From the Easy Chair

Remarkable People We Have Known

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 90-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161BV134

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161BV134, Remarkable People We Have Known, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 239, April the second, 1991.

Last time Otto Scott and I discussed remarkable people and we also discussed books and we didn’t get through with either subject. So this time we are going to go back to both of them and I am happy to know that some of you are glad we are going to do so.

I would like to start off tonight by discussing a professor I had, an old Scot, a thoroughly delightful man. Now when I was at the university I had a number of professors who were total wretches, quite a number. I had about three who were very brilliant scholars. And I owe a great deal to them. I had one professor, Dr. Kurtz, who was remarkable and very much resented by the rest of the faculty because he taught the appreciation of poetry. And already—this was in the 30s—that was passé. All the other men virtually in the English department spoke contemptuously of him. His classes were full of students from the sciences and from other departments of the university who were there because they wanted to learn to enjoy poetry. And he was a master at teaching it.

I recall one student from the sciences who was there who was glad finally to be in that class. He said, “I decided in order to be civilized I should take some courses in English and philosophy. And all I got in philosophy was learned and precise idiocy, and in the English department deceptions of writers by non entities.” And he was right.

The man I am going to talk about was professor G. Dundas Craig, an old Scot. He was hopelessly out of date as far as the rest of the faculty was concerned. He belonged to a past generation of gentleman scholars, kindly, godly men. As a result, he was given the course no one else wanted and, perhaps, no one else was qualified to teach it, namely, the senior course for English majors on English, on the language.

I had always enjoyed the richness of the English language, but G. Dundas Craig taught me to relish words, to savor them as one does food, to enjoy a dictionary. And to this day when I go to the second edition of Webster’s unabridged dictionary, I do so with remembrances of Dr. Craig. He used language precisely. He worked to teach us the same precision. I hope, to a limited degree, I have been a good pupil of Dr. Craig.

I remember to this day affectionately one of his corrections that he made of me. We were each assigned a different topic which would require us to use a variety of words which he felt were commonly misused. And in the course of mine, I had a sentence in which spoke of having been raised in Kingsbury, California. And with his eyes twinkling Dr. Craig looked over his glasses towards me and said, “Mr. Rushdoony, hogs are raised. Children are reared.” It is a distinction and a precision of meaning I have never forgotten. But that was Dr. Craig.

His corrections were lovable. You never smarted under his corrections because he loved his work. He enjoyed his students. He was happy in his association with them, a very remarkable man. I wish there were more around like him. But he was almost the last of his generation. I trust it will not be too many generations before we get men again like G. Dundas Craig.

Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, that provokes a memory of my own very... somewhat similar, although Anthony Boucher was a younger man that Dr. Craig. He was also professor at Berkeley, after your time, I believe. His name ... his real name was White. I don’t... I don’t think I ever knew his actual initials because I wasn’t a student there. But he wrote detective stories and novels under the name of Anthony Belcher. And he had a column in the New York Times book magazine every week. He also organized the ... he organized the Sherlock Holmes society, of sorts. I have forgotten what he called it. But it was a serious thing. Mystery writers of America, I believe. And he also had a great deal to do with changing authors contracts with publishers and helping the authors to deal with these fearsome individuals who, as you know, usually run ram shod right over the writers.’

Boucher, Anthony Boucher had a writing class in his home, a very select group of people, who weren’t totally amateur, but not too far away from it and invited me to come because it said that he would enjoy my company or words to that effect. At any rate, he flattered me into coming. And his practice was everyone would submit a piece of writing and he would read it anonymously. He wouldn’t say who wrote it. And comments would come from all corners of the room and so forth and he would summarize. And I submitted some failed short story, some something that publishers had turned down. And he read it aloud and he was a good reader. And the comments were, as I remember, there were various comments about it. And he said, “Well, actually,” he said, “it is... it is as good as anything I see in print.” And I felt pretty flattered. But, he said, “It has echoes of lots of things I have seen in print.” And he said, “The world expects something better than that in a new writer. The world expects a different viewpoint. It expects when it gets through reading a new writer, to never quite see things the same way again.” And he said, “Echoes of what other men write will not do, because,” he said, “if you write the same things that Brown writes there is no reason why they should stop publishing Brown and publish you.”

But what he said about a special angle of vision stuck in my mind. I think it was at lest 20 years later before I could say that I began to write from a personal viewpoint. Until then, my head was filled with the comments of other people, with my reading and with what was popular and so forth.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, that is an interesting observation, Otto, because I finished reading just a few days ago a literary study, a psychoanalytic literary study which I won’t go into, but the author, a woman, made an interesting observation, namely that all great writing was resonant with echoes from other writers. And this was the essence of good writing, that today there was too much of a striving for originality whereas great writers, whether they are Shakespeare or Milton or anyone else, line after line they will echo writers ancient and of their time. But what they do is to bring a clear cut point and a vision to all these echoes so that while it is, in a sense, all old, it adds up to something new. I thought that was a very telling observation.

[ Scott ] Well, obviously that runs counter to what Boucher said. What Boucher said was not that you couldn’t quote other writers. I mean, that would obviously be illiterate. What he said was that you have to ... everyone has a view and an angle of vision of their own. You do not see the world the same way I do and vice versa. Just as we have different fingerprints we have different pair of eyes. We see different things. And you have to bring that particular vision to the attention of others, because then they will see things differently than they have seen them before.

Now I ... I... I recognize the argument that you have just read. I just finished reading a book by Marion Montgomery and Montgomery began with the Iliad and has quoted almost everybody. He is writing about the liberal community and the arts and a professor also. And he does manage to blend things into a personal vision in a most remarkable way. He is the first writer I think I have ever read, the first author I have ever read who said that the misuse of a word is false witness.

[ Rushdoony ] Very, very interesting. Dr. Craig would have loved that.

[ Scott ] Yes. And the misuse of the vision is false witness also. To claim a vision from somebody else which you do not have yourself is false witness in terms of writing. And it doesn't quite come off when it is tried. I have seen it and so have you.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] We see quite a bit of it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, somewhere along the line early in my schooling I had a teacher who urged us when we wrote papers to go to an encyclopedia.

[ Scott ] Oh yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And to summarize what the encyclopedia said, not copying it word for word, but not hesitating to use phrases and sentences because, she said, that this the way you learn good writing.

[ Scott ] Well, that is true. That is just like painting. Painters begin by copying.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And we begin as copying. Copying as children.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. That is why in the philosophy of the Christian curriculum I recommended that, because it certainly helped me.

[ Scott ] Well, I began Montgomery. It is interesting. You haven’t received your latest compass.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] Well, then you will probably get it tomorrow. It begins, the essay begins with a quote, with a definition rather from Webster’s second unabridged. And on the definition of the word lost and it is a very long definition because there are many applications of the word lost. Many more definitions than you find in the later dictionaries, as you know. And it mentions among other things lost sheep, lost ship, lost your way and lost your sense of honor and shame. And you know immediately when you read that definition that it is not a modern definition.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes.

[ Scott ] And yet it was printed in 1950, which is only a generation ago.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, since about 1960 the world has been dramatically changed by Kinsey and company together with help from others.

Well, I would like to go on now to another man, someone well known in many circles, Dr. Cornelius Van Til. I was never his student, but I became a very good friend and a guest at his home on one occasion and he used to spend his summers in California in the San Joaquin Valley at Rippon. He loved that dry heat, drive in it and relished coming out here in the summers. And so thought 50s he would be in California and we would get together.

I first made contact with him when I had read his first book The New Modernism. After reading it in a Canadian publication, I saw a savage and vicious attack on the book. About a four or five page book which only quoted one sentence from the book about the first or second sentence. And then the author, a man named Cole, had done nothing but criticize Van Til without having bothered to understand what he was saying.

So I sat down and wrote to that Canadian journal a long letter analyzing what Van Til had said in the book, why the book was very important and why the review was not a review, but simply an expression of hatred.

[ Scott ] An attack.

[ Rushdoony ] The result is that they published it with a half hearted apology from Cole who admitted that perhaps he had been intemperate and had not taken pains to read the book really as he admitted in a personal letter to me.

So as a result of that I had a very gracious letter from Dr. Van Til. And we began to correspond and then subsequently met. He was a man of remarkable learning. Fluent, of course in Dutch, his native language and in German, of course in English and in French. And more conversant with the philosophies of history than any other man I have known. I think he knew more than the entire philosophy department at Berkeley in my day. And yet he was a man of child like humility. And never fully aware of how important his work was.

It is slowly beginning to dawn on people that a great deal of future thinking is going to be determined by Van Til, certainly everything that I and Chalcedon represent come out of Van Til. But what I once told him when he was very discouraged because the hostility towards him was immense. The old Calvin Forum devoted two issues to the most vicious personal attack on him. Every article in both issues, in fact, it was so intemperate that the magazine died as a result of that.

But he was deluged with hatred and even his own colleagues included some who were resentful and hostile towards him.

[ Scott ] How do you account for that?

[ Rushdoony ] They were children compared to him.

[ Scott ] Do you think it was jealousy?

[ Rushdoony ] It was. Jaspers, the great German existentialist philosopher said that there is nothing in the university world that is more hated than superiority. Mediocrity is the rule. If someone is too bad then he is an embarrassment, but if he is too good, he is hated with a passion.

And Dr. Van Til was a man of obvious superiority. And once when he was feeling very, very hurt over the attacks and all I told him, “Don’t let it get to you. When these men are dead and gone and when you and I are dead and gone you will be remembered as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.”

And he looked at me shocked. He actually started to stutter and he said, “I have never heard anything like that. And it is not good for me spiritually to hear something like that.”

But I said, “It is true. It is true. You must appreciate the gifts God has given you and how important they are.”

He was a very devoted family man. He had one son who is just a traditional Christian Reformed churchman and never really understood his father. His wife, who was also a Hollander, was very devoted to her family and she would summer in the... in Indiana with the relatives while he came to California until finally, because of her declining health, he had to be with her when she summered in Indiana and for years because of a fall and her inability to take care of things he did the house work and nursed her very lovingly. He was a simple child like man.

After his retirement he was treated shabbily by the seminary. And only when Dan Morris became the pastor at the church next to the seminary where the professors went did things change. He began to hold a Saturday morning session for the students with Van Til. The students loved it and Van Til blossomed under it. But, of course, it did not sit well with certain people in the seminary and Dan Morris ultimately had to leave.

But knowing Cornelius Van Til was knowing greatness.

[ Scott ] That is very interesting. That is very interesting.

Well, I will take you to a two entirely different kinds of men. One was Paul Robeson the black singer, actor, football player, lawyer, Communist and the other was Louis Armstrong, the black trumpeter, singer. I never thought he was a good singer. And I knew them both. I was.... I can’t say that I was any long time acquaintance or anything of that sort, but I had fairly long, several hour session with both of them at different places in different times. Paul Robeson, first, at a party in Saint Louis.

Now Robeson went to Harvard. I believe Harvard. I am not positive about the school.

[ Rushdoony ] I think you are right.

[ Scott ] But I think he went to Harvard. He was summa cum laude. He was an all American football player. He went on to become a lawyer. He went on to become a concert singer. He went on to become a movie actor and star. He played in Emperor Jones and a number of others, King Solomon’s Mines and all kinds of movies and some of them very good movies. Had a marvelous voiced. And he became wealthy. He was noted with honors, awards, popularity, you name it. And he was one of the most bitter men. He was a very talented man. He could sing in every language practically. He sang songs in Hebrew, Russian, French, Spanish, all kinds of things and very well. Old Man River, I think, is what most people remember his...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... his rendition of Old Man River...

[ Rushdoony ] I can still hear him.

[ Scott ] ...is thrilling, thrilling.

[ Rushdoony ] … sing that.

[ Scott ] And I said, “Well, what is the ... what is the argument? You have got everything. You have got practically everything that a man can obtain in the line... every line of ... that you went in to. What is your... what is your argument?”

And he began to talk about his people. And I said, “Well, your people haven't elected you to do anything of that sort.” I said, “You are doing what you are very good at and your people love you and other people do, too. And I don’t quite understand your ... your... your argument.”

Well, he said, “I have a brother in a penitentiary.” And I don’t know whether that was true or not.

I said, “What was he in for?”

He said, “For killing a white man.”

I said, “What did you expect, a medal?”

And people got very upset around us and they... he... he stopped them and he said, “Well, now, leave the man alone. He is... he is giving an honest opinion.” And he said, “I don’t mind arguing with him.” And the evening went on pretty much along that way. We both enjoyed the exchange.

And some years later I met Louis Armstrong in Atlanta, Georgia. He was there with his band, his... his orchestra. He had a black orchestra and of course you all know that Louis Armstrong was a very great musician, a great instrumentalist. I would say that there were other black people, black musicians who were more gifted. I think Duke Ellington, for one, was a great composer. But Louis Armstrong was a very successful man, too. And he was ... his whole attitude was entirely different. He did not go to Harvard. He was not picked up by the English aristocracy. He wasn’t take around by the people’s backs I palaces of Connecticut. He didn’t have these awards. Broadway didn’t love him. He came up from a very poor background. He worked his way up, I am pretty sure, from New Orleans on and played in every little road house and corner place.

It was a long time before Louis Armstrong became well known and famous and well to do. And no man liked this country and its people better and no man was more widely loved. And when I look at the tragedy that Robeson made of his life and what Louis Armstrong made of his, it brings all sorts of reflections to mind about race, about America which made both... both these men rich and famous. And very... I have never read an article about either one of them in which it is pointed out that it was the American people that made them rich.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And that only one of them appreciated that.’

[ Rushdoony ] Well, maybe one reason way Paul Robeson was so bitter was that the was married to the woman he was.

[ Scott ] Eslanda?

[ Rushdoony ] She doled out money to him in small amounts.

[ Scott ] I remember there was a story in the Reader’s Digest about that once which I won’t repeat because it will bring angry letters, but it was printed in the Digest at the time.

Eslanda was a much... equally severe and ruled the roost although the rooster did a lot of wandering.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, I think the contrast between the two men is a remarkable one and Louis Armstrong has been honored more after his death than he was through most of his life.

We continue with the interesting and remarkable people we have known.

My daughter Joanna asked if I weren’t going to deal with some of my family. I really can’t do it because I would feel too strongly and too emotional to deal with my parents and relatives and others. But one of them especially has come to mind lately. First of all, of all of them, one of the most vivid memories was this. They were immigrants. They came to this country and except for my father and mother who knew English, could not speak a word of English, were working within the first week gainfully.

My uncle, who had been a wealthy man went to work as a janitor and was glad for it and came to California and became a farmer the rest of his life. All of them all their lives would thank God for the United States. And nowadays you see people who come here who are ingrates who do nothing but complain. I know especially my grandmother lived through the massacres, saw her first husband and then her second husband killed. And after the massacres was in the Russian Revolution. She only survived with her two youngest children because the relief agencies who were either relief agencies made her a matron of an orphanage. Yet the food is so scarce that all of them had night blindness because of the vitamin deficiency. The {?} was dark. They could not see.

I never, never heard a complaining word from my grandmother. Her only problem in her old age was that she had four daughters and a son all of whom were vying for the privilege of having her live with them. They adored her so. More than that I don’t want to go into it except that it is fresh in my mind because here were immigrants who were grateful to God for the privilege of being here. And I see some who are ingrates.

Well, I would like to deal now with another man who is still living, although infirmed, Dr. Gilbert Dundalk, an M. D. His home is in Rippon, not too many miles from here.

Dr. Dundalk spent his early years in the Netherlands, came over in his teens and went to Berkeley in the medical school. He came here and worked. He worked hard as a student, long hours to put himself through school, supporting himself, coming as he did from poor immigrant parents. And as a medical student he did an internship here in Murphys, California at what is not the Brent Heart Center and then it was a state tuberculosis Sanitarium. And it was there that Gilbert said he had one of the most distressing experiences of his life. He tested himself and found that he had tuberculosis.

He over came it, went on to become a doctor in Rippon. But he was, in a very remarkable way, apart from his medical practice, which was unusual, a minister ministering to the Christian community in different ways. He was tremendously impressed with what he had read of Dr. Van Til and some of his very early articles. He visited Van Til and found him—this was in the late 40s, middle to late 40s—with a serious heart condition brought on by the insane and venomous attack to which he was subjected from all sides.

So he immediately went out to him and he said, “I am an M. D. and I am going to take care of you. That is going to be my ministry.” And he did. He helped Dr. Van Til regain his health and I believe he was over 90 when Van Til passed away.

He became {?} supporter of the Westminster seminary. He financed the publication of all of Van Til’s books and one of mine. He helped create the reformed fellowship, the purpose of which was to bring about reformation within the reformed community which was beginning to go astray then. This was in the 50s. But, unhappily, I was one of the first members with him. The other members insisted on enlarging the membership because they thought it would increase the influence. And Gilbert said, “Keep it down to 50 at the most and half that even better, because then we will be a like minded group and we can accomplish something. We can have an impact.”

And as long as that was done the reformed fellowship had major impact across the country. But when they began to increase it and bring in more and more numbers, the same thing happened that you and I have seen happen with the national policy council. I don’t think anyone knows how many different people Gilbert Dundalk ministered to as he did to Van Til and as he did to me. At one time, because of a variety of circumstances, my health—and I was a relatively young man then—was in bad shape, very bad shape. He insisted that I go over and stay with him and to go back there from time to time. And he made sure that my health was restored.

I don’t know who all else he did that to, but I know he did that to a great many people, because he felt that people who were important for the kingdom of God he had to help. So Gilbert Dundalk was and is a very remarkable man. He was a pleasure to know. He is now rather feeble, but one of the things that Gilbert used to do, of example, was to invite groups of young men who were of superior intelligence into his home.

On one occasion he took a group up to the {?} Hotel at Yosemite in the winter, marvelous time to be there and he had me along to teach them. And through things like this, any number of things, Gilbert Dundalk made sure that more and more people of promise would come to an intelligent awareness of the faith.

I know that some of those whom he worked with went on to become professors and ministers and the like. I don’t know whether anyone has ever bothered to sit down and keep track of all that Gilbert Dundalk did, but he was a man with a remarkable mission.

[ Scott ] Well, that is very interesting. I can’t really say that I knew anybody of comparable stature personally, on a personal level, although, of course, I have interviewed a great many outstanding people.

We did have a family friend in New York named David Cassidy. Mr. Cassidy was a chief in the wigwam which is what they used to call Tammany Hall.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And he was a vice president in a printing company. And therefore he had not only political contacts, but he had a lot of union contacts. And I discovered that when I went back to New York in ... when I was 19. I had spent three years wandering around the country, taking care of myself. And came back and I felt very grown up. And my mother suggested that I talk to Mr. Cassidy and get myself located in New York.

Mr. Cassidy’s method of locating me, I think, is interesting. The first place he sent me was to the paper handlers union. The paper handlers had an office down on Park row on the top story right above the elevator. In fact, you took the elevator to the top and then you went up a flight of stairs and they had a sort of a loft in the office building. And when you went in you met the usual cage, the man behind the cage who wanted to know who you were and so forth. And I told him that Dr. Cassidy sent me so he said, “All right. Go on in.”

I went in the union hall where men were playing cards. The paper handlers in those days used to take care of large shipments of pulp paper which came down from Canada. The longshoremen would take them from the vessel and put them on the dock. And the paper handler would take them from the dock and put them in the warehouse.

Now each one of these rolls of paper weighed between 1800 and 2200 pounds and you had nothing but a hand truck to move it with. You had to tip it, put it on the hand truck, balance it, carry it back to the warehouse back and stack it. Don’t let it fall on you, because otherwise they would pick you up with a knife. And I did this. I was a little wobbly at first, but I put in a few hours. And the foreman said, “Hey, kid, that is all right. That is enough. Go sit over there.” And he said, “We will get one of the horses to do this. Hey, Joe.”

And I ... so Joe came over and he had arms on him as large as my thighs and workman all around me. And I didn’t know it, but I had passed the first test. And I was... I went down there a few days in a row, but nothing in particular happened and then I got another call and I was told to report to the pressmen’s union. And I went to the pressmen’s union and I was given a ... an address to go to and I went to a {?} printing house. And I don’t think they have {?} anymore. You remember it.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yes.

[ Scott ] It was... it was tan color and so forth. And this was a ... a printing house which printed amongst other things {?} which was Mussolini’s newspaper over here. And I worked as a fly boy. Fly boy takes the paper off the press as it comes out and you have a... had in those days a little stand and a piece of string which you put the... you took it off in sheets of groups of 50 and you stack them up 100, 200 to whatever. And then you had to tie it up, carry the bundle over and stack it neatly and then come back and put your string on the stand and catch the next group before it fell on the floor. That is why they called it flying. They do it... they do it now ... it is now automatic. It is automated. And the shift began at four in the afternoon until midnight. It was eight hours and then it continued from midnight until eight in the morning which was 16 hours and that counted as two day’s work. It was not overtime. And you did that every other day. You put in 16 hour shift that way and I got 18.50 a week. And I was there for several months. That was a serious job.

And finally the union offered me a card as an assistant pressman, which was against the rules, but I had favor. I had a god father so to speak. And they were going to send me to a plant over in New Jersey which printed Fortune magazine. Of course, this was in the 30s. And I turned it down. And they said, “Why?” And I said, “Well, I am really not equipped. I would probably set the press on fire. I think it would be irresponsible. I really...”

He said, “You realize what you are turning down? Do you realize the kind of money you are turning down?”

I said, “Well, yes, but I am really not up to it.”

Word apparently reached Mr. Cassidy on that because he then by some {?} managed to get me a call, an invitation from the United Press and I went to the United Press and they offered me a job as a sports writer. And those... that was a big thing in those days.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] That is... that was the writer’s haven, sports writers. They have changed since then.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] But they were really... there were really some very good ones. And I turned it down because I didn’t like sports and I thought the man was going to faint. He was the most surprised man I have ever seen in my life. He said, “You can’t be serious.”

I said, “I am. I hate it.” I said, “This doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t like it.”

He said, “Do you realize how many guys would love to have that job?”

I said, “Yes, I know.”

And he said, “And you are not even ashamed of yourself?”

I said, “No.”

Well, he sent me downstairs to the United Features Syndicate and that was the writing end. And they were... they were much more receptive. They laughed. They thought it was very funny and I had a job with them.

So not too long after that Mr. Cassidy took me to lunch and asked me a few questions about how I was living and so forth. I was not living with my parents. I would not do that. I {?} grown up and I had a very small dingy room and he thought I should do a little better for myself. So he lent me some money. I have forgotten how much. Years have passed and money today isn’t what it was then, something like 150 dollars or so, which I thought... at that point was considerable amount of money.

[ Rushdoony ] A lot of money then.

[ Scott ] So I took it very gratefully and a number of months went by before I was able to accumulate 150 dollars to repay him and I invited him to lunch which, I think, gives you an inkling of what sort of a young fellow I was. Took him to lunch and I handed him the money and thanked him. And he said, “What is this?”

And I said, “It is the money you lent me.” And he pushed it back with his hand. I will never forget his expression and he said, “I don’t want that.”

Oh, I said, “What do I do?”

He said, “Pass it on.”

And it was like a light bulb going on in my head. I suddenly realized that this is what you r supposed to do in the world.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] You are supposed to help the other guy.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And it was a lesson delivered so quickly. And I never forgot it. I never forgot Mr. Cassidy.

[ Rushdoony ] Marvelous story. Well, I would like to talk now about a very, very different kind of person than we have discussed. Elizabeth Brown was her name. She was part white, mostly Indian, a vivacious, attractive and extremely promiscuous girl. Her husband—and he was a Californian, part Indian also—and Elizabeth was the kind of girl... well, she was unlike other Indians. She was not quiet. She was vivacious, bubbly, full of good humor, never a serious thought in her head.

Well, one Sunday she wandered into the church service at the Indian mission and I had the surprise to see Elizabeth there. I think it may have been raining and that is why she came in. But she did. And she not only came in, but she walked up and sat in either the first or the second row.

[ Scott ] Well, that is always a brave thing to do.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, especially since the service had just started. So for someone who had never gone to church before to walk in and walk all the way up to the front was unusual. She listened very intently. After the service when I went to the door and those who were present were leaving, Elizabeth hung back and she asked me a question or two about the faith. And they very, very serious, very thoughtful questions and it surprised me. And she stood there for a while, very quietly. And then she looked at me and she nodded and she said, “That all make sense. That all makes sense.”

Well, I don’t know where I was that week so I didn’t have a chance to follow through and, of course, it was pretty hard to catch up with Elizabeth anywhere, she was such a wild one. And I was very surprised when I came back and then the next Sunday morning after the service and there was Elizabeth. And not only happily in the service, but letting me know she believed. She believed and she wanted a Bible.

So this went on for about five or six weeks. And suddenly she was no longer there. I was very, very disappointed. I thought she has gone back to her ways. She was popular. She was attractive and she was extremely promiscuous, before at least, she started coming to church. And I thought she has regressed.

Well, I checked up immediately and found that, no, she was in the hospital. So I went to the hospital to call on Elizabeth and I started to talk to her and she stopped me and she said, “I am here because I have paresis, syphilis.”

[ Scott ] Yes, I know. Syphilis, third state.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And it is going into my brain. So she said, “I don’t have long.” But she said, “I am grateful to God that for whatever reason I came to your service that Sunday.”

So I called on her every day and read her Scripture and prayed with her. And she was as radiant a person as I have ever seen. And she told me one day, matter-of-factly. She said, “You know, I am soon going to lose my mind. I am not going to be able to speak and to know things.” But I would like if you could, get me a little cross so that I can hold it or have it to look at to remind me what I am.”

Well, we had some little crosses about, oh, two inches high that we had used as prizes in Sunday school. So I took her one of those and she thanked me. Then as the disease progressed and she was always happy and cheerful and it was amazing how she would rally when I would go there. She finally slipped into a coma and it was obvious it was a question of hours only when all the family, none of them Christian, were around her.

And she had been unconscious for a couple of days. I had learned by that time that when people are dying very often their senses are sharper than when they are alive. They may be completely unconscious, but they can hear you. It is as though there is a point of separation from life when everything becomes acute, the senses become acute and the awareness becomes more acute.

So when I walked in there and started to speak to her mother and said I wanted to read a few words of Scripture and to pray Elizabeth revived and she looked at me and her face was glowing radiant and made me ready to believe some of the saints legends I had read and never taken too seriously. She was unable to speak, but she looked at her mother who was on the other side of the bed and with her chin pointed to the cross that was hanging on the side of the bed and her mother took... put it in front of her and she lifted up her face to kiss it and to smile at me. And she slipped into a coma and died soon after.

I have never forgotten that because it was certainly a miracle of grace. A more unlikely convert than Elizabeth would be hard to imagine. A more remarkable convert would be hard to imagine. The serenity with which she faced her condition and death and thanked God for his grace to my dying day I will never forget her. And every moment of my visits with her are etched sharply in my memory.

[ Scott ] Well, there is mercy for sinners.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, yes. That is what some people in the church seem to forget.

Well, our time is up. Thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.