Southern Folk Wisdom Has Its Say about Technology

Richard Weaver has noted that one of the marks of the Olde South was her innocence, her likeness to Eden (The Southern Tradition at Bay, Bradford and Core eds., Washington, D.C., Regnery Gateway, 1989, pgs. 209-12).  The under-valued Georgia poet Sidney Lanier and his broðer Clifford prove his words true in their poem ‘The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama’.  (They furthermore show their range of talent by writing it in the native Souðern tongue.)

Þe poem’s speaker, Jim, shows his wisdom by approaching new technology (the steamboat, in his case) warily, mistrustfully, as being something associated with evil.  We would do well to follow his ensample in the South today.  For even if evil forces are not always the origin of new technology (though they have been before), it has often been used for evil purposes.

The Power of Prayer; or, The First Steamboat up the Alabama.

By Sidney and Clifford Lanier.

You, Dinah! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does meet.
De Lord, HE made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat.
Umph, dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' ole nigger's feet.

It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June.
I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon!
Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de moon.

Well, ef dis nigger IS been blind for fo'ty year or mo',
Dese ears, DEY sees the world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in de do'.
For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'.

I know my front ones IS stopped up, and things is sort o' dim,
But den, th'u' DEM, temptation's rain won't leak in on ole Jim!
De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous slim.

And as for Hebben, — bless de Lord, and praise His holy name —
DAT shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same
As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame!

Who CALL me? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar
Somebody holl'in' "Hoo, Jim, hoo?" My Sarah died las' y'ar;
IS dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar?

My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh! Jes' listen, Dinah, NOW!
What KIN be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row?
Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow?

De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, — ker-woof, ker-woof —
De Debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' shuh enuff,
A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof!

I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run away:
I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day.
YOU screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se a gwine to pray.

O hebbenly Marster, what thou willest, dat mus' be jes' so,
And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger's bound to go.
Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young Dinah hyar below!

'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich a little chile,
She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard stile,
But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a many a mile.

I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack.
De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em crack and crack?
I cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o' my back.

What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and split, and rotten?
What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked my cotton?
I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done been forgotten.

But, Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree,
De sap's jes' risin in her; she do grow owdaciouslee —
Lord, ef you's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut me!

I would not proud persume — but I'll boldly make reques';
Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my bes';
When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Yes!

And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de bread,
Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head?
T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead!

Stop; — ef I don't believe de Debble's gone on up de stream!
Jes' now he squealed down dar; — hush; dat's a mighty weakly scream!
Yas, sir, he's gone, he's gone; — he snort way off, like in a dream!

O glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high!
De Debble's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by;
I know'd he couldn' stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster nigh!

You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' trust to grace?
I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face!
You fool, you think de Debble couldn't beat YOU in a race?

I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar,
When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de a'r.
YAS, DINAH, WHAR 'OULD YOU BE NOW, JES' 'CEPTIN' FUR DAT PRA'R?

____ Baltimore, 1875.

Source:  Poems of Sidney Lanier, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/579/pg579.html, Etext #579 by A. Light, July 1996, accessed 27 Feb. 2015

Prophecies about Russia and America

Those who have been given the gift of prophecy in the Church by the Holy Spirit usually refer to Russia and her future in words like those of St Lawrence of Chernigov (reposed on 6 Jan. 1950):

 . . .

Schema-Archimandrite Theophan also related that St. Lawrence used to say with a smile, joyfully: "The Russian people will repent of their deadly sins—that they allowed the Jewish impiety in Russia, that they did not defend the Tsar anointed of God, the Orthodox churches or monasteries, the choir of the holy Martyrs and Confessors and all that was holy in Russia. They disdained piety and loved demonic impiety. And [they will repent of the fact] that for many years they lauded and glorified, and went a-worshipping the destroyer of the country—the soviet-atheist idol, and also the graven image, Stalin, venerating his name as immortal."

Batiushka said that when the demons threw Lenin into hell, there was great rejoicing among the demons—a celebration in hell. And he added, that when Stalin arrives in hell, the same thing will happen. Their memory will perish with a resounding noise.

Russia, together with all the Slavic nations and lands, will constitute a mighty Tsardom (kingdom). At its helm will be an Orthodox Tsar, Anointed of God. The Tsar will be from God. All schisms and heresies will vanish in Russia. There will not be any persecution of the Orthodox Church. The Lord will have mercy on Holy Rus', because in her there had been the horrible, terrible time preceding the antichrist. The great regiment of the Martyrs and Confessors has shown forth, beginning with the highest spiritual and civil ranks. Metropolitan and Tsar, priest and monk, children and even nursing infants, ending with laypeople. All these will beseech the Lord God the King of Hosts, the King of Kings, glorified in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

One must firmly understand that Russia is one of the portions of the Queen of Heaven, and She cares for and intercedes for it especially. The whole choir of Russian Saints, together with the Mother of God, begs [the Lord] to spare and have mercy on Russia.

There will be a flowering of the Orthodox Faith and the former rejoicing will return—only for a short time. For the Dread Judge will come to judge the living and the dead.

The Russian Orthodox Tsar will be feared even by the antichrist himself.

During the times of the antichrist, Russia will be the most powerful Kingdom in the world. But the other countries—except for Russia and the Slavic lands—will be under the power of the antichrist and will experience all the horrors and torments described in Holy Scripture. Russia, repent! Glorify God with rejoicing, and sing to Him: Alleluia.

 . . .

Source:  Dimitra Dwelley, ‘St. Lawrence of Chernigov:  Some Prophecies and Statements on the Ukrainian Situation’, Pravoslavie, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/77399.htm, posted 19 Feb. 2015, accessed 24 Feb. 2015

Many Americans will probably be struck by the absence of the [u]nited States from the holy Elder’s list of those who will not be subjects of Antichrist, for they consider themselves very religious, - indeed, the home of true, pure Christianity.  But it must be remembered what America and the West as a whole are:  Those who have left the True Faith of the Orthodox Church.  It is true that many came to North America for religious reasons; but it is just as true that their doctrinal errors blinded them to the fulness of the Truth and thus they fell further and furðer away from God.  It is also true that many, worn out by the Protestant and Catholic ‘wars of religion’ of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, sought a haven in which they could establish a secular paradise whose purpose would be the gratification of man’s wants and desires of body and mind, with the salvation of the soul being mostly forgotten.  Thomas Jefferson’s ‘empire of liberty’ is a good ensample of the latter:

http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Empire_of_liberty

Just as importantly, if not more so, and related to this last point, we must remember that the secret societies - the Free Masons, Rosicrucians, and such (i.e., those who worship Satan) - since the Fall have always had as their goal the establishment of a Kingdom of Man in defiance of God in which they would become divine beings by their own efforts in cooperation with God’s Adversary.  This is ‘The Quest’ given to man by the devil, the history of which was revealed to the uninitiated by Satan’s þegn (thegn) Manly P. Hall in the middle of the 20^th century in his book The Secret Destiny of America (New York, Tarcher/Penguin, 2008).  There we read of ‘the dream of a universal democracy’ (p. 20), ‘the great work of social regeneration’ (p. 137) and ‘the perfection of man’ (p. 138) through education in ‘the three-fold truth’ of ‘religion, philosophy, and science’ (p. 139).  The plan from early on, he claimed, has been to build ‘the philosophic empire’ on the American continent (p. 20).

If his words are true, it should then come as no surprise that America has been the source of so many of the evils in the world, whether wars, heresies and ideologies, deadly vaccines, or genetically engineered crops (this is what ‘regenerating man’ by satanic methods comes to in the end).  One will also understand why the South, with its more traditional Christianity, had to be destroyed, rebuilt, and ‘re-educated’ by the North.

But prophecies are not unchangeable declarations; they depend on our free will, on our working together with God, for their fulfilment.  Russia could fail to fully repent, and usher in the era of Antichrist early.  Likewise, the South, Africa, Western Europe, and so on could repent and join Russia and Eastern Europe in opposing Antichrist.

So the question of deadly import must be put once again to Southerners and others in the world:  Who will you side with, Christ or Antichrist?  The Orthodox Church or the Western churches (whether Protestant or Roman Catholic)?  Secular democracy, rights, constitutions and such like?  Islam?  Hinduism? 

Lord, have mercy on us sinners.

Learning from the Martyrs

Fr John Whiteford has some important words to say about þis in his sermon entitled, ‘What Is the Significance of the Feast of the New Martyrs of Russia’?  He says in opening,

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Particularly if you’re not from a Russian background, you might ask, “What is the significance of celebrating the new martyrs and confessors of Russia to us here today in Houston, Texas?” The answer to that question is found in one of the earliest accounts of the martyrs, actually the very earliest account of the martyrs outside of the New Testament: the martyrdom of Polycarp.  . . .

The rest may be eiðer read or heard by following these paths:

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/amvon/what_is_the_significance_of_the_feast_of_the_new_martyrs_of_russia

http://audio.ancientfaith.com/amvon/fta_2015-02-09.mp3

Holy New Martyrs of Russia, pray for all of us sinners!

Ikon and explanation available here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130808181556/http://www.allsaintsofamerica.org/martyrs/nmruss.html

Greece’s New Salamis

That is how Dr Joseph Farrell describes Greece’s recent stand against more robbery by the European Union-IMF-World Bank gang of plunderers.  He begins his remarks on Greece at about the 4:06 mark of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFSbVbssHlg

Here is a bit of background on the ancient Battle of Salamis to help put things in proper view:

The Battle of Salamis . . . was fought between an Alliance of Greek city-states and the Persian Empire in 480 BC, in the straits between the mainland and Salamis, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens. It marked the high-point of the second Persian invasion of Greece, which had begun that spring.

To block the Persian advance, a small force of Greeks blocked the pass of Thermopylae, while an Athenian-dominated Allied navy engaged the Persian fleet in the nearby straits of Artemisium. In the resulting Battle of Thermopylae, the rearguard of the Greek force was annihilated, whilst in the Battle of Artemisium the Greeks had heavy losses and retreated after the loss at Thermopylae. This allowed the Persians to conquer Boeotia and Attica. The Allies prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth whilst the fleet was withdrawn to nearby Salamis Island.

Although heavily outnumbered, the Greek Allies were persuaded by the Athenian general Themistocles to bring the Persian fleet to battle again, in the hope that a victory would prevent naval operations against the Peloponessus. The Persian king Xerxes was also anxious for a decisive battle. As a result of subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Persian navy sailed into the Straits of Salamis and tried to block both entrances. In the cramped conditions of the Straits the great Persian numbers were an active hindrance, as ships struggled to maneuver and became disorganized. Seizing the opportunity, the Greek fleet formed in line and scored a decisive victory.

Xerxes then retreated to Asia with much of his army, leaving Mardonius to complete the conquest of Greece. However, the following year, the remainder of the Persian army was decisively beaten at the Battle of Plataea and the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale. Afterwards the Persians made no more attempts to conquer the Greek mainland. These battles of Salamis and Plataea thus mark a turning point in the course of the Greco-Persian wars as a whole; from then onward, the Greek poleis would take the offensive.  . . .

Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis, posted 23 Jan. 2015, accessed 17 Feb. 2015

Souðerners, being admirers and imitators of many aspects of ancient Greek culture, will hopefully once again look agreeably upon the Greeks, ancient and modern, and stand up (peacefully) against the corrupt, thieving, bloody, and oppressive Empire on our own shores, in Washington City, when we have matured sufficiently spiritually to conduct ourselves in a God-pleasing way as a free country.

Israel, America’s Closest Ally in the Middle East?

If this is so, then it shows the great depth of lies and apostasy into which many Americans have sunk.  For this is Israel:

Supporters of Muslim jihadists (when it suits them, just as in Washington City and elsewhere in the West):

http://www.infowars.com/israel-rescues-al-qaeda-terrorists-from-syria/

Fellow-workers with the NSA in spying on innocent Americans:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/11/nsa-shares-raw-data-americans-israeli-spy-agency/

Bestowers of marriage and other rights on homosexuals, etc. (Tel Aviv is ‘the gay capital of the Middle East’ - Out magazine):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel

Slayers of the unborn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Israel

Persecutors of Christians:

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/55958.htm

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/77205.htm

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/rel-christians.html

As this little list should make clear, it is not a country’s relationship to the earthly people of Israel that brings it God’s favor; that is an error growing out of the dispensationalist heresy that arose in the 19^th century from men like Darby and Scofield.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4531.htm

Israel’s part in þe (þ = th) salvation of mankind was fulfiled in the birth of the Mother of God and in the incarnation, birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.  The Jewish people are now no different than the Korean or French or Brazilian peoples in the eyes of God.  Thus, as we have said, it is not a country’s friendship with the nation of Israel that is important now, but its ties to Christ’s One True Body, the Orthodox Church, the New Israel. 

If a people now wishes to be blessed of God, they must accept the Gospel and be united to Christ through Baptism and filled with the Holy Ghost through Chrismation.  Those who reject the Gospel will be cursed.  The Jewish people, sadly, having largely rejected the Cornerstone, are laboring under a curse.  The fruits are evident, as related above.  Many of those same fruits are ripening in the [u]nited States.  It is perhaps, then, not surprising that so many in the States would desire to bind themselves all the more strongly unto and give all manner of aid to the spiritually downfallen people of Israel, being bereft of the discernment given by the Holy Spirit.  But let the Southern evangelical and any others who would listen be forewarned:  Down that way lies not blessing but the greatest curse - the worldwide rule of Antichrist from the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.

War Propaganda

The Pentagon has vomited out some new disinformation about President Putin (which is meant to besmirch and dehumanize him and by extension all Orthodox Christian Russia) from its putrid bowels:  Putin has Asperger’s syndrome.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/04/putin-aspergers-syndrome-study-pentagon/22855927/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/02/06/kremlin-denies-putin-aspergers/22971029/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatoday-newstopstories

So do they to all those they wish to depose and/or murðer (ð = ‘th’): Saddam, Qaddafi, Mubarak, Assad, etc.

This is all for the purpose of firing within the Latter-day Puritans (of whom there are far too many in the South, dear brothers and sisters of Dixieland, far too many among us) a faith-heat worthy of their earlier witch-hunting spiritual kindred of New England, so they will desire all the more earnestly that 2016 arrive.  Đen þey (Then they) will rush in their madness to elect the most blood-thirsty neo-conservative who readily and lustily will bomb Russia and all her holy churches, monasteries, wonder-working icons, millions of martyrs, and incorrupt relics ‘back to the Stone Age’ so anti-Christian America, in all her boastful self-righteousness, can be triumphant over all her enemies, the ‘City on a Hill’ that shines her light on all the wrack and ruin she has caused the world over, a forerunner of Antichrist himself; who, if repentance and discernment is not forthcoming, will be largely responsible for enthroning him in the rebuilt Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

It is for such reasons (and also perhaps to avert the economic correction that is due in Western countries) that the American and Western European superclass is trying to lure Russia into war in the Ukraine:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/russian-tv-network-reports-ukraine-bombing-civilian-targets-with-nato-munitions.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/02/proxy-war-obama-facing-rising-pressure-to-send-lethal-aid-to-ukraine/

May She Who gave birth to the True Light enlighten us Souðrons as to who our true friends and who our true enemies are.

---

This booklet should help with that as well:

http://www.sainthermanmonastery.com/product-p/tsar.htm

(After-note:  The Old English letters used here and elsewhere are meant to honor the mother-tongue of the South, that very Old English speech which has come down to us from St Ælfred’s Wessex and the other lands of our English forebears.  For a good guide to this cornerstone of Southern culture, follow this path:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Old-English-Mark-Atherton/dp/1444104195/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423608080&sr=1-4&keywords=Complete+Old+English+Atherton)

The Barren South

All across the Irish and British Isles, to look at only one of the South’s main bloodlines, there are dozens and dozens of holy places:  shrines containing the relics of saints, healing wells, hermits’ caves, monastic islands, and such like.  St Fillan of Strathfillan (in Scotland) provides a good ensample of this:

 . . .

St. Fillan (Foelan) lived in the eighth century. He was born in Ireland; his mother was St. Kentigerna and his uncle was St. Comgan. From time immemorial he has been much venerated in both Ireland and Scotland. He may have been educated at Taghmon Monastery in Wexford (Ireland) under St. Fintan Munnu. Later, probably in about 717, he moved together with his mother and other relatives to Scotland. There he became a monk and lived the monastic life until the end of his life. It is known that for some time Fillan preached the Good News together with Sts. Kentigerna and Comgan and then retired to live as a hermit in a cave on the site of the present-day village Pittenweem (“the cave’s place”) in the county of Fife. This village was to become one of the most important places for his veneration. With time Fillan was appointed abbot of a monastery in Fife but after several years he gave up his abbacy and retreated to Glendochart (in Perthshire) where he lived alone in prayer and contemplation and finally built a church. Today a number of places and churches in the vicinity of Glendochart bear the name of the saint.

During his life Fillan by his prayer healed from many diseases the sick who flocked to him. The hermit worked miracles. Once, when he was abbot, a wolf ate one of his oxen while the saint was working in the field. The abbot commanded the wolf as a penance to plough up that part of the field instead of the ox that it had eaten. The wild wolf obeyed the saint and immediately fulfilled the task. The veneration of St. Fillan in Scotland was so strong that in 1314 the Scottish king Robert Bruce took the reliquary with the saint’s arm with him to the Battle of Bannockburn and attributed his victory over the English to the saint's intercession.

Fillan reposed and was buried in Strathfillan, the centre of his veneration. He probably built a church or a monastery on this site and preached to the local Pictish population. The cave of St. Fillan in Pittenweem survives to this day. After his death the cave became a destination for many pilgrims, and a holy well with healing power existed near it for many years. In late medieval times a small Augustinian priory, associated with the monastery on the Isle of May (in the outer Firth of Forth), was founded in Pittenweem and named after St. Fillan. Several centuries ago Fillan’s cave was left derelict and forgotten for a certain time. In about 1900, a horse that pastured in a local priory garden suddenly fell into an overgrown hole. When the hole was cleared it turned out that it was the saint’s cell, abandoned long before. Several stones which had healing properties owing to Fillan’s prayers were discovered in the cave together with the partly surviving holy well. In 2000, both the cave and the well were consecrated and opened for visitors.

St. Fillan’s cave

St. Fillan’s Priory ruins in Strathfillan

The personal bell and staff of St. Fillan survive to this day: they are kept at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. In the past this bell was usually placed above those who suffered from severe headache—and the pain abated! In Strathfillan many lunatics were miraculously healed in ancient times. D.H. Farmer and other researchers write that mentally ill people used to be dipped into the Strathfillan well and then left for one night, tied up in a corner of St. Fillan's ruined chapel. If the following morning they were found loosed from their chains, they were considered to be completely cured. This practice existed until the first half of the nineteenth century. Today Strathfillan is a picturesque strath (a Scottish word meaning a broad, often mountainous, valley) in west Perthshire with the river Fillan flowing through it.

Healing stones of St. Fillan-1

In the picturesque village of Killin, situated near Stirling, there are so-called healing stones, associated with St. Fillan, and kept at a former mill. According to tradition, due to the prayers of St. Fillan each of these stones heals a specific part of the body from various diseases.  . . .

Source:  Dmitry Lapa, ‘A Family of Saints: Sts. Kentigerna, Fillan and Comgan of Scotland’, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/76644.htm, posted 20 Jan. 2015, accessed 25 Jan. and 3 Feb. 2015

Why, then, is the South, after more than four hundreds of years, bereft of any such places?

Because doctrine really does matter.  Because the Great Schism of 1054 that tore Western Europe away from the Orthodox Church also separated the Western churches from the full experience of the grace of God.  This includes those Roman Catholic and Protestant churches of the South.

Southern Christianity, like all Western Christianity, has become distorted, a prideful, humanistic faith rather than an humble one grounded in and guided by the Most Holy Trinity:  Whether one speaks of Protestant churches, in which the individual believer’s interpretation of the Bible is the measure of all things, or of the Roman Catholic churches, in which the Pope’s definition of the faith is the measure of all things, the mind and will of man are exalted above God.

And though the words of the Bible and such other parts of the Orthodox Tradition that have survived in the Western confessions are powerful preservatives, they will not be able to overcome the wiles of our enemy the Devil.  Thus the countries of Western Europe and many places in the [u]nited States are rapidly becoming a graveyard, to use St Justin Popovich’s word. 

The kind of holiness found in St Fillan and the other saints before the Schism in the West has fled; the Christian life is now something mostly outside a man, something one approaches with the rational mind, the emotions, or the imagination, an experience with a created grace (so it is taught), but no longer the union of a man’s soul and body with the uncreated grace of God, which is to say, with God Himself (i.e., His outgoing energies by which He makes Himself known, not His unknown, inward essence). 

This is why no holy men and women have appeared in the South, why no holy places exist among us.  For the grace of God overflows from them, onto the people and things round about them.  As St John Maximovitch said,

Holiness is not simply righteousness, for which the righteous merit the enjoyment of blessedness in the Kingdom of God, but rather such a height of righteousness that men are filled with the Grace of God to such an extent, that it flows from them, upon those who associate with them. Great is their blessedness, which proceeds from personal experience of the Glory of God.  . . .

Source:  ‘The Canonization of Saints’, http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/sermons_john_maximovich.htm#_Toc100019545, accessed 3 Feb. 2015

One can therefore write, as Father Joseph Gleason has,

 . . .

There are some very special treasures on earth, which will outlive every tree, outlast every mountain, and even survive the great and mighty day of the Lord when “the elements will burn with a fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10). These treasures will exist forever. Indeed, they will be in heaven itself.

These priceless treasures are the relics of the Saints.

 . . .

The bones of Saints are considered first-class relics, and have preeminence. Second-class relics are also very special, holy, and are treasured by faithful Christians. Second-class relics include objects worn, used, or touched by the Saints. For example:

·         When the prophet Elijah was taken into heaven, his mantle was left behind. Elisha picked up this relic, and used it to perform a miracle, dividing the waters of the Jordan river so that he could walk across on dry land (2 Kings 2:9-14).

·         God commanded the Israelites to place relics inside the Ark of the Covenant, which resided in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred room in the Temple. These relics included a golden jar of manna, a miraculous staff which had belonged to Aaron the high priest, and the stone tablets which Moses had brought down from Mount Sinai, bearing the Ten Commandments (Hebrews 9:3-4).

·         A sick woman was instantly healed when she touched the hem of Christ’s garment (Matthew 9:20-22).

·         St. Paul touched handkerchiefs and cloths, and those cloths were taken to the sick. When they touched these relics, “their diseases were cured and evil spirits departed from them” (Acts 19:11-12).

Relics point towards the Incarnation, where God takes on human flesh and sanctifies the material world. In the Incarnation, God shows His ability to use created matter in a miraculous way. And in the history of the Church, miraculous events have happened thousands of times with the bones and relics of Christian Saints. God Himself uses miracles to honor the relics of His Saints. It is an example of where heaven breaks through into our present world, renewing creation.

Indeed, holy relics provide some of our first glimpses into heaven itself. When this present world passes away and the sky is rolled up like a scroll, the bones of the Saints will remain. They will be resurrected, they will walk again, and they will be in heaven for all eternity.

Source:  ‘Sacred Relics and a Present Glimpse of Heaven’, On Behalf of All, http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/onbehalfofall/glimpse-heaven/, posted 15 Jan. 2015, accessed 3 Feb. 2015

The South has always excelled in producing gentlemen, men of high attainments to be sure, but men fitted for earthly pursuits, for ‘[military] camp and senate’ to quote Richard Weaver.  But there is a higher calling, the making of saints (quoth Father Andrew Phillips), and that is what the South, and every country, ought to try to pursue, as Dixie’s Orthodox forefathers and mothers did and as the Orthodox try to do today in Greece, Russia, Serbia, etc.

And the South may be in a better position than most non-Orthodox countries to rejoin those on the straight and narrow path of salvation, for as Dr Clark Carlton has said, one cannot become a saint unless one becomes ‘a normally functioning human being’ first,

http://karamazov.ro/index.php/interviuri/340-clark-carlton-modernity-considers-sub-natural-existence-the-sumit-of-human-progress.html

and this latter is what the gentlemen and ladies of the South have done well in approaching. 

May God bring to full fruition the good work of salvation He has begun in the South, that the shame of our barrenness, like that of St Hannah and Sts Joachim and Anna, may be taken away forever in her giving birth to many saints.