Dear Readers,

I’m a fan of G.K. Chesterton. Except for some archaic language, his articles on topics of the day could have been written for this morning’s paper. He saw the dangers of eugenics and the contraceptive society from their very beginning. Margaret Sanger was a contemporary who shared some of the same friends, e.g., H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw. No doubt that’s all they shared in common. Chesterton disagreed with both men, but still remained on cordial terms. Like the late Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Sacalia, he had a gift for friendship. In fact, Wells once said if he made it to heaven it would be because of his friend Chesterton.

I don’t know if Chesterton ever met Sanger, but he clearly identified the evil of her birth control philosophy. He described it as an act “by which it is possible to filch the pleasure belonging to a natural process while violently and unnaturally thwarting the process itself.” Chesterton’s description is apt and applies to other sins of the flesh as well. Think of the Romans and their habit of purging so they could return to the table and continue gorging.

Many people discover Chesterton through his Fr. Brown detective stories. That was my first exposure. I loved Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, but Fr. Brown held a special place in my heart as one of the most charming detectives ever created. I loved the way he learned details about the lives of waiters and tradesmen, people who were almost invisible to those they served. And what a brilliant interpreter of human nature!

But it’s Chesterton’s novels that intrigue me the most these days. I confess I don’t always understand them. I’m still scratching my head over The Man Who Was Thursday. But one book I have no problem “getting” is The Flying Inn, a prophetic novel that encompasses the threat of Islam to English life as well as the dangers of political correctness and the arrogance of the elite who want to control every aspect of life for people they consider inferior. How contemporary to our own day!

The book was published in 1914, the year “The War to End all Wars” began. It starts with scenes on two beaches. The first describes the panoply of humanity seen through the eyes of a bored socialite named Joan. Like the wives and sweethearts of seafarers, she stands watching the horizon for the return of the story’s protagonist, Patrick Dalroy. As Joan waits she observes the parade of humanity on the beach. Among the “seaside orators” is an elderly Muslim in a fez describing how English culture came from Islam. For example, the inn, “The Saracen’s Head,” really came from “the Saracens are Ahead” and another, “The Green Dragon,” originated from “The Agreeing Dragoman.” Joan, amused by his nonsense, has no idea this eccentric will soon be the darling of the English government elite including her friend Lord Philip Ivywood.

Meanwhile, on another beach, a group of diplomats meet to work out a peace that is no peace at all, but submission to a Turkish tyrant, Oman Pasha. Among his demands is the destruction of all the vineyards in England. One of the diplomats is Jane’s sweetheart, Patrick Dalroy, who resigned his commission in the English Navy to fight the Turks as the “King of Ithaca.” But, at the request of his adopted countrymen, he has reluctantly laid down his arms. One of his demands is that all the women kidnapped for the Turkish harems be returned to their families, but Lord Ivywood refuses. Ivywood is described as “possibly the handsomest man in England” except for being almost totally colorless, like a “marble statue.” This physical coldness is matched by his cold indifference for the common man and a satanic pride that he is like God Himself. Ivywood holds private events in his home where the Turk preaches his philosophy of abstinence and vegetarianism which is to be forced on the populace while Ivywood offers guests meat and champagne. Joan also comes to realize that Ivywood is preparing to introduce the harem to England. Sound like modern America?

Much of the book is a romp. The government outlaws the sale of alcohol and closes most of the inns. (Note that Chesterton is writing this as prohibition is on the rise both in England and America.) A loophole allows spirits to be sold where a signpost remains, so Dalroy and his friend Pump travel the countryside with an inn sign from The Old Ship, a wheel of cheese, and a barrel of rum planting the sign temporarily and dispensing cheer wherever they go. In their wake, rebellion to Ivywood and his draconian laws rises. It comes to a crisis when a final conflict occurs between the Turks and Ivywood vs. Dalroy and his band of peasants with pitchforks.

In view of the current Islamization of England, not by the sword but by mass Muslim immigration enabled by government leaders, Chesterton’s foresight was prophetic. He saw clearly that Islam is at war with Christianity. Its tenets can never coexist with the doctrines of the Church.

We have our own Lord Ivywood in the United States. Barack Obama recently met with Muslims at a mosque in Baltimore praising and thanking them. Like Ivywood, he promotes the lie that Muslims and Americans share “common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings,” a statement he made in Cairo in 2009. While that may be true of individual Muslims, it cannot be said of Islam, a political system aimed at imposing Sharia Law. Islam, in fact, conflicts with the American Constitution since its aim is to set up a competing government, an act of treason. As St. Mark tells us, “If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

No country can survive with two separate forms of law and government.Islam is particularly draconian towards women who hardly rate second class citizenship and have few, if any, legal rights under Sharia Law. Read The Flying Inn and Chesterton’s poem on Lepanto. Despite liberals’ efforts to portray any resistance to Islam’s infiltration as bigotry and hatred, resistance is actually essential to Judeo Christian cultural survival.

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