Tolkien Tuesday #4
Originally published at Grasping for the Wind. Please leave any comments there.
Good sermons require some art, some virtue, some knowledge. Real sermons require some special grace which does no transcend art but arrives at it by instinct or ‘inspiration’; indeed the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to speak through a human mouth providing art, virtue and insight he himself does not possess: but the occasions are rare. In other times I don’t think an educated person is required to suppress the critical faculty, but it should be kept in order by a constant endeavour to apply the truth (if any), even in cliche form, to oneself exclusively!
J.R.R. Tolkien
In a letter to his son Christopher in South Africa