Episode 66 - Altars by the Roadside

About this Episode

Now here's a find:

a passage in the novel "Revolution in Tanner's Lane" (1890)
by 'Mark Rutherford' (aka William Hale White),
in which the author answers the question I set in the previous cast.
If there is a word from religion to the middle-aged and "mature" --
i.e., a word of humbled acquiescence to the disillusioned and shaken --
what is religion's word to the young?
Can the same message of experienced wisdom and non-identification,
which seems able to communicate with immediacy to the shattered,
have something to say to the young and engaged,
to the active members of this world, all "wishin' and hopin'" and
working and fretting?
The Rev. Thomas Bradshaw, the genuine-article preacher in Mark
Rutherford's great book, offers a word to "My young friends" (p. 268)
that is a mighty dart to the young but shot from an old man's quiver.
In this cast, let me read you what Mr. Bradshaw has to say,
then you tell me whether it answers the practical question.