“[T]he most important question that we can ask, is whether there is any permanent standard, by which we can compare one civilisation with another, and by which we can make some guess at the improvement or decline of our own. . . . We can distinguish between higher and lower cultures; we can distinguish between advance and retrogression. We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline; that the standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and that the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity. I see no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further, and why we may not even anticipate a period, of some duration, of which it is possible to say that it will have no culture.”
-T.S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, 1948
From the Touchstone article by Ken Myers, “Ruler Over All: Notes Toward the Restitution of Christian Culture,” July/August 2023.
Gladsome Lights 
We are definitely sweeping the depths of depravity. The Truth of the Gospel needs to be heard. 🙂 “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
Love the illustration on your sidebar. Sweet!
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These are the days we were warned about. God help us!
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Apparently, everybody can’t distinguish.
AMDG
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Oh dear. This is bleak.
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I am always impressed when reading quotes of years ago, from well-knowns who saw clearly what was happening, and what was probably coming. Like Eliot, George Orwell, a few of the popes from way back and others. Thank God for those people!! I mean, I am glad that some can see clearly, because I would not see if they didn’t first.
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I read with a sinking heart, but somehow foolishly thinking T.S. would pull a rabbit out of his hat by the end with something encouraging. Well, it’s no worse than the feeling I have after every night’s national news but even there I lately seem glimmers of hope. Or want to see them.
I just went back to your December 7, 2020 post as you suggested in your comment — oh dear I should have left a comment there, maybe later because I want to tell my friend Poppy about it. How ironic that you wrote of Nashville’s Parthenon, a place I was taken to on field trips every year in elementary school and visited at Christmas with my parents. But I’ll save the rest for replying to your comment at my blog! One of those nice coincidences!
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