Programming note: If you've yet to hear the Valentine edition of The Mark Steyn Show, brimming with music, poetry and the food of love, you can find it here.
~Meanwhile, welcome to Part Twenty-Nine of our current Tale for Our Time, our winter meditation by Robert Hugh Benson, with more than a touch of remarkable prescience. If that's insufficiently grueling for you, well, there's always my serialisation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Mr Benson got a lot of things right in his prediction of the twenty-first century from the world of 1907 ...but not everything. In tonight's episode of Lord of the World, the remnants of the Catholic Church are holed up in a sleepy backwater you never hear a word about from one year to the next - Palestine:
At twenty-three o'clock that night the Syrian priest went out to watch for the coming of the messenger from Tiberias. Nearly two hours previously he had heard the cry of the Russian volor that plied from Damascus to Tiberias, and Tiberias to Jerusalem, and even as it was the messenger was a little late.
These were very primitive arrangements, but Palestine was out of the world—a slip of useless country—and it was necessary for a man to ride from Tiberias to Nazareth each night with papers from Cardinal Corkran to the Pope, and to return with correspondence. It was a dangerous task, and the members of the New Order who surrounded the Cardinal undertook it by turns. In this manner all matters for which the Pope's personal attention was required, and which were too long and not too urgent, could be dealt with at leisure by him, and an answer returned within the twenty-four hours.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twenty-Nine of Lord of the World simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
Alison, a Steyn Clubber from the English Home Counties, has also noticed the things Benson foresaw ...and the things that never occurred to him:
Fascinating. Benson clearly did not envisage Israel, or Gaza filling the empty land of Palestine. Also, as far as I can ascertain, Nazareth is not on the plain but on a hill overlooking it. Benson is again still stuck with the telegraph (his one blind spot).
On the bright side, the Church has finally come down from its high horse having lost all its grand buildings and there is something real about someone a bit inadequate retaining the name of 'Pope' in such circumstances Without sounding too feminist, I would say this kind of thing is very 'male'. The early Romans pointed out that the early Christians had 'such women among them' and woman do not go for 'structure' as a priority, and certainly not in such a dangerous situation. They 'build up' first and operate very practically indeed, underground (remember WW2). After all, being a woman has large elements of being and surviving 'underground' anyway (always surrounded by threats).
By the way, a Pope would know that the indwellng Holy Spirit would never give an inch to the dismissive mentality of the lost idolatrous world, even in the days of Armageddon. Resistance, confidence, faith and hope would/will 'spring eternal'.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. Oh, and please join me tomorrow for Part Thirty of Lord of the World.
