“St. Benedict found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore it in the way not of science, but of nature, not as if setting about to do it, not professing to do it by any set time, or by any rare specific, or by any series of strokes, but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work was done, it was not known to be doing.”
So observed John Henry Newman, the great churchman and theologian of the nineteenth century, of the great founder of monasticism of the early medieval period. St. Benedict’s endeavor “was a restoration rather than a visitation, correction or conversion,” Newman continued. “The new work which he helped to create was a growth rather than a structure.”
At The Imaginative Conservative, we similarly seek to preserve the good, the true, and the beautiful of the Western Tradition amidst the disorder and disorientation of the modern world. Through the daily publication of serious essays that reflect the best of conservative thought, past and present, we seek to restore intellectual order and slowly rebuild the philosophical foundation of the West. Our journal has been doing this for eleven years now, and boasts 8,300 essays (by some 1,400 authors) that have been read more than 24 million times.
We could not have reached so many without the support of loyal readers like you. Please know that we are grateful for your generosity.
“Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city.”
Your response to our last support request was truly overwhelming and humbling, and we trust again that you will find it in your hearts to make a contribution to our mission, thereby strengthening our “school of learning” and helping us build our journal into an intellectual city at the heart of a Western revival.
Will you help us today?
Sincerely,
W. Winston Elliott III
Publisher
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The Imaginative Conservative is sponsored by The Free Enterprise Institute. Your donation to the Institute in support of The Imaginative Conservative is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. (By mail: 9600 Long Point Rd., Suite 300, Houston, TX, 77055.)
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