A few weeks ago, I left a comment on Love2LearnMom’s blog, regarding Chesterton. She recommended that I read St. Francis by Chesterton. I visited our library online (they carry quite a few Ignatius Press titles) and searched for St. Francis. A volume of G.K. Chesterton’s Collected Works showed up in the search results. Assuming that this was the volume that had what I was looking for, I put the book on hold. I was surprised when my husband recently brought home The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Vol. IV: What’s Wrong with the World, Superstition of Divorce, Eugenics and Other Evils.

I looked over the book and told my husband that it wasn’t the book that I had put on hold, but I was glad that he had checked it out for me. It turned out that it was the book that I had put on hold and I couldn’t be more delighted. I thouroughly enjoyed Fr. Schall’s introduction and now I am loving reading What’s Wrong with the World.

I might be recording quite a few quotes from this book as I read it. Below are the first two:

Among the many things that leave me doubtful about the modern habit of fixing eyes on the future, none is stronger than this: that all the men in history who have really done anything with the future have had their eyes fixed upon the past.
p. 54

As my high school Western Civ teacher, Mr. Anderson, used to say, “It is necessary to study history because it is in studying history that we can learn from our past mistakes and avoid them. History often repeats itself.”

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
p. 61