Columbia Library columns (v.23(1973Nov-1974May))

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  v.23,no.3(1974:May): Page 12  



12                                      Dallas Pratt

Libraries, and my selection, admittedly subjective and more rep¬
resentative than exhaustive, will be found on pages 15-22.

Reading about these very good people prcwed to be not at all
dull; theystepped out in very lively fashion from their biographies.
 

Like the birds to whom St. Francis preached, the friars were enjoined to
travel over the world, trusting only in God's providence.

journals and letters. Here is an extract from John Wesley's Journal
(which the Cambridge History of English Literature calls "one of
the great books of the world"): Wesley describes how the rabble
at Pensford, which had been baiting a bull, drove the torn and ex¬
hausted animal against the table on which he was preaching. "They
strove several times to throw it down by thrusting the helpless
beast against it, who of himself stirred no more than a log of wood.
I once or twice put aside his head with my hand that the blood
might not drop upon my clothes." Nothing could be more vivid,
or describe more clearly both how needed and how irresistible
Wesley's blend of courage and humanity was in a brutal age.

Consider some of the less appreciated and less well-known of
these individuals. The turbulent histories of Francis of Assisi, Vol¬
taire and Gandhi are familiar to everybody, but de las Casas,
  v.23,no.3(1974:May): Page 12