Certain people have been taking me to task for being too hard on this debased age in which we live.
The following comes from St. Gildas (b. A.D. 500), On the Ruin of Britain, as adapted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain. A best-seller in 1136, Geoffrey’s History has never gone out of print. But first St. Gildas, writing of the times in which he lived:
“…The nobler members of the whole community followed the leaders… and only the baser sort remained behind and took over the lands of those who had gone. When these last had started to raise themselves to noble rank, they gave themselves airs beyond anything that their predecessors’ position had ever warranted. They were made proud by the very vastness of their wealth.
“They began to indulge in sexual excesses such as had never been heard of among other peoples. As the historian Gildas tells us [Geoffrey speaking], they not only indulged in this vice but in all the others which are the lot of human nature, especially in the vice which overthrows the very essence of all morality, the dislike of truth and those who stand for truth, the love of lying and those who fabricate lies, the preferring of evil to good, the reverence of viciousness in the place of virtue, the accepting of Satan instead of the Angel of Light.
“Kings were anointed, not in God’s name, but because they were more bloodthirsty than their fellows. Soon afterwards they were murdered out of hand by the very men who had anointed them, not because of some charge properly levelled, but because others even more ferocious were preferred in their stead. If any one of their number seemed to come a pace nearer to moderation or truth, then the hatred and the violence of the whole nation was turned against him, as though he were guilty of betraying Britain.
“In the end all things seemed to weigh equal in the balance, whether they pleased God or displeased Him: that is, when the things hateful to Him did not simply turn the balance. They managed all their affairs in a way which was harmful to the common weal, as if no remedy whatsoever were offered to them by the true Physician of all men. Not only laymen, but the Lord’s own flock, and His shepherds too, behaved in the same way, with no distinction between them. It is therefore hardly surprising that such degenerates, hated by God for the sins which I have described, should have lost their homeland which they had befouled in this way. God decided to take vengeance on them by suffering a foreign people to come and drive them away from the lands of their forefathers.”
And so the Britons were dispossessed by the Angles and the Saxons, Irish, and Picts, who were in their turn subjugated by the Normans… and England today is in the process of surrendering to Islam.
I very much fear my own country is following the same path… and I can’t and won’t keep silence.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
I fear you’re right, Lee.
It certainly is a time of moral decay and it has to be affecting every aspect of life in our day. Look at the political upheaval which seems to be intensifying at every turn. I can’t help but notice that the truthfulness of many politicians seems to have sunk to new lows. This alone is a major factor in our current troubles.
A morally bankrupt people can’t accomplish much of anything for themselves. I believe that Durant credited the fal of the Roman Empire to their immorality an I believe him to be right in that.
Just last night, I had a protracted telephone conversation with an old friend regarding the times. Both he and I are in our sixties and single. Both of us have concluded that we are better off single, not because we wish solitude, but because there are so many people out there using the prospect of an emotionally fulfilling relationship as a way to financially exploit others. Both he and I have had the experience of marrying into undisclosed debts and having the marriage go south after the debts were paid.
The point here is that these are treacherous times.
Marry into undisclosed debts? That sounds like fraud.
It has become quite common in our day.
Unknowable, I hear exactly what you are saying, and I know first-hand that it is the truth. What a sorry state of affairs in one of the most sacred of
covenants. It is amazing to witness the extent to which a person will go in self serving deceit. When a foundational institution crumbles, everything else will soon follow.
Respect for marriage and the family has all but collapsed in many circles. Young people today don’t even think of marriage as an option, in part because it has become quite treacherous in our day. some marriages continue to function, but far too many fail. Along with these failures come legal battles and broken families which will affect the extended family for generations to come.