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Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936

"The New Jerusalem"


Even in England indeed it will generally be found that there
is something more clear and rational about the terms of theology
than those of politics and popular science. A man has at least
a more logical notion of what he means when he calls himself
an Anglo-Catholic than when he calls himself an Anglo-Saxon. But
the old Jew with the drooping ringlets, shuffling in and out
of the little black booths of Jerusalem, would not condescend
to say he is a child of anything like the Anglo-Saxon race.
He does not say he is a child of the Aramaico-Semitic race.
He says he is a child of the Chosen Race, brought with thunder
and with miracles and with mighty battles out of the land of Egypt
and out of the house of bondage. In other words, he says something
that means something, and something that he really means.
One of the white Dominicans or brown Franciscans, from the great
monasteries of the Holy City, may or may not be right in maintaining
that a Papacy is necessary to the unity of Christendom.
But he does not pass his life in proving that the Papacy
is not a Papacy, as many of our liberal constitutionalists
pass it in proving that the Monarchy is not a Monarchy.


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