200 Years Ago
In 1809, people were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. And all the while in their homes babies were being born. But who could think about babies? — everybody was thinking about battles.
In one year, between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Tennyson at the Sommersby Rectory and Oliver Wendel Holmes in Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and Felix Mendelson in Hamberg. But nobody thought of babies — everybody was thinking of battles, yet, which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?
The great political powers fancy that this world can be managed only with huge battalions armed with sophisticated and ever more deadly weapons, when all the time ‘God’ is doing it with beautiful babies. When a wrong wants righting or a truth wants proclaiming or something needs discovering, a baby is sent into the world to do it.
Categories: Our World