Machen Quotes

And there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and others were like words I could not say, and others like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked song they put into it; and I wanted to make faces and twist myself about the way they did, and I went on and on a long way till at last I liked the rocks and they didn't frighten me any more ~ Arthur Machen

And perhaps, Mrs. Morgan on Lanypwll Farm put all this much better in the speech of symbolism, when she murmured about the children of the pool. For if there is a landscape of sadness, there is certainly also a landscape of a horror of darkness and evil; and that black and oily depth, overshadowed with twisted woods, with its growth of foul weeds and its dead trees and leprous boughs, was assuredly potent in terror. To Roberts, it was a strong drug, a drug of evocation; the black deep without calling to the black deep within, and summoning the inhabitant thereof to come forth. ~ Arthur Machen

If we give the bureaucrats our children, we may as well give them everything else. ~ John Gresham Machen

Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. ~ J. Gresham Machen

It is usually considered good practice to examine a thing for one's self before echoing the vulgar ridicule of it. ~ J. Gresham Machen

For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held to imply that there is something of consequence and importance to be introduced. ~ Arthur Machen

And what is sin?' said Cotgrave.
'I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?
'Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is. ~ Arthur Machen

Do you know what made Poe great? And Machen and Lovecraft? A direct pipeline to the old subconscious. To the fears and twisted needs that swim around down there like phosphorescent fish. ~ Stephen King

Reading is Intriguing...it can take you on a great Adventure! ~ M. Ann Machen Pritchard

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God - the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. J. Gresham Machen ~ Justin S. Holcomb

And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that tore me as I went through them, and I cried out because I was smarting all over, and then I found that I was climbing, and I went up and up a long way, till at last the thicket stopped and I came out crying just under the top of a big bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all about on the grass, and here and there a little, twisted stunted tree came out from under a stone, like a snake. And I went up, right to the top, a long way. I never saw such big ugly stones before; they came out of the earth some of them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a long, long way. I looked out from them and saw the country, but it was strange. It was winter time, and there were black terrible woods hanging from the hills all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I had ever seen before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were other hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of them; it all looked black, and everything had a voor over it. It was all so still and silent, and the sky was heavy and grey and sad, like a wicked voorish dome in Deep Dendo. I went on into the dreadful rocks. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men; I could see their faces as if they would ~ Arthur Machen

The great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. ~ John Gresham Machen

It will hardly be wise to adopt the suggestion ... that we must stop treating the little sins as though they were big sins. That suggestion means apparently, that we must not worry too much about the little sins, but must let them remain unmolested. With regard to such an expedient, it may be suggested that in the moral battle: we are fighting against a very resourceful enemy, who does not reveal the position of his guns by desultory (lacking purpose) artillery actions when he plans a great attack. In the moral battle, as in the Great European War, the quiet sectors are usually the most dangerous. It's through the "little sins" that Satan gains an entrance into our lives. Probably, therefore, it will be prudent to watch all sectors of the front and lose no time about introducing the unity of command. ~ J. Gresham Machen

And if I may pursue this subject farther I would suggest that the whole matter of imaginative literature depends upon this faculty of seeing the universe, from the aeonian pebble of the wayside to the raw suburban street as something new, unheard of, marvellous, finally, miraculous. The good people
amongst whom I naturally class myself
feel that everything is miraculous; they are continually amazed at the strangeness of the proportion of all things. The bad people, or scientists as they are sometimes called, maintain that nothing is properly an object of awe or wonder since everything can be explained. They are duly punished. ~ Arthur Machen

But it was dreadful to think of Henry, slowly or swiftly corrupted by his detestable father and mother, growing up with the fat slime of their abominations upon him. ~ Arthur Machen

A Christian boy or girl can learn mathematics, for example, from a teacher who is not a Christian; and truth is truth however learned. But while truth is truth however learned, the bearing of truth, the meaning of truth, the purpose of truth, even in the sphere of mathematics, seem entirely different to the Christian from that which they seem to the non-Christian; and that is why a truly Christian education is possible only when Christian conviction underlies not a part but all, of the curriculum of the school. ~ John Gresham Machen

Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces and classics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things; and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own which appeared in The Evening News about ten months ago. ~ Arthur Machen

The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity.
Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian cannot therefore be indifferent to any branch of ernest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated false or else in order to be made useful to the kingdom of God.
The church must not only seek to conquer every man for Christ, but also the whole of the man. ~ J. Gresham Machen

A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith. ~ J. Gresham Machen

He knew then how the dull flesh of man can be like fire ~ Arthur Machen

It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite things than to succeed in the department of the utterly contemptible. ~ Arthur Machen

There can be no greater mistake than to suppose that Jesus ever separated theology from ethics, or that if you remove His theology - His beliefs about God and judgment, future woe for the wicked and future blessedness for the good - you can leave His ethical teaching intact. ~ J. Gresham Machen

God is the ruler of history. His times are well chosen The Roman Empire was an instrument in his hand. And so are the nations of the modern world. ~ John Gresham Machen

We have just begun to navigate a strange region; we must expect to encounter strange adventures, strange perils. ~ Arthur Machen

When I was a kid, growing up during the 1970s, I used to read a lot of horror and science fiction. I graduated from comic books to paperbacks around the time I first entered my teens. And I want to say that what 99% of that stuff tells you about supposed encounters with the unknown is a formulaic convention. No one faints like a chicken-shit or else reaches for their weapon like Arnie Schwarzenegger in the face of something so utterly terrifying there isn't even a name for it. What those writers don't know is what happens in an encounter with the outside is this: that the moment slows down to such an extent that time itself simply stands still in your head. I suppose that fact doesn't make for good characterisation. It's incommunicable. I think they call it the numinous.

I once did a semester in creative writing back after graduating, around the decade King was outselling every other author on the planet, but could never make the grade. Still, I read a lot of the best attempts. Maybe that's why someone like Lovecraft, or Machen, or one of the old-school writers of that stuff I used to read had almost pulled it off. They were no good at characterisation and tended to use ciphers, presenting the phenomenon itself as the main protagonist, because it was the way things are when you encounter it. The thing empties you, draining out any semblance of normalcy, no matter what your history is, or what you think you're all about. Real horror consists not of the worst thing i ~ Mark Samuels

The woods hung dark on the hills; above, the sky violet, specked with minute feathery clouds, white as snowflakes. ~ Arthur Machen

If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain. ~ John Gresham Machen

At that point the enemies saw clear. You may accept the lofty claims of Jesus. You may take Him as very God. Or else you must reject Him as a miserable, deluded enthusiast. There is really no middle ground. Jesus refuses to be pressed into the mould of a mere religious teacher. ~ J. Gresham Machen

If a man dreams that he has committed a sin before which the sun hid his face, it is often safe to conjecture that, in sheer forgetfulness, he wore a red tie, or brown boots with evening dress. ~ Arthur Machen

There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are caves and shadows and dwellers in twilight. It is possible that man may sometimes return on the track of evolution, and it is my belief that an awful lore is not yet dead. ~ Arthur Machen

The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more child-like will be our faith ~ J. Gresham Machen

I had to cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I wanted, and when I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it was my fish. But I listened to what I was told out of a constitutional liking for useless information, and I found myself in possession of a very curious story, though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking for. ~ Arthur Machen

But he recognized that the illusions of the child only differed from those of the man in that they were more picturesque; belief in fairies and belief in the Stock Exchange as bestowers of happiness were equally vain, but the latter form of faith was ugly as well as inept. ~ Arthur Machen

This then was English fiction, this was English criticism, and farce, after all, was but an ill-played tragedy. ~ Arthur Machen

I dream in fire but work in clay. ~ Arthur Machen

Here then is the pattern in my carpet, the sense of the eternal mysteries, the eternal beauty hidden beneath the crust of common and commonplace things; hidden and yet burning and glowing continually if you care to look with purged eyes. ~ Arthur Machen

I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good; but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate, unimportant. ~ Arthur Machen

If liberty is to be preserved against the materialistic paternalism of the modern state, there must be something more than courts and legal guarantees; freedom must be written not merely in the constitution but in the people's heart. And it can be written in the heart, we believe, only as a result of the redeeming work of Christ. Other means in the long run will fail. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Christianity is not engrossed by this transitory world, but measures all things by the thought of eternity. ~ John Gresham Machen

Christianity cannot subsist unless men know what Christianity is; and the fair and logical thing is to learn what Christianity is, not from its opponents, but from those who themselves are Christians. That method of procedure would be the only fair method in the case of any movement. [ ... ] Men have abundant opportunity today to learn what can be said against Christianity, and it is only fair that they should also learn something about the thing that is being attacked. ~ J. Gresham Machen

In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are sometimes inclined to forget our own sins. Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt. If John Smith beats his wife nowadays, no one is so old-fashioned as to blame John Smith for it. On the contrary, it is said, John Smith is evidently the victim of some more of that Bolshevistic propaganda; Congress ought to be called in extra session in order to take up the case of John Smith in an alien and sedition law. ~ J. Gresham Machen

By what seemed then and still seems a chance, the suggestion of a moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar lines and paths that I had tracked a hundred times already, the great truth burst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in lines of light, a whole world, a sphere unknown; continents and islands, and great oceans in which no ship has sailed (to my belief) since a Man first lifted up his eyes and beheld the sun, and the stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath. ~ Arthur Machen

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him - the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal ~ Arthur Machen

It's not a bad idea to call this Cthulhuism & Yog-Sothothery of mine "The Mythology of Hastur" although it was really from Machen & Dunsany & others, rather than through the Bierce - Chambers line, that I picked up my gradually developing hash of theogony or daimonogony. Come to think of it, I guess I sling this stuff more as Chambers does than as Machen & Dunsany do though I had written a good deal of it before I ever suspected that Chambers ever wrote a weird story! ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it. ~ John Gresham Machen

Nevertheless, despite all superficial continuity, a remarkable change has come about within the last seventy-five years. The change is nothing less than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant view of life. Seventy-five years ago, Western civilization, despite inconsistencies, was still predominantly Christian; today it is predominantly pagan. (1923) ~ J. Gresham Machen

The truth is that the life-purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life purpose of the real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesus
isolated and misinterpreted
which happen to agree with the modern program. It is not Jesus, then, who is the real authority, but the modern principle by which the selection within Jesus' recorded teaching has been made. Certain isolated ethical principles of the Sermon on the Mount are accepted, not at all because they are teachings of Jesus, but because they agree with modern ideas. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Christian experience is rightly used when it helps to convince us that the events narrated in the New Testament actually did occur; but it can never enable us to be Christians whether the events occurred or not. It is a fair flower, and should be prized as a gift of God. But cut it from its root in the blessed Book, and it soon withers away and dies. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Now, everybody, I suppose, is aware that in recent years the silly business of divination by dreams has ceased to be a joke and has become a very serious science. ~ Arthur Machen

I see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend. ~ John Gresham Machen

Let us not fear the opposition of men; every great movement in the Church from Paul down to modern times has been criticized on the ground that it promoted scensoriousness and intolerance and disputing. Of course the gospel of Christ, in a world of sin and doubt will cause disputing; and if does not cause disputing and arrouse bitter opposition, that is a fairly sure sign that it is not being faithfully proclaimed. ~ John Gresham Machen

What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? It is this problem which modern liberalism attempts to solve. ~ John Gresham Machen

There are certain scenes, certain hills and valleys and groves of pines which demand that a story shall be written about them. I would refine; I would say that the emotions aroused by these external things reverberating in the heart are indeed the story; or all that signifies the story ... We translate a hill into a tale, conceive lovers to explain a brook, turn the perfect into the imperfect. ~ Arthur Machen

The chief modern rival of Christianity is 'liberalism' ... at every point, the two movements are in direct opposition. ~ John Gresham Machen

But so went forth Darnell, day by day, strangely mistaking death for life, madness for sanity, and purposeless and wandering phantoms for true beings. He was sincerely of opinion that he was a City clerk, living in Shephard's Bush
having forgotten the mysteries and the far-shining glories of the kingdom which was his by legitimate inheritance. ~ Arthur Machen

For Christians to influence the world with the truth of God's Word requires the recovery of the great Reformation doctrine of vocation. Christians are called to God's service not only in church professions but also in every secular calling. The task of restoring truth to the culture depends largely on our laypeople.

To bring back truth, on a practical level, the church must encourage Christians to be not merely consumers of culture but makers of culture. The church needs to cultivate Christian artists, musicians, novelists, filmmakers, journalists, attorneys, teachers, scientists, business executives, and the like, teaching its laypeople the sense in which every secular vocation-including, above all, the callings of husband, wife, and parent--is a sphere of Christian ministry, a way of serving God and neighbor that is grounded in God's truth. Christian laypeople must be encouraged to be leaders in their fields, rather than eager-to-please followers, working from the assumptions of their biblical worldview, not the vapid clichés of pop culture. ~ J. Gresham Machen

I like it here. I like the girls, and I like the DJ's, and the cocktail waitresses, and the loud rock'n'roll (though I would happily beat everyone in Poison to death with the severed limbs of the members of Warrant). ~ Craig Machen

The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. ~ John Gresham Machen

Vastly more important than all questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to what it is that shall be preached. ~ John Gresham Machen

Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion. ~ John Gresham Machen

The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of Dr. Raymond's house. The sun still hung above the western mountain-line, but it shone with a dull red glow that cast no shadows, and all the air was quiet; a sweet breath came from the great wood on the hillside above, and with it, at intervals, the soft murmuring call of the wild doves. Below, in the long lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely hills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills. Dr. Raymond turned sharply to his friend. Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simple one; any surgeon could do it. ~ Arthur Machen

A low view of law always produces legalism; a high view of law makes a person a seeker after grace. ~ John Gresham Machen

We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. ~ Arthur Machen

Every historian, whether he is a Christian or not, ought to take account of this strange fact - that a certain Jesus, a man who lived in the first century in Palestine, was actually convinced, as He looked out upon the men who thronged about Him, that He would one day sit on the judgment-seat of God and be their judge and the judge and ruler of all the world. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Strangeness which is the essence of beauty is the essence of truth, and the essence of the world. I have often felt that; when the ascent of a long hill brought me to the summit of an undiscovered height in London; and I looked down on a new land. ~ Arthur Machen

The arts, then, are man's difference, that which makes him to be what he is; and when he speaks through them he is using the utterance which is proper to him, as man. For, if we once set aside the "does it pay" nonsense, which is evidently nonsense and pestilent nonsense at that, we come clearly and freely to the truth that man is concerned with beauty, and with the ecstasy or rapture that proceeds from the creation of beauty and from the contemplation of it. ~ Arthur Machen

From every point of view, therefore, the problem in question is the most serious concern of the Church. What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? ~ J. Gresham Machen

Afternoon classes - that evil invention! ~ John Gresham Machen

- I had a good classical education, and a positive distaste for business of any kind; that was the capital with which I faced the world [ ... ] I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I determined to embark in literature.
- Really; that was strange. You seem to be in pretty comfortable circumstances, though. ~ Arthur Machen

In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star. ~ Arthur Machen

The religion of Paul did not consist in having faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God; it consisted rather in having faith in Jesus. ~ J. Gresham Machen

We both wondered whether these contradictions that one can't avoid if one begins to think of time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a dream, and the moon and stars bits of nightmare. ~ Arthur Machen

According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to the liberal church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of man. ~ John Gresham Machen

Step up and help others with what they are going through especially if you have gone through the same thing. "God is the comforter of all comforters. He comforts you so that you can comfort other." What a blessing to help others! ~ Amy Machen

A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument for tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective.' (1923) ~ J. Gresham Machen

What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Every branch of human knowledge, if traced up to its source and final principles, vanishes into mystery. ~ Arthur Machen

Light may seem at times to be an impertinent intruder, but it is always beneficial in the end. ~ John Gresham Machen

I cared nothing; my point of view in that instance, as in all others like it, was, that if the paper chose to send an outsider and an ignoramus to criticise works of art - especially the works of a new and tentative and experimental school - then, on the head of the paper let the just doom fall. ~ Arthur Machen

There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these 'chases in Arras, dreams in a career,' beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another's eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan. ~ Arthur Machen

He could think nothing and do nothing after the common fashion of the world; even when he "went wrong," he did so in a highly unusual and eccentric manner. ~ Arthur Machen

I knew I had looked into the eyes of a lost soul, Austin, the man's outward form remained, but all hell was within it. ~ Arthur Machen

Just supposing for the sake of the argument that there is a being of such a kind as that He may with any propriety be called "God", it does seem antecedently very improbable that weak and limited creatures of a day, such as we are, should discover Him by our own efforts ... who could be discovered in that way would hardly be worth discovering. I think we ought to stick to that principle rather firmly. I think we ought to be rather sure that we cannot know God unless God has been pleased to reveal Himself to us. ~ John Gresham Machen

When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories. I had read Arthur Machen before I read Lovecraft, and I didn't have that reaction at all. It was what I sensed in Lovecraft's works and what I learned about his myth as the "recluse of Providence" that made me think, "That's for me!" I already had a grim view of existence, so there was no problem there. I was and am agoraphobic, so being reclusive was a snap. The only challenge was whether or not I could actually write horror stories. So I studied fiction writing and wrote every day for years and years until I started to get my stories accepted by small press magazines. I'm not comparing myself to Lovecraft as a person or as a writer, but the rough outline of his life gave me something to aspire to. I don't know what would have become of me if I hadn't discovered Lovecraft. ~ Thomas Ligotti

It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight. ~ John Gresham Machen

In many respects, my work is very enjoyable, for I seem to get on pretty well with the fellows and enjoy the work of instruction as well as my own studies. ~ John Gresham Machen

It is true that historic Christianity is in conflict at many points with the collectivism of the present day; it does emphasize, against the claims of society, the worth of the individual soul. It provides for the individual a refuge from all the fluctuating currents of human opinion, a secret place of meditation where a man can come alone into the presence of God. It does give a man courage to stand, if need be, against the world; it resolutely refuses to make of the individual a mere means to an end, a mere element in the composition of society. It rejects altogether any means of salvation which deals with men in a mass; it brings the individual face to face with his God. ~ J. Gresham Machen

It is all nonsense, to be sure; and so much the greater nonsense inasmuch as the true interpretation of many dreams - not by any means of all dreams - moves, it may be said, in the opposite direction to the method of psycho-analysis. ~ Arthur Machen

In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what he started out to defend. ~ J. Gresham Machen

Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!
We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. ~ J. Gresham Machen

The narration of the facts is history; the narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried"
that is history. "He loved me and gave Himself for me"
that is doctrine. Such was the Christianity of the primitive Church. ~ J. Gresham Machen

The most important Christian Education institution is not the pulpit or the school, important as those institutions are; but it is the Christian family. And that institution has to a very large extent ceased to do its work. ~ John Gresham Machen

For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have, dismiss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty. ~ Arthur Machen

Silence is not weakness and decency is not pride ~ Arthur Machen

The strange thing about Christianity was that it adopted an entirely different method. It transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event. ~ J. Gresham Machen

It was difficult to say which were the more dismal, these deserted streets that wandered away to right and left, or the great main thoroughfare with its narcotic and shadowy life. For the latter appeared vast, interminable, grey, and those who travelled by it were scarcely real, the bodies of the living, but rather the uncertain and misty shapes that come sand go across the desert in an Eastern tale, when men look up from the sand and see a caravan pass them, all in silence, without a cry or a greeting. So they passed and repassed each other on those pavements, appearing and vanishing, each intent on his own secret, and wrapped in obscurity. ~ Arthur Machen

But in the meantime, as a temporary measure, I hold what I call the doctrine of the jig-saw puzzle. That is: this remarkable occurrence, and that, and the other may be, and usually are, of no significance. Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies, corroborates, explains each separate piece. ~ Arthur Machen

Old stories often turn out to be true. ~ Arthur Machen

The saint endeavors to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall. ~ Arthur Machen

Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but holiness works on lines that were natural once; it is an effort to recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels, and in making this effort man becomes a demon. ~ Arthur Machen