Originally published at crisis magazine
Editor’s Note: This is the tenth in a series of articles on St. Augustine, one of the greatest of Church Fathers, and how his writings still apply today.
Around the turn of the last century, a prominent London newspaper called The World put the following question to its readers, offering a prize for the best possible answer: “What’s wrong with the world?” Not the newspaper, of course, whose good health the owners took for granted. But the planet, about which there was a good deal of anxious concern. Why else would they have taken the trouble to solicit the views of their readers?
However, they could not have foreseen the following reply—which, while it may not have won the prize, was surely the wittiest on record. If brevity be the soul of wit, then this was the real deal.
Dear Sirs:
I am.
Yours Truly,
G.K. Chesterton
The author of the Confessions would certainly have approved. Like Mr. Chesterton, it would never have occurred to St. Augustine to assign blame for the world’s problems to anyone other than himself. Ownership of the world’s ills begins not with the neighbor next door or across the sea, but with ourselves. Before casting aspersions upon others, therefore, it
