Belloc Friday!

You can imagine I was giddy this morning when i opened up youtube and saw a new video on Belloc's life posted below.  I thought it timely to introduce readers to one half of the Chester-Belloc duo that fought so couragously against foes like HG Wells and GB Shaw.  To this end I want to share a few of his writings and also the fantastic video I hope you will watch!

Belloc when he was in the French Army

On the Occasion of the Conversion of GK Chesterston to the Church:

The Faith, the Catholic Curch is discovered, is recognized, triumphantly enters reality like a landfall at sea which first was thought a cloud. The near it is seen, the more it is real, the less imaginary: the more direct and external its voice, the more indubitable its representative character, its 'persona', its voice. The metaphor is not that men fall in love with it: the metaphor is that they discover home... It is the very mould of the mind, the matrix to which corresponds in every outline the outcast and unprotected contour of the soul. It is Verlaine's 'Oh! Rome -oh!Mere!' And that not only to theose who had it in childhood and have returned, but much more - and what a proof! - to those who come upon it from the hills of life and say to themselves, 'Here is the town.'   - quote from Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, by Joseph Pearce 

Before his death he spoke of his last companion 'Wine' in a wonderful poem, which you can read in its entirty here.

When from the waste of such long labour done I too must leave the grape-ennobling sun And like the vineyard worker take my way Down the long shadows of declining day, Bend on the sombre plain my clouded sight And leave the mountain to the advancing night, Come to the term of all that was mine own With nothingness before me, and alone; Then to what hope of answer shall I turn? Comrade-Commander whom I dared not earn, What said You then to trembling friends and few? "A moment, and I drink it with you new: But in my Father's Kingdom." So, my Friend, Let not Your cup desert me in the end. But when the hour of mine adventure's near Just and benignant, let my youth appear Bearing a Chalice, open, golden, wide, With benediction graven on its side. So touch my dying lip: so bridge that deep: So pledge my waking from the gift of sleep, And, sacramental, raise me the Divine: Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine.

And finally the actual singing of Belloc!