Samuel Coleridge called in on William Wordsworth (above) and his sister Dorothy today in 1797. The Wordsworths were borrowing a friend’s house, Racedown, in Dorset, and Coleridge had walked from Bristol to see them. It was a significant meeting and marked the start of their artistic collaboration. The two poets were the founders of the Romantic movement in English poetry, and although the later Romantics loved to dabble in paganism, they were both deeply Christian, and Coleridge is a significant theologian.
‘He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection
It is St Boniface of Crediton’s Day. Originally named Wynfrith, he was an 8th century missionary who took a one-way journey from his home in Devon, England, to preach to the heathen tribes of Germany. Finding the natives worshipping an ancient oak tree, which they had dedicated to Jupiter, he told them that the cross of Jesus was a more powerful tree. They were convinced when he cut their tree down.
Eleanor Farjeon, the children’s author and writer of the hymn, ‘Morning Has Broken’, died today in 1965. If she had delayed her departure by six more years, she would have seen the hymn (which she wrote 30 years earlier) become a worldwide hit when it was recorded by the singer Cat Stevens.
Ronald Reagan, US President in the 1980s, died today in 2004, aged 93. His father had been Roman Catholic, but it was his mother’s optimistic faith as a Disciples of Christ believer which shaped Reagan’s own faith, and which attracted the enthusiastic support of the religious right when he was campaigning to become president in 1980.
‘We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.’ Ronald Reagan
Image: Cornell University Library