key to his great perseverance and success.
The Unwanted Vicar
The vicar of Trinity Church died in October, 1782, just as Charles Simeon was about to leave the university to live in his father's home. Simeon had often walked by the church, he tells us, and said to himself, "How should I rejoice if God were to give me that church, that I might preach the Gospel there and be a herald for Him in the University" (Moule, 37). His dream came true when Bishop Yorke appointed him "curate-in-charge" (being only ordained a deacon at the time). His wealthy father had nudged the Bishop and the pastor at St. Edwards, where Simeon preached that summer, gave him an endorsement. He preached his first sermon there November 10, 1782.
But the parishioners did not want Simeon. They wanted the assistant curate Mr. Hammond. Simeon was willing to step out, but then the Bishop told him that even if he did decline the appointment he would not appoint Hammond. So Simeon stayed — for fifty-four years! And gradually — very gradually — overcame the opposition.
The first thing the congregation did in rebellion against Simeon was to refuse to let him be the Sunday afternoon lecturer. This was in their charge. It was like a second Sunday service. For five years they assigned the lecture to Mr. Hammond. Then when he left, instead of turning it over to their pastor of five years they gave it to another independent man for seven more years! Finally, in 1794, Simeon was chosen lecturer. Imagine serving for 12 years a church who were so resistant to your leadership they would not let you preach Sunday evenings, but hired as assistant to keep you out.
Simeon tried to start a later Sunday evening service and many townspeople came. But the churchwardens locked the doors while the people stood waiting in the street. Once Simeon had the doors opened by a locksmith, but when it happened again he pulled back and dropped the service.
The second thing the church did was to lock the pew doors on Sunday mornings. The pewholders refused to come and refused to let others sit in their personal pews. Simeon set up seats in the aisles and nooks and corners at his own expense. But the churchwardens took them out and threw them in the churchyard. When he tried to visit from house to house, hardly a door would open to him. This situation lasted at least ten years. The records show that in 1792 Simeon got a legal decision that the pewholders could not lock their pews and stay away indefinitely. But he didn't use it. He let his steady, relentless ministry of the word and prayer and community witness gradually overcome the resistance.
But I mustn't give the impression that all the troubles were over after the first 12 years. After years of peace, in 1812 (after he had been there 30 years!) there were again opponents in the congregation making the waters rough. He wrote to a friend, "I used to sail in the Pacific; I am now learning to navigate the Red Sea that is full of shoals and rocks." Who of us would not have immediately concluded at age 53, after thirty years in one church that an upsurge of opposition is a sure sign to move on? But again he endured patiently and in 1816 he writes that peace had come and the church is better attended than ever.
Despised in His Own University
As the students made their way to Trinity Church, they were prejudiced against the pastor by the hostile congregation, and for years he was slandered with all kinds of rumors. Basically his enemies said that he was a bad man with a front of piety.
The students at Cambridge held Simeon in derision for his biblical preaching and his uncompromising stand as an evangelical. They repeatedly disrupted his services and caused a tumult in the streets. One observer wrote from personal experience, "For many years Trinity Church and the streets leading to it were the scenes of the most disgraceful tumults" (Moule, 58).
On one occasion a band of undergraduates determined to assault Simeon personally as he left the church after service. They waited by the usual exit for him, but providentially he took another way home that day.
Students who were converted and wakened by Simeon's preaching were soon ostracized and ridiculed. They were called "Sims" — a term that lasted all the way to the 1860's and their way of thinking was called derisively "Simeonism."
But harder to bear than the insults of the students was the ostracism and coldness of his peers in the university. One of the Fellows scheduled Greek classes on Sunday night to prevent students from going to Simeon's service. In another instance one of the students who looked up to Simeon was denied an academic prize because of his "Simeonism."
Sometimes Simeon felt utterly alone at the university where he lived. He looked back on those early years and wrote, "I remember the time that I was quite surprised that a Fellow of my own College ventured to walk with me for a quarter of an hour on the grass-plot before Clare Hall; and for many years after I began my ministry I was 'as a man wondered at,' by reason of the paucity of those who showed any regard for true religion" (Moule, 59).
Even after he had won the respect of many, there could be grave mistreatment. For example, even as late as 1816 (34 years into his ministry) he wrote to a missionary friend, "Such conduct is observed towards me at this very hour by one of the Fellows of the College as, if practised by me, would set not the College only but the whole town and University in a flame" (Moule, 127).
Broken and Restored for Ministry in Old Age
In 1807, after twenty-five years of ministry, his health failed suddenly. His voice gave way so that preaching was very difficult and at times he could only speak in a whisper. After a sermon he would feel "more like one dead than alive." This broken condition lasted for thirteen years, till he was sixty years old. In all this time Simeon pressed on in his work.
The way this weakness came to an end is remarkable and shows the amazing hand of God on this man's life. He tells the story that in 1819 he was on his last visit to Scotland. As he crossed the border he says he was "almost as perceptibly revived in strength as the woman was after she had touched the hem of our Lord's garment." His interpretation of God's providence in this begins back before his weakness. Up till then he had promised himself a very active life up to age sixty, and then a Sabbath evening. Now he seemed to hear his Master saying:
I laid you aside, because you entertained with satisfaction the thought of resting from your labour; but that now you have arrived at the very period when you had promised yourself that satisfaction, and have determined instead to spend your strength for me to the latest hour of your life, I have doubled, trebled, quadrupled your strength, that you may execute your desire on a more extended plan. (Moule, 127)
So at sixty years of age, Simeon renewed his commitment to his pulpit and the mission of the church and preached vigorously for 17 more years, until two months before his death.
The Roots of His Endurance
How did Simeon endure these trials without giving up or being driven out of his church? I will mention some of the many fruits of Simeon's life that I think gave him such endurance and staying power. Then we will conclude by looking at Simeon's inner life and its deepest root in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.
Simeon had a strong sense of his accountability before God for the souls of his flock, whether they liked him or not.
In his first year in the pulpit he preached a sermon on this and said to the people standing in the aisles,
Remember the nature of my office, and the care incumbent on me for the welfare of your immortal souls. . . . Consider whatever may appear in my discourses harsh, earnest or alarming, not as the effects of enthusiasm, but as the rational dictates of a heart impressed with a sense both of the value of the soul and the importance of eternity. . . . By recollecting the awful consequences of my neglect, you will be more inclined to receive favorably any well-meant admonitions. (Moule, 46)
Fifteen years later he preached on the subject again. Years after this sermon, one of his friends told of how its power was still being felt. He said the pastor is like the keeper of a lighthouse. And he painted a vivid picture of a rocky coast strewn with dead and mangled bodies with the wailing of widows and orphans. He pictured the delinquent keeper being brought out and at last the answer given: Asleep. "Asleep!" The way he made this word burst on the ears of the hearers never let at least one of them ever forget what is at stake in the pastoral ministry.
It did not matter that his people were often against him. He was not commissioned by them, but by the Lord. And they were his responsibility. He believed Hebrews 13:17 — that he would one day have to give an account for the souls of his church.
Free from the Scolding Tone Even Through Controversy
How many times have we heard a pastor's wounded pride or his personal anger at parishioners coming though his preaching! This is deadly for the ministry. Moule said of Simeon that his style of address in those early years of intense opposition was "totally free from that easy but fatal mistake of troubled pastors, the scolding accent" (Moule, 46).
Years after his conversion he said that his security in God gave him the capacity to be hopeful in the presence of other people even when burdened within: "With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God" (William Carus, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, 1846, 519).
Joseph Gurney saw the same thing in Simeon for years and wrote, that in spite of Simeon's private weeping, "it was one of his grand principles of action, to endeavor at all times to honor his Master by maintaining a cheerful happy demeanor in the presence of his friends" (Moule, 157).
He had learned the lesson of Matthew 6:17–18, "But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret."
Simeon was no rumor-tracker.
Not a Rumor-Tracker
He was like Charles Spurgeon who gave a lecture to his students entitles "The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear." The pastor must have one blind eye and one deaf ear, and turn that eye and that ear to the rumors that would incense him.
Simeon was deeply wronged in 1821. We are not given the details. But when he was asked about his response (which had, evidently been non-retaliatory) he said, "My rule is — never to hear, or see, or know, what if heard, or seen, or known, would call for animadversion from me. Hence it is that I dwell in peace in the midst of lions" (Moule, 191).
We would do well not to be curious about what others are saying. Nothing makes me want to tune someone out more quickly than when they begin a sentence, "A lot of people are saying . . ."
Dealing with Opponents in a Forthright, Face-to-Face Way
In 1810, a man named Edward Pearson accused Simeon of setting too high a standard of holiness in his preaching. This criticism was made public in pamphlets. Simeon wrote to Pearson and said,
Persons who have the same general design, but differ in some particular modes of carrying it into execution, often stand more aloof from each other than they do from persons whose principles and conduct they entirely disapprove. Hence prejudice arises and a tendency to mutual crimination; whereas, if they occasionally conversed for half an hour with each other, they would soon rectify their mutual misapprehensions, and concur in aiding, rather than undermining, the efforts of each other for the public good. (Moule, 126–127)
It is remarkable, as Simeon said, how much evil can be averted by doing things face to face. We attempt far too much fence-mending by letter and even by phone. There is something mysteriously powerful about the peacemaking potentials of personal face-to-face conversation. It did not spare Simeon years of criticism, but it was surely one of the means God used to overcome the opposition in the long run.
Receiving Rebuke and Growing from It
This is utterly essential to survive and thrive in the ministry — the ability to absorb and profit from criticism. From the Lord and from man. You recall how he interpreted his 13-year weakness from age 47 to 60 as a rebuke from the Lord for his intention to retire at sixty. He took it well, and gave himself with all his might to the work till he died. At seventy-six he wrote, "Through mercy I am, for ministerial service, stronger than I have been at any time this thirty years . . . preaching at seventy-six with all the exuberance of youth . . . but looking for my dismission [i.e. death] daily" (Moule, 162). He was not embittered by a thirteen-year rebuke. He was impelled by it.
It was the same with rebukes from men. If these rebukes came from his enemies, his sentiment was the sentiment of James 1:2. He said, "If I suffer with a becoming spirit, my enemies, though unwittingly, must of necessity do me good" (Moule, 39).
But his friends rebuked him as well. For example, he had the bad habit of speaking as if he were very angry about mere trifles. One day at a Mr. Hankinson's house he became so irritated at how the servant was stoking the fire that he gave him a swat on the back to get him to stop. Then when he was leaving, the servant got a bridle mixed up, and Simeon's temper broke out violently against the man.
Well, Mr. Hankinson wrote a letter as if from his servant and put it in Simeon's bag to be found later. In it he said that he did not see how a man who preached and prayed so well could be in such a passion about nothing and wear no bridle on his tongue. He signed it "John Softly."
Simeon responded (on April 12, 1804) directly to the servant with the words, "To John Softly, from Charles, Proud and Irritable: I most cordially thank your, my dear friend for your kind and seasonable reproof." Then he wrote to his friend, Mr. Hankinson, "I hope, my dearest brother, that when you find your soul nigh to God, you will remember one who so greatly needs all the help he can get" (Moule, 147).
We will see the root of this willingness to be humbled in just a moment.
Unimpeachable in His Finances with No Love of Money
In other words, he gave his enemies no foothold when it came to lifestyle and wealth. He lived as a single man simply in his rooms at the university and gave all his excess income to the poor of the community. He turned down the inheritance of his rich brother. Moule said he had "a noble indifference to money." And his active involvement with the relief for the poor in the area went a long way to overcoming the prejudices against him. It is hard to be the enemy of a person who is full of practical good deeds. "It is God's will that by doing good you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men" (1 Peter 2:15).
Seeing Discouraging Things Hopefully
When the members of his congregation locked their pews and kept them locked for over ten years, Simeon said,
In this state of things I saw no remedy but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, 'The servant of the Lord must not strive.' It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when, without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burden. (Moule, 39)
One illustration of the truth of Simeon's confidence is the story of one of his preaching trips to Scotland. He happened to visit the home of a minister named Stewart who was not truly converted and was quite miserable. Through the personal life and witness of Simeon Mr. Stewart was transformed and for 15 years afterward was powerful for the gospel.
One of the couples who said later that they "owed their own selves" to the new preaching of Mr. Stewart were the parents of Alexander Duff. They brought up their son in the full faith of the gospel and with a special sense of dedication to the service of Christ. Duff, in turn, became one of the great Scottish missionaries to India for over fifty years. So it is true that you never know when the Lord may give a double blessing on your ministry to a small number and multiply it thirty- sixty- or a hundredfold even after you are dead and gone. This confidence kept Simeon going more than once.
Suffering as a Privilege of Bearing the Cross with Christ.
One striking witness to this was during a time when the university was especially cold and hostile to him. He reflected on his own name "Simeon" which is the same as Simon who was compelled to bear the cross for Jesus. And he exclaimed about that text: "What a word of instruction was here — what a blessed hint for my encouragement! To have the cross laid upon me, that I might bear it after Jesus — what a privilege! It was enough. Now I could leap and sing for joy as one whom Jesus was honoring with a participation of His sufferings." (Moule, 59–60)
We recall his words when he was 71 and Joseph Gurney asked him how he had surmounted his persecution for 49 years. He said, "My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake."
The Deepest Root of Simeon's Endurance
But where now did this remarkable power and fruit come from? This is not an ordinary way of seeing things. This is not an ordinary way of life. What was the root of all this fruit. We get a step closer to it when we notice that . . .
A friend of Simeon's named Housman lived with him for a few months and tells us about this discipline. "Simeon invariably arose every morning, though it was the winter season, at four o'clock; and, after lighting his fire, he devoted the first four hours of the day to private prayer and the devotional study of the Scriptures . . . . Here was the secret of his great grace and spiritual strength. Deriving instruction from such a source, and seeking it with such diligence, he was comforted in all his trials and prepared for every duty" (Moule, p. 66).
Yes it was the secret of his strength. But it was not the deepest secret. What Simeon experienced in the word was remarkable. And it is so utterly different from the counsel that we receive today that it is worth looking at, in conclusion.
Growing Downward in Humiliation Before God, Upward in Adoration of Christ
Handley Moule captures the essence of Simeon's secret of longevity in this sentence: "'Before honor is humility,' and he had been 'growing downwards' year by year under the stern discipline of difficulty met in the right way, the way of close and adoring communion with God" (Moule, 64). Those two things were the heartbeat of Simeon's inner life: growing downward in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.
But the remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin. So he actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian.
I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark, if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size. (Moule 134)
The Ballast of Humiliation
He never lost sight of the need for the heavy ballast of his own humiliation. After he had been a Christian forty years he wrote,
With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63). . . . There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: and I have always thought that they should be viewed together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of all Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat. The disease did not keep him from applying to the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be, not only humble and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually. (Carus, 303–304.)
If Simeon is right, vast portions of contemporary Christianity are wrong. And I can't help wondering whether one of the reasons we are emotionally capsized so easily today — so vulnerable to winds of criticism or opposition — is that in the name of forgiveness and grace, we have thrown the ballast overboard.
Simeon's boat drew a lot of water. But it was steady and on course and the mastheads were higher and the sails bigger and more full of the Spirit than most people's today who talk continuously about self-esteem.
Ballast Below, Full Sails Above — at the Same Time
Simeon's missionary friend Thomason writes about a time in 1794 when a friend of Simeon's named Marsden entered his room and found Simeon "so absorbed in the contemplation of the Son of God, and so overpowered with a display of His mercy to his soul, that he was incapable of pronouncing a single word," till at length, he exclaimed, "Glory, glory." But a few days later Thomason himself found Simeon at the hour of the private lecture on Sunday scarcely able to speak, "from a deep humiliation and contrition."
Moule comments that these two experiences are not the alternating excesses of an ill-balanced mind. Rather they are "the two poles of a sphere of profound experience" (Moule, 135). For Simeon, adoration of God grew best in the plowed soil of his own contrition.
Simeon had no fear of turning up every sin in his life and looking upon with great grief and hatred, because he had such a vision of Christ's sufficiency that this would always result in deeper cleansing and adoration.
Humiliation and adoration were inseparable. He wrote to Mary Elliott, the sister of the writer of the hymn "Just as I Am,"
I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense — first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur. Now I do not see why any one of these should swallow up another. (Moule, 160–161.)
As an old man he said, "I have had deep and abundant cause for humiliation, [but] I have never ceased to wash in that fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanness, or to cast myself upon the tender mercy of my reconciled God" (Carus, 518f).
He was convinced that biblical doctrines "at once most abase and most gladden the soul" (Moule, 67). He spoke once to the Duchess de Broglie when he made a visit to the continent. He comments later "[I] opened to her my views of the Scripture system . . . and showed her that brokenness of heart is the key to the whole" (Moule, 96).
"My Proper Place"
He actually fled for refuge to the place which we today try so hard to escape.
Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust. . . . I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err. . . . I am sure that whatever God may despise . . . He will not despise the broken and contrite heart. (Moule, 133) When he was old and could look on much success, he wrote to a friend on the fiftieth anniversary of his work, "But I love the valley of humiliation. I there feel that I am in my proper place" (Moule, 159).
In the last months of his life he wrote, "In truth, I love to see the creature annihilated in the apprehension, and swallowed up in God; I am then safe, happy, triumphant" (Moule, 162).
Why? Why is this evangelical humiliation a place of happiness for Simeon? Listen to the benefits he sees in this kind of experience:
By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory. . . . You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling; but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will mount on wings of faith to heaven. The sigh, the groan of a broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven, aye, into the very bosom of God. (Moule, 137)
Enjoy the Cross
So my conclusion is that the secret of Charles Simeon's perseverance was that he never threw overboard the heavy ballast of his own humiliation for sin and that this helped keep his masts erect and his sails full of the spirit of adoration.
I love simplicity; I love contrition. . . . I love the religion of heaven; to fall on our faces while we adore the Lamb is the kind of religion which my soul affects. (Moule, 83)
As he lay dying in October of 1836, a friend sat by his bed and asked what he was thinking of just then. He answered, "I don't think now; I am enjoying."
He grew downward in the pain of contrition and he grew upward in the joy of adoration. And the weaving together of these two experiences into one is the achievement of the cross of Christ and the deepest secret of Simeon's great perseverance.