Cross Books

AW Tozer was a godly man. I have never read one of his books without being convicted and that is a good thing. I fear that we have very few uncompromised preachers like him today which is sad.

Be forewarned: After reading this book, you will be held accountable for its contents!

This book is NOT for those who are satisfied with their walk with God. I know this sounds "harsh," and "negative," but one can only say what is on one's heart.

Aiden W. Tozer did not play with God, and his writings enjoin us not to either. To him, the Christian walk was serious business and in no where else was this seriousness made more manifest than on Mount Calvary. There on that Mount, the greatest sacrifice that would ever be made, was made when the Just and Holy One gave His Life a ransom for many, that He might purify a people, zealous of good works, unto Himself.

This book needed no introduction, yet it has two which I feel are a distraction from what Rev. Tozer was trying to show us. This work did not need anyone to speek for it; the Holy Spirit Himself would bear witness. Nevertheless, this prophet of old's voice rang out against the "cross-less" Christianity he saw in his day, and which has gained in popularity in our day. Throught his simple words you can sense the Holy Spirit pleading with the professing Christian not to be satisfied with dead works, ceremony, sacramentalism, and form, but rather to lay one's life down, take up your/my cross, and follow Him daily; that we would partake of the greatness of the spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus by dying to self.

This book, along with The Pursuit of God, make great resources for one's own devotional life. I promise you as a sinner saved/kept by grace, that your walk with the LORD of ALL will not be the same if you take Tozer's words in these two books seriously.

This is simply a Great book by a Great author about a Great subject. This book is written for Christians that either want to be inspired or be reminded of the Christian Cross to stir up the passions within one's soul.

A concern was that the writing may be stilted, dated or out of style and therefore a drudgery to read but that was the furtherest from the truth. This book will certainly cause you to view the Cross with a passion that you may never have experienced and I write as a minister with over 30 years experience.

There are 7 sections each with 4 or 5 chapters that stand alone and therefore could be read as a devotional that is dedicated to the Radical Cross.

Chapter titles such as: The Cross is a Radical Thing; No One Wants to Die on a Cross; Coddled or Crucified; Dead in Christ and What Easter is About.

I challenge ANY believer to read this book that would like to have a new fire in their faith because it will be impossible not to be affected with this author's writing and understanding.

This is not a theological book, though there is theology, this is an inspirational book.

Read it and be inspired!!!

Publications about Freemasonry and its history tend to fall into two classes - the first written by and for Freemasons and of little interest to anyone else; the second sensational and denunciatory, portraying the Craft as a diabolic conspiracy against God and man. Academic historians have mostly paid little attention to Freemasonry, perhaps because it has seemed the province of dabblers and fanatics. Christopher McIntosh is neither, and has treated an interesting period in history during which offshoots of the Craft had significant social and political importance, in a sensible and factual way, and with impeccable scholarship.

Much has been made by conspiracy theorists of Adam Weishaupt's Illuminati, attributing to it all manner of sinister influence. Yet, as McIntosh shows, a system of hautes-grades Freemasonry called the Gold- und Rosenkreuz both had a longer life and achieved actual political influence the Illuminati never did. Two cabinet ministers of the Prussian King Frederick William II, Johann Christof Wöllner and Johann Rudolf von Bischoffswerder, were the chiefs of this order, and the king was a member. Under the ministry of Wöllner and Bischoffswerder, the Prussian government sought to enforce a rigorous Lutheran orthodoxy against the rising tide of "enlightened" scepticism and scientism. Wöllner and Bischoffswerder have been described as "the first self-consciously conservative politicians in German history." Throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Gold- und Rosenkreuz circles found themselves in rivalry with Illuminati groups, as McIntosh describes in his chapter on "The Polemical Stance of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz."

While this episode of Masonic history has understandably been neglected by the conspiracy theorists, because it does not fit their preconceptions, some German historians have represented the Gold- und Rosenkreuz as a completely reactionary, anti-Aufklärung force. McIntosh shows that this was really not true, and that the Gold- und Rosenkreuz represented a different size of the phenomenon we refer to as the Enlightenment. The philosophical ferment of the eighteenth century incorporated Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, and Edmund Burke as well as Voltaire, Helvétius, LaMettrie and Rousseau. It is facile to equate the Enlightenment with the views of a few French philosophes.

While the political influence of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz petered out with the death of Frederick William II, its cultural influence lasted well into the nineteenth century and extended as far east as Russia, and as far west as Great Britain, where the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was founded using the ritual and grade structure of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz. This, in turn, gave rise to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which attracted a curious blend of literary and artistic figures, wealthy dilettantes, and a few charlatans like Mathers and Crowley.

What I wish McIntosh had pointed out more explicitly is that the importance of secret and semi-secret groups in politics is inversely proportional to the degree of freedom in the body politic. In Great Britain, the wellspring of speculative Freemasonry, the Craft never developed a political character, because the country was a constitutional monarchy. Representative government (if not complete democracy) and substantial latitude in public discourse (if not perfect freedom of speech) already existed there by the eighteenth century. Prussia, in contrast, was an absolute monarchy. Public dissent from the policies of government was suppressed as thoroughly as possible. In such a climate, masonic lodges became hospitable refuges for those having political aims, which were facilitated by members' pledges of secrecy and mutual assistance. Everywhere "political" freemasonry continues to exist in continental Europe and Latin America similarly had or has a comparable pattern of repressing open political dialogue.

Furthermore, as Eric Voegelin has pointed out in his "New Science of Politics," there is an affinity between gnosticism and totalitarianism. The latter has philosophical roots in the former. On the continent of Europe there are two streams of gnosticism that arguably have led to competing totalitarian systems. One, flowing from French philosophes like d'Alembert and Rousseau, through Weishaupt, to early nineteenth-century German rationalist philosophers, ultimately ends in the swamp of Marxism. The other, represented by the occultism of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz, flows through German romanticism, antiquarianism, and pseudo-scientific philology, among others to Nietzsche, Lanz "von Liebenfels," Glauer "von Sebottendorf," as well as through Blavatsky, Guénon, Evola, and empties into Fascism and Nazism. However different these systems may seem, both propose to build utopian societies in which men will be "as gods." It should be no surprise that they have come a-cropper even more disastrously than did the efforts of Wöllner and Bischoffswerder.

Publications about Freemasonry and its history tend to fall into two classes - the first written by and for Freemasons and of little interest to anyone else; the second sensational and denunciatory, portraying the Craft as a diabolic conspiracy against God and man. Academic historians have mostly paid little attention to Freemasonry, perhaps because it has seemed the province of dabblers and fanatics. Christopher McIntosh is neither, and has treated an interesting period in history during which offshoots of the Craft had significant social and political importance, in a sensible and factual way, and with impeccable scholarship.

Much has been made by conspiracy theorists of Adam Weishaupt's Illuminati, attributing to it all manner of sinister influence. Yet, as McIntosh shows, a system of hautes-grades Freemasonry called the Gold- und Rosenkreuz both had a longer life and achieved actual political influence the Illuminati never did. Two cabinet ministers of the Prussian King Frederick William II, Johann Christof Wöllner and Johann Rudolf von Bischoffswerder, were the chiefs of this order, and the king was a member. Under the ministry of Wöllner and Bischoffswerder, the Prussian government sought to enforce a rigorous Lutheran orthodoxy against the rising tide of "enlightened" scepticism and scientism. Wöllner and Bischoffswerder have been described as "the first self-consciously conservative politicians in German history." Throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Gold- und Rosenkreuz circles found themselves in rivalry with Illuminati groups, as McIntosh describes in his chapter on "The Polemical Stance of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz."

While this episode of Masonic history has understandably been neglected by the conspiracy theorists, because it does not fit their preconceptions, some German historians have represented the Gold- und Rosenkreuz as a completely reactionary, anti-Aufklärung force. McIntosh shows that this was really not true, and that the Gold- und Rosenkreuz represented a different size of the phenomenon we refer to as the Enlightenment. The philosophical ferment of the eighteenth century incorporated Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, and Edmund Burke as well as Voltaire, Helvétius, LaMettrie and Rousseau. It is facile to equate the Enlightenment with the views of a few French philosophes.

Although the political influence of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz petered out with the death of Frederick William II, its cultural influence lasted well into the nineteenth century and extended as far east as Russia, and as far west as Great Britain, where the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was founded using the ritual and grade structure of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz. This, in turn, gave rise to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which attracted a curious blend of literary and artistic figures, wealthy dilettantes, and a few charlatans like Mathers and Crowley.

What I wish McIntosh had pointed out more explicitly is that the importance of secret and semi-secret groups in politics is inversely proportional to the degree of freedom in the body politic. In Great Britain, the wellspring of speculative Freemasonry, the Craft never developed a political character, because the country was a constitutional monarchy. Representative government (if not complete democracy) and substantial latitude in public discourse (if not perfect freedom of speech) already existed there by the eighteenth century. Prussia, in contrast, was an absolute monarchy. Public dissent from the policies of government was suppressed as thoroughly as possible. In such a climate, masonic lodges became hospitable refuges for those having political aims, which were facilitated by members' pledges of secrecy and mutual assistance. Everywhere "political" freemasonry continues to exist in continental Europe and Latin America similarly had or has a comparable pattern of repressing open political dialogue.

Furthermore, as Eric Voegelin has pointed out in his "New Science of Politics," there is an affinity between gnosticism and totalitarianism. The latter has philosophical roots in the former. On the continent of Europe there are two streams of gnosticism that arguably have led to competing totalitarian systems. One, flowing from French philosophes like d'Alembert and Rousseau, through Weishaupt, to early nineteenth-century German rationalist philosophers, ultimately ends in the swamp of Marxism. The other, represented by the occultism of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz, flows through German romanticism, antiquarianism, and pseudo-scientific philology, among others to Nietzsche, Lanz "von Liebenfels," Glauer "von Sebottendorf," as well as through Blavatsky, Guénon, Evola, and empties into Fascism and Nazism. However different these systems may seem, both propose to build utopian societies in which men will be "as gods." It should be no surprise that they have come a-cropper even more disastrously than did the efforts of Wöllner and Bischoffswerder.

If you're here because you're looking for it--then you've found it. "The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason" provides a much needed re-evaluation of 18th century esoteric movements in Continential Europe, especially in Germany. The study is an evaluation of the structure, rituals, and doctrine of the Gold und Rosencreutz, an esoteric but politically powerful Rosicrucian order in Germany from about 1760 to the end of the 18th century. Many governent officials, as well as merchants and other professionals, were members of this order, which practiced an austere Christianity, but one powerfully symbolic as well. Alchemy and masonry also came to the fore in this study.

McIntosh's judgment is that the evaluate literature so far has painted occultism, especially German esotericism, as anti-Enlightenment in structure, doctrine, and function. This is commonly explained by the pietism of its members, who were resistant tor openly hostile to Cartesian science and metaphysics. The "G und R" also became involved in a conservative, perhaps even reactionary monarchy in Prussia (King Frederick William II). As this Rosicrucian movement gained power, it drew the ire of a number of Enlightnment critics, and a secret society, the Bavarian Illuminati, was formed in part to oppose it.

McIntosh demonstrates conclusively that simply judging the G und R as anti-Enlightenment is not the case, and he suggests a more nuanced view. To do this, McIntosh identifies three modalities of thought that were operative at the time in 18th century Germany, an Enlightenment mode, represented by Kant and others, the Orthodox churches (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed) and a variety of Hermetic Neoplatonism, informed by Kabbalistic (both Jewish and Christian) discourse and alchemy, both theorectical and practical. Between the Orthodox religious views (the Counter-Enlightenment) and the Aufklarer, the Neoplatonic intellectual mode argued for a metaphysics illuminated by divine quintessance at every level. Drawing on classic Gnosticism and German Protestant Pietism, this Hermetic strain that gave birth to the G und R shared some characteristics with each of the other two movements. Like orthodox Christianity, the G und R held to a mostly world-negative cosmology and pessimistic epistemology, and taught that before all else men must fear and rever Jesus Christ. However, Pietism, Kabbalah and other influences gave it a strong emphasis on self-development towards the Kingdom of the Paraclete, and as such nationalistic development toward this idea as well. Reason and Science were encouraged so long as they took place within this religious telos, and many of the G und R and associated occultists found themselves on this list of prohibited books in Rome. Relations with the clergy were sometimes tense, and the G und R at times made moves to silence Counter-Enlightment clergy when they felt their interests threatened.

What this text adds to a dicussion of esotericism and intellectual culture is a better framework of understanding the relationship of these metaphysical and religious movements and their influence on culture. In much of the scholarly literature and popular imagination, such religious and magical movements represent a return to "irrationality" and as such can easily be dismissed by Enlightenment discourse as unworthy cultural productions. McIntosh's text recontextualizes occultism and shows that it can (and has) had a pervasive cultural impact at crucial times and places.

I would like to say that it's a shame on my part that it took me so long after becoming familiar with this subject to now have purchased this book. It is stimulating and personal non-fiction about a man who deserves far more credit to his name than we now give him. Each chapter reads like a letter to the general public from someone who knew R. Gordon Wasson personally. If you have any interest in knowing how America became familar with the psilocybe mushrooms proceed and read the Life Magazine article from the 1950s. It's on the net. If you want an expanded version from various angles, including biographical information on Wasson, pick this book up.

"The Sacred Mushroom Seeker" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

This is a one-of-a-kind tribute to R. Gordon Wasson, widely credited as the primary founder of ethnomycology, whose history-making investigations into fungi across culture led him to the trail of the sacred mushrooms of Mesoamerica. The contributions by various authors are excellent, and the production superb. It features high-quality reproductions of historic photographs of mushroom ceremonies of the Mazatec (some originally published in LIFE magazine), along with some breath-taking pictures never-before-seen. Interesting, informative highlights come one after the other, from a nice assortment of Wasson's highly accomplished colleagues. This is a distinguished work that cannot be praised too highly, and will grow in stature with time. It was fittingly published as #11 in Wasson's Ethnomycological Studies, and goes well on the shelf alongside the others in that series. Very well done, and highly recommended for those with serious interest in this fascinating and important subject.

A beautiful book full of Santa Claus patterns copied from antique postcards. If you are a cross-stitcher who collects Santa's or postcards, you will love this book!

book is absolutely beautiful. It can be passed down for generations to come.

When I got this book, I was kind of curious, because it looks like a thin book. Boy, was I in for a surprise. Not only do you get to see the finished product for ALL the patterns, but you also get an un-biased history on Santa Claus. The charts are in the back of the book, and offer information on different cloth choices. These charts are printed on glossy good quality paper, the same as the rest of the book, and use the color AND symbol chart methods. Unless you have a thread conversion chart or are not willing to get one, and you don't use DMC threads, don't get this book. On the very back page are instructions of how to stitch on aida and linen. This book is filled with 22 classic and charming pictures of historical and modern pictitions of Santa Claus. It looks easy enough for people who have very little experience in cross-stitch, while offering an enjoying stitching experience for us more experienced stitcher's. I HIGHLY recommend this book. If Amazon offered a sneak peak at some of the pictures, it would definitely be a selling point for this item.
Happy Stitching!

Earl Honeycutt and Lew Kurtzman offer some timely advice on how to achieve sales success in "today's cross-cultural marketplace." Until recently, marketing strategies tended to focus on demographics based on economics and geography, then began to take into proper account other considerations such as gender and ethnic identity. Now, marketing still has the same basic purpose (i.e. to create or increase demand for whatever is offered) but formulate and then executive strategies and (yes) tactics that are most appropriate to the given culture and even sub-culture. Hence the importance of this book.

Honeycutt and Kurtzman organize their material within six chapters and then provide three appendices and a final section consisting of "Additional Resources." They explain why people stereotype and why stereotypes are incorrect, shift their attention to explaining what a culture zone is...and isn't, then examine how culture is linked with sales, explain how to sell cross-culturally, provide several examples of real-world cultural encounters, and then in the final chapter, explain how to sell successfully outside a given cultural zone.

It is important to note that that this is not a "how to do it" manual on salesmanship. Those in need of that should seek assistance elsewhere. What Honeycutt and Kurtzman combine are the skills of a cultural anthropologist and a cartographer, offering guidance on how to determine the most appropriate cultural zone within which to market the given offering, and, to devise an appropriate "map" by which to understand and then navigate the terrain within it. Whenever I am retained by a corporate client to help strengthen its marketing and sales initiatives, I always begin by asking three basic questions. The first two are usually quite easy to answer but the third is not:

Who are you?
What do you do?
Why should I care?

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske's Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods...And How Companies Create Them (Revised and Updated Edition), C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits, Marti Barletta's Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the World's Largest Market Segment and her more recent PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World co-authored by Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind.

This book simply states the areas to avoid when trying to sell products to people with other cultural backgrounds. Anyone currently selling to or dealing with technical issues and must effectively communicate a complex message will benefit from the secrets, hints and straight forward approaches found in this book.

Did you know that 12 percent of the people living in the United States were born elsewhere? Of native-born people, many others retain substantial ties to cultures outside of the American mainstream. Yet many salespeople learn just one approach to selling, and many organizations encourage a basic script . . . which fits a hypothetical "average" American.

If the United States is diverse now, it's about to become even more diverse. How should a salesperson respond to the diversity? Selling Outside Your Culture Zone makes it clear that salespeople also need to beware of stereotypes about people from other nations and cultures.

Through lists of cultural preferences, a survey of your cultural knowledge and many "hypothetical" examples that employ scripts and analyses, you get a sense of what can go wrong. The authors do a good job of preparing you to avoid expressions that don't translate into other languages, avoiding "humor" that may not play universally and being alert to signs that a prospect or customer is puzzled by what's being said.

Selling Outside Your Comfort Zone is a quick read . . . a quality that will endear it to salespeople with quotas to meet. It's also engrossing through its exposure of cultural preferences that will surprise any reader who is not an etiquette officer for the United Nations. For instance, did you realize that your business card should be presented at the end of a business meeting with a Filipino? Do you know why some Japanese may laugh inappropriately (as a sign that they are being confronted with something strange or unexpected)?

I was particularly pleased to see that the authors break cultural differences into a number of categories. This method of analyzing culture can help any salesperson think through and adapt to an unexpected turn in a conversation. The elements are communication, religion, education, aesthetics, social organizations, technology, time, values and norms.

The book goes on to take these cultural perspectives and show how to apply these perspectives to the never-ending tasks of finding customers, preparing for meetings, building relationships, offering a product or service, clarifying your offer, getting the order, and maintaining the relationship.

For those who don't like to take notes, the major chapters also have summaries at the end labeled as "Take-Away Points". Appendix 3 is worth the price of the book in terms of summarizing key cultural points to keep in mind for those from various cultural backgrounds.

Obviously, you can overdo a point like cultural flexibility. Do the authors do so? I didn't think so. I've worked with people from most of the cultures described in the books, and one or more of the points made about those cultures rang loud and clear with me. I wish I had had this resource before I met my first new acquaintance from the various cultures described here. I'm sure I would have made a better impression . . . and might have developed better relationships.

I thought that this book was well written and researched. It takes place in the times of Christ as seen through the eyes of a Jewish youth, Levi, and his family. The author uses a multi-dimensional approach for his story telling. On the one level, there is the struggle of accepting Christ and his teachings. On the other level, there is the struggle of a son's belief differing with those of his parents. Both struggles still exist today. The timelessness of these two literary threads weave a wonderful story. This book will appeal to new Christians wanting to understand more of Christ's teachings as told from the viewpoint of a seeker. And mature Christians because of the insight given from the prospective of "being there" during Christ's life. I would definitely recommend this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it is a very vivid look at what life may have been for a uniquely-chosen Jewish family around the time of Christ's death, burial and resurrection. The characters in this book are written in a very realistic style....so much so that one feels that he or she is walking the streets of Jerusalem along with the stories main dramatic players. The literary drama within the pages of this book makes you feel as if you are seeing the events of Christ's life unfold before your very eyes. The author does an excellent job of portraying the Jewish communities disbelief that Jesus was the long-awaited Christ; however, through the character of Levi, the events of Christ's life were shown to be prophetic fulfillments of Biblical scripture written long ago. I would definitely recommend this book for any new Christians wanting to understand the life of Christ with a more personal perspective, or for seasoned Christians who just want to savor the love that our Savior showed all mankind through His death on the cross. I rate this book as a definite must-read.

This is an excellent, enlightening and entertaining book. It educates the new Christian, enlightens the non-believer and is entertaining and comforting to the mature Christian. The author has a good grasp of biblical history as well as a depth of understanding of the coming of Christ. It highlights many conflicts that exist today between parent and child, or Christian and Jew. Well worth the read.

although I was a little too young to remember 1964, (I was born in 1959) this book is an absolute must for anyone interested in discovering or just revisiting the vibes from 1964 Australia particularly Sydney. A beaut read!!!

...but it's still available from Pan MacMillan in Australia for less than AU$20

This is the most accurate view of life in sydney during the sixtys. Forget all the others , this one has sex, violence, and stacks of ROCK AND ROLL! I was at the aztecs shows, I saw the fights and had the women. Don't bother with anything else. P.S. there is a HUGH surprise on the last page!

A very well written book that is both historically accurate and an interesting read.

Extremely well researched and unique in its approach, citing nine individual Confederate soldiers and the impact of the Civil War on their Christianity. These case studies, largely drawn from their own words in letters and diaries, give a personal and individual perspective that has largely been overlooked in other similar works.

Perhaps a decade ago I listened to Professor James I. Robertson lecture on Stonewall Jackson. In the course of it, he emphasized the importance of Jackson's religion on his life. A devout Presbyterian, Robertson explained that, in his view, Jackson saw the Civil War as a great test, and that he, Jackson, believed it was his duty to try as best he could to discern God's will and to fight to make it happen. However, in the end, God would decide. The South would win only if that was God's will. Afterwards, I began to wonder about what Jackson would have done had he survived the war. Wouldn't he have readily accepted what he would see as God's verdict that the North should have won? And then I wondered, with all the fervor Jackson had to pursue God's will, would Jackson then have become a Republican?
Professor Robertson seemed to say that Jackson was somehow different in the depth of his religious beliefs, and in his belief that God's will would be done. I thought then, and now, that in actuality Jackson was typical of many people living at that time, many of whom saw the war as a great and inevitable contest that would in the end see God's will done, by either preserving Southern society as it was, or stamping out the great sin of slavery, whichever God thought best. One need only read the verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and reflect upon its popularity, to get a sense of that.
In this very thoughtful study, Kent Dollar delves into questions such as those as he explores the effect the war had on the faith of nine Confederate soldiers. Two died for the Cause. All seven others survived the war with their religious beliefs in tact, and in most cases, argues the author, strengthened by the experience. This is not a book for those of you who want to know why Pickett failed, or for those others of you who want to know what the scene looked like at the height of the fighting in the Mule Shoe. But for those who may want to settle into the minds of a few very good men who fought with sincerity for the South, this book offers the opportunity to do just that. And not to spoil the ending for those of you who are wondering, but so far as I know none of these sincere Christian Southerners became Republicans.

FROM BUENOS AIRES TO WASHINGTON DC IN TWO AND A HALF YEARS ON HORSEBACK. A.F. TSCHIFFELY RODE TEN THOUSAND MILES FROM THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO THE POLAR STAR AROUND 1930. HE MORE THAN LIKELY WAS THE ONLY MAN EVER TO DO THIS AT ANY TIME; CERTAINLY TO WRITE ABOUT IT. REMOTE CITIES AND SEAPORTS, BACK TO THE PAST AND ON LONELY TRAILS DID THE MAN TRAVEL. TOUCHING FROM TIME TO TIME ON HARDSHIP, SOLVING PROBLEMS, CONFRONTING THE CURIOUS, HE AND HIS TWO HORSES HAD A GREAT ADVENTURE.

It's a bold undertaking by a man who learned to live very closely with two horses. The horses were the resource that enabled him to succeed in this adventure of 10,000 miles from Buenos Aires to Washington DC. It's a page-turner!

Aime Tschiffley, the most resiliant and capable of Buenos Aires' schoolmasters, wrote this truly astonishing story of his ride from Argentina to Washington, DC. South and Central America before WWII was still in many ways as the old Spanish had left it - some of it deliciously civilized, much of it as wild as can be imagined. With his two remarkable Creole horses, Mancha and Gato, Tschiffley journeys through a world that no longer exists today and seems remote and ancient to the modern reader. Tschiffley's prose is somewhat matter-of-fact, but in some ways this serves to emphasise the very strangeness of the countryside and its peoples, and underscores the author's own courage. Tshiffley is a product of his times, and some of his sentiments are out of place today, but this too places this book within a time and place long past. From "Don Roberto's" oddly moving introduction to journey's end in the United States, one grows to admire Tschiffley and love his horses, the two friends Mancha and Gato.

With this book, "The Spiritual Counsels of Father John of Kronstadt", Jardine W. Grisbrooke has presented to us exactly that: the spiritual advise of a truly saintly man of "The Church" . . . and a man who knew the day to day troubles and needs of the "everyman". Fr. John wan't a "monk" following an arranged and artificial daily structured ritual-life . . . he was a pastor in a parish and lived with and among the everday people. . . and there must have been a recognizable sharing of their lives by him because he was much loved during his own lifetime. No "hagiographic embellishments" were needed to establish him in the minds and hearts of any who knew him . . or even for those who "encounter" him now, via stories and books and his own writings, "My Life In Christ" from which the cousels in this book are excerpetd.

God has been so provident, that He has never faikled to place in our midst individuals who "glow with' and "reflect" the transcendent light of heaven incarnate . . . the St. Paul saying is "it is no longer "i" who live but Christ Who lives in me" . . . and a procession of such "lights" have existed and walked among us since the very fist generation of believers and even until now . . . and doubtless will continue to be found in our world until the end of time. Father John of Kronstadt was just such a man.

This book gives us his words . . his instructions . . his thoughts .. in a way, his "presence" so that we too can encounter and experience his reflection of "Christ living within him". . . it is the same Christ we too desire to live within ourselves (and Who does indeed already in ways mysterious and mystical, but no less real). Reading Saint John of Kronstadt's words help us to recognize that light within us . . .to see it for what and for Who it is: Christ. (There was a term popular in theology some years back: "annonymous christian" . . . that is, people who "did the will of God" though they themselves may not have recognized themselves as actual believers . .they wanted to 'do right" . . strove to "do right' and "did do right" . . . with a little bit of light to make their inner souls visible to themselves, they might not then be "annonymous christians" but would recognize themselves as "de facto christians" . . . Father John of Kronstadt's counsels, in this bbok, might just provide the needed light for us "to see" who and what we are . . . and what we can become even more.

i love this book . . and i most retirn to Father John's counsels "on prayer" . . he is deeply rooted in scripture and never departs from that norm . . but he makes it seem so natural to heed the scripture and Jesus' teachings on prayer that we say, "i knew that . . but why didn't i think of that myself before?" . . . i return to Father John in this book often . . . he re-centers me . . . and re-focuses me . . .

You will not be able to put this book down onc e you begin to read its pages . . .and when you finish it, you will know that you are never finished with it . . it will become a constant companion and friend . . . Father John will become your spiriual "staretz".

Fr. John of Kronstadt has called me through this book to facing the reality of prayer - talking to the God who loves me. Not to be read quickly. Several of us at our church reading it together; good Lenten material.

Excellent guide and encouragement to working on a life filled with prayer.

As a man who lived "in the world", rather than removed from it, Father John of Kronstadt is an excellent source for people wanting to know about living a Christian life of prayer. He faced the reality of living in a complex, disorderly world on a daily basis as he ministered to the needs of his parish. Father John teaches the seeker of the hard truth how to face life's challenges with God's support, rather than trying to go it alone. And what is the hard truth? That in facing our sins (anything that separates us from God) and humbling ourselves through a life of prayer, we become more able, not less, to be effective intercessors for our brothers and sisters who are poor in spirit, mistreated, and troubled; as well as more centered, creative, and joyful in our own lives. Father John's counsel offers a way to organize, deepen, and enrich your life. This book is not to be missed by anyone desiring a Christian lifestyle that incorporates all the beauty, mystery, and devotion the Orthodox Christian Church has to offer.