What if C.S. Lewis wrote like Lincoln? A creative essay by Frank Miller

What if C. S. Lewis wrote like Lincoln?

by Frank Miller

Ninety-nine score and ten years ago our Father brought forth into this world the Incarnation, conceived in love, and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created to be in union with Him.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether His people or, or any people, so conceived and so loved, can return to their Creator. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of our time each week, in memory of Him who gave His life as a man that all peoples might live forever with Him. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we do not dedicate, we do not consecrate, we do not hallow this ground. The Son, once living, then dead and who rose and lives again has consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract anything. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say, but it can never forget what He did. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which He had thus far so nobly founded.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from the One who was and who is and will be forever, we take increased devotion to that cause for which He gave the last full measure of fulfilling God’s Will —that we here highly resolve that His sacrifice and gift of eternal life shall not be in vain—that this world, under God, shall have a new birth of eternal freedom—and His Church imbued with the Holy Spirit, to house the Body of Christ for the glory of God the Father, shall not perish from the earth and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

Frank Miller is a husband, father, and grandfather of five beautiful grandchildren and a long-time parishioner at St. Thomas the Apostle. Over the years Frank has been active in many ministries. Currently, Frank is the director of our Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and a lector.  Frank has several essays published on www.Medium.com as Francis Miller.