The Man Who Discovered England

“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” — Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London in 1874. He grew up to be a huge man, very tall and very wide, who wore a cloak and a big hat and was famous for his jokes. He wrote poems, novels, detective stories and hundreds of newspaper articles, and he loved a good argument.

But as a young man studying art, he went through a very dark time. He later said he held on by “a thin thread of thanks”, the sense that it was good simply to exist. Slowly, through thinking, reading and the faith of the woman he married, Frances, he found his way to Christianity.

In 1905 he wrote a book criticising other people’s beliefs. His critics complained that he never said what he believed himself. So in 1908 he answered them with Orthodoxy. “Orthodoxy” means “right belief”: the basic Christian faith that Christians everywhere have shared.

He begins with a story he says he always meant to write. An English sailor slightly miscalculates his course and lands on what he thinks is a brand-new island in the South Seas. He plants his flag on a strange temple, and then discovers that it is a famous building in Brighton. He has “discovered” England.

Was he a fool? Chesterton says there is something wonderful about it: he had all the thrill of discovering a strange new land, and all the comfort of coming home. Then Chesterton admits:

“I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.”

In other words, he had tried to be original and work out his own beliefs from scratch. And when he finished, he found that he had arrived, by his own route, at the old Christian faith. “I am that man in a yacht,” he says. “I discovered England.”

That is what this book is about: not proving Christianity like a maths problem, but telling how one very clever, very funny man found that Christianity explained life better than anything else.

Chesterton says we all need two things: wonder and welcome. We want life to be an adventure, and we want to feel at home. He found both in Christianity. Many people your age are trying to work out what they believe for themselves. That is good. Chesterton would say: keep going, think hard, and don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere very old.

One thing to do this week: write down three things you believe about life that you have worked out for yourself. This week, find out whether the Bible says anything about each one. You might be surprised how much is “old”.