CMP Review 2026-03-15

On page 166 of Charlotte Mason’s monumental Towards a Philosophy of Education, we are greeted with this quotation:

We are at present in a phase of religious thought, Christian and pseudo-Christian, when a synthetic study of the life and teaching of Christ may well be of use. We have analysed until the mind turns in weariness from the broken fragments; we have criticised until there remains no new standpoint for the critic; but if we could only get a whole conception of Christ’s life among men and of the philosophic method of His teaching, His own words should be fulfilled and the Son of Man lifted up, would draw all men unto Himself.

Here Mason is quoting from the Preface of her own The Saviour of the World. In those poetry volumes she truly attempted to portray “a whole conception of Christ’s life.” Nowhere is that better exemplified than in today’s poem. What does the heartwarming tale of the Nativity have to do with the heartbreaking account of the Cross? To the man who analyzes only the fragments, perhaps nothing. But to the man who surveys with the eye of synthesis, he sees that the story is one.

I invite you to contemplate the poem that contemplates Christ’s entrance into the world with a view towards His departure. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff