Charity, Faith, and Hope

In King Lear, the profoundest of all works of the Western moral imagination, the old king finally experiences the sense of “natural” obligation and Christian charity that still animate our civilization to the extent that it is one. Tormented by his own folly and by the ingratitude of his daughters, he draws wisdom and lovingkindness from his suffering. In his broken and contrite heart he begins to pity those whom he had never before even noticed: poor homeless people. He reproaches first himself, then all the wealthy and the influential, the powers of the earth, for their indifference to the “houseless poverty” of their fellow souls:

Oh, I have ta’en

About the Author

M.D. Aeschliman

M.D. Aeschliman is professor emeritus of education at Boston University and author of The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism (3rd English-language ed., Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2019 and French-language rev. ed., Paris: Pierre Téqui, 2020).

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In King Lear, the profoundest of all works of the Western moral imagination, the old king finally experiences the sense of “natural” obligation and Christian charity that still animate our civilization to the extent that it is one. Tormented by his own folly and by the ingratitude of his daughters, he draws wisdom and lovingkindness from his suffering. In his broken and contrite heart he begins to pity those whom he had never before even noticed: poor homeless people. He reproaches first himself, then all the wealthy and the influential, the powers of the earth, for their indifference to the “houseless poverty” of their fellow souls:

Oh, I have ta’en

About the Author

M.D. Aeschliman

M.D. Aeschliman is professor emeritus of education at Boston University and author of The Restoration of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism (3rd English-language ed., Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2019 and French-language rev. ed., Paris: Pierre Téqui, 2020).