I just put up a post at littletinsoldier.net about Manchu China, Opium, and drug legalisation.

When drug-legalisation campaigners point to the 19th Century as a time when drugs were legal, accepted and harmless, they are looking at the wrong society.

…

Then came opium. First in large amounts, then in overwhelmingly large amounts. Hundreds of tons of the poison year after year, ruining fortunes, families and morals.

…

State authority and ethics were undermined. Corruption was so ubiquitous, eventually the Manchu Emperor could not establish an uncontaminated flow of information, even in secret. Authority withered. Criminality flourished, entwined with the corrupt agents of an impotent government. Normal economy suffered, while wicked men amassed immense wealth and power. Generations were impoverished. legions of children were orphaned. Millions upon untold millions shuffled to an early death (the life expectancy of an opium user was five years).

If, like me, you have strong opinions on this subject, please read the rest of it.

To complement my earlier link to ‘The Way of the Fathers’, here’s a link to a very good short article on a man who deserves to be ranked alongside the early church fathers. Not a father of the church, but certainly a father of the reformed church.

The Morning Star, John Wycliffe.

“I indeed clove to none closer than to him, the wisest and most blessed of all men whom I have ever found. From him one could learn in truth what the Church of Christ is and how it should be ruled and led.”

I have two new tracks up at MP3.com.au:

Space Sonata

Embryonic Living Soul

NB: This second one has some very deep bass that is not properly compressed and EQed, so it’s only suitable for quietly. Played loud the bass will be too much for most speakers.

My music is peculiar — it’s ‘ambient’ with a lot of improvisation. It’s not unpleasant, but most people don’t like it. I’m OK with that

Another site I love:

The way of the fathers

A beaustiful site, with lots of short posts by and about early Christian father. Here’s just one example:

An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love.

–St. John Chrysostom

Isn’t that beautiful? It makes me think of my own wife, which in turn reminds me how deeply God has blessed me. If you’re a husband I hope it does the same for you.

Some excellent things at Dr. Mark D Robert’s site:

Dr Mark is struggling with denominations at present. He’s a minister in the Presbytarian Church USA, so you can probably guess why. My belief is that Satan is trying to destroy mainstream protestantism by infiltrating the agents of his religion* into the administration.

(*Satan’s religion is legion and goes by many names — in the denominations Marxism and Feminism are probably the most common)

Dr Mark has also added some more articles in a long, informative and erudite series on the Gospels. Dr Mark is a sincere Christian, but has also studied deeply the history of the Roman world at the time of the Christian fathers. These essays (including his earlier ones on the ‘Jesus Seminar’ and the ‘Da Vinci Code’) are well worth reading.

The mysterious God is not infinite loneliness, he is an event of love. If by gazing at creation we think we can glimpse the Creator Spirit, God himself, rather like creative mathematics, like a force that shapes the laws of the world and their order, but then, even, also like beauty - now we come to realize: the Creator Spirit has a heart. He is Love.

Pope Benedict XVI on Vigil of Pentecost, quoted from Catholic Analysis