A Colorful Christian

From a Trinity Forum publication on G. K. Chesterton:

” Chesterton was constantly invited to speak, as well as to debate, one of his great pleasures in life. He packed lecture halls with attentive hearers. On his entering a room, all heads turned to see the well-known figure — 6′ 4″ and almost 300 pounds — often wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, carrying a swordstick, and smiling amicably around a cigar. At times he carried a loaded revolver that he said he bought to defend his wife — and also to challenge those who claimed life was not worth living.

Intellectually, Chesterton was just as imposing. He read widely and seems to have remembered almost everything he read. When asked about a work, he would frequently reply with direct and accurate quotations, at one time even responding to a question on the Magna Charta* by quoting key sections in its original Old English. His friends thought  there was nothing on which he did not have an opinion — and substantive arguments to back it up.”

Wow. Cigars, revolvers … and a brilliant mind. It makes me wish we had such colorful believers today!

*Apparently this spelling is a correct alternative to the more common “Magna Carta”.