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Arm the Children: Faith's Response to a Violent World
Review by Terry C. The first precept I heard from the lips of Arthur Henry King was that an author is revealed by his work. Attitudes, prejudices, morality, commitments-all are unfolded in the works of any given author. At the very least, this expanded and edited volume, which draws upon Arthur Henry King's earlier work, The Abundance of the Heart, reveals the man without being overtly autobiographical. If this work reveals the man, he was a man of firm convictions, of great humility, and of guilelessness. He made the historical, the cultural, the philosophical accessible. In this book, this convert to the LDS faith affirms the life-changing experience of finding the Restoration of the gospel and then draws upon the understanding brought by it to recast the meaning of academic inquiry, tradition, judgment, language, education, effective writing, and wholeness. The depth and breadth of this book is that it is an expression of a man whose way of being in the world unfolds by his reflections on how the restored gospel transforms the meaning of everyday life and of our grand purposes here. Our salvation and our happiness hinge on being persons of commitment to light and truth. The world seems constantly to offer counterfeits to that light. The pure hearted can tell the difference. When those seeking to be pure in heart raise children, teach in homes and schools, are administrators in organizations, or seek to understand art, literature, or language, they see possibilities and understandings to which the worldly are blind. Arthur Henry King offers a light which helps illuminate. One measure of his success is that by the end of the book the reader discovers he or she has been turned not to the author, but to Christ; not to procedures, policies, or rules, but to the grand invitation to see earthly experience by being in the Restoration.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1998
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March 18, 2025
I received this book as a gift from a coworker when my second child was born. That was more than 16 years ago. I have started it a handful of times but never made it more then halfway through. This time I was determined to make it all the way, and I finally did today.
This is an interesting collection of talks on a variety of topics. I expected more of a central focus or running theme of caring for and instructing children, but it wasn't really that prevalent.
The thing I like about this collection is how utterly serious and intense the author is in terms of living religion uncompromisingly. He makes a great case for looking at absolutely everything through a gospel lens. Some of his commentary felt a bit old-fashioned and outdated, but in other ways he felt radical and revolutionary. He died 25 years ago and I can only imagine what he would have to say about the state of the world now...
I dog-eared tons of pages to revisit certain thoughts and ideas in the future. Overall I'm glad to have this volume in my library and happy to have finally read through the whole thing.
"Reading is more like conversion than it is like acquisition. It's the sort of thing we cannot be given but must undergo in consequence of diligent effort we ourselves have made..."
"Testimony does not consist in suppressing doubt. Testimony consists in getting rid of doubt, in eliminating it, in having it disappear."
"As faith withdraws from the world and the world becomes less and less Christian, the compensations the world seeks against misery and despair become more and more Satanic. As we go from generation to generation, the degeneration becomes worse. At the least damaging level, the world's compensations are amusements of various kinds that are not on a high level, but don't do much harm. But some compensations are so obsessive that they may be regarded as drugs. They are means of passing the time, of getting rid of the time, of forgetting."
"How much better to sleep than to look at most television, because television detracts from our strength, but sleep at least builds it up. Mormons should not expect to be entertained. Life is too short for that. If they want relaxation, they should look for it not in passive entertainment, but in activities that are different from the ones they have been engaged in."
"Stupidity in a democratic society as a whole produces pseudo-stupidity in its leaders, with appalling results... What underlies this stooping down of leaders is the desire in the common folk to see their rulers pulled down to their level."
"That sense of sin is a good thing in Puritanism—that, and the realization that sin is not something easily categorized and got rid of, but something insidious, something threatening, all the time. Sin is like the tide. We know that the tide comes up the beach twice every twenty-four hours. It comes; we can't expect it not to. And some days it comes higher than others, and the wind is with it. And I think that image is relevant to the way that evil comes into our lives. It is there all the time; life is a constant struggle against it."
"...the experience of death is perhaps the greatest experience of love that we can have in this world."
"This is an anagnorisis, a recognition scene, and time and again an anagnorisis is something most profound: it touches us deeply—more than anything else in the theater—because it is deeply associated with forgiveness and with repentance. I sometimes think that repentance might be better described as a recognition than as a turning back."
"And one of the major reasons that we need to find out as much as we can about our ancestors is so that we may interpret ourselves through them. Genealogy is important because our families are the extension of ourselves back infinitely and forward infinitely."
"And tradition is a living organism like ourselves—it is in ourselves. A tradition is not a brick wall or a house; it is not something that is added to stone by stone."
"I imagine that when we get beyond the veil, we shall have a different way of dealing with the past, but at the moment, the past is removed from us. A veil covers not only the future, but the past as well: we are between the two."
"Reading good literature makes us more capable of understanding other people, of loving other people, including those whom we don't particularly want to love, even our enemies. Literature is one of the ways in which we can learn to love our enemies as well as those closest to us."
"It is always sinful to do less well than we could."
"[Joseph Smith and Brigham Young] wanted the Saints to take the riches of the world and interpret them according to the gospel so that those riches might refine the Saints and build them up. It isn't all in the scriptures except in the same way as the oak tree is in the acorn. The whole oak tree is there, but it has to grow out. And the scriptures have to grow out in our own minds."
"If we are soaked in the scriptures, we shan't want to look at bad things on our walls or listen to bad music because those things wont' fit. We shall intuitively reject them, just as we shall embrace what is good, because we shall have in our minds a firm and sound sense of what is in good taste."
"We read in the First Epistle of John, the letters of Paul, and the Old Testament, about the bowels, 'his bowels of compassion'... What a wonderful image that is of the reaction of the whole soul. We don't feel that way nowadays. We have lost it. Something has happened in our thorax or abdomen to separate us into two pieces. Our bowels don't move with compassion—they don't move with any language of any kind. And yet they once did when human being were total souls, before we introduced some kind of ideological-neurological plate into our middles.
The scriptures are the word of the whole God to the whole being. And so it is the whole soul of the scriptures that we are to find, and the soul is there as a powerful act of incarnation."
"If we come away from an experience and ask ourselves what it means or what it is all about, we are asking ourselves the wrong kind of question because what we have just experienced is what it is all about. An important experience is an end in itself. It isn't something to prepare us for something else. It already contains the something else if it is worthwhile. Life is its own explanation. The meaning of life is in life."
"There is no such thing as the meaning of a word nor is there such a thing as a category of meanings of the word. We can identify points, as it were, in a word's field, but they don't usually stand alone; other points come in... Therefore, when we look up a word in a dictionary, we want to remember that the word is not to be nailed down but to be pinpointed on the chart. The definition covers perhaps a number of senses that are aroused by its context. There may be a central sense, and there may be a penumbra of senses around it. I remember J.R. Firth once saying that language is an infinite number of infinitesimally small octopuses with an infinite number of tentacles each infinitely interacting."
"We do not want objects to be made unlike themselves, and we do not want objects that are deliberately made to look like other objects. Both of these are evasions of the truth. And truth is beauty."
"The object of art is to make us more awake, more vigilant, to make us notice more things, not to recline us on a kind of miserable, half-warm porridge of daily existence."
"There is a big difference between education and training. We train to achieve certain specific ends; we educate in order to prepare people for life so that they may deal creatively with the unexpected as well as the expected, professionally and otherwise. Education is a broader and more fundamental preparation than training."
This is an interesting collection of talks on a variety of topics. I expected more of a central focus or running theme of caring for and instructing children, but it wasn't really that prevalent.
The thing I like about this collection is how utterly serious and intense the author is in terms of living religion uncompromisingly. He makes a great case for looking at absolutely everything through a gospel lens. Some of his commentary felt a bit old-fashioned and outdated, but in other ways he felt radical and revolutionary. He died 25 years ago and I can only imagine what he would have to say about the state of the world now...
I dog-eared tons of pages to revisit certain thoughts and ideas in the future. Overall I'm glad to have this volume in my library and happy to have finally read through the whole thing.
"Reading is more like conversion than it is like acquisition. It's the sort of thing we cannot be given but must undergo in consequence of diligent effort we ourselves have made..."
"Testimony does not consist in suppressing doubt. Testimony consists in getting rid of doubt, in eliminating it, in having it disappear."
"As faith withdraws from the world and the world becomes less and less Christian, the compensations the world seeks against misery and despair become more and more Satanic. As we go from generation to generation, the degeneration becomes worse. At the least damaging level, the world's compensations are amusements of various kinds that are not on a high level, but don't do much harm. But some compensations are so obsessive that they may be regarded as drugs. They are means of passing the time, of getting rid of the time, of forgetting."
"How much better to sleep than to look at most television, because television detracts from our strength, but sleep at least builds it up. Mormons should not expect to be entertained. Life is too short for that. If they want relaxation, they should look for it not in passive entertainment, but in activities that are different from the ones they have been engaged in."
"Stupidity in a democratic society as a whole produces pseudo-stupidity in its leaders, with appalling results... What underlies this stooping down of leaders is the desire in the common folk to see their rulers pulled down to their level."
"That sense of sin is a good thing in Puritanism—that, and the realization that sin is not something easily categorized and got rid of, but something insidious, something threatening, all the time. Sin is like the tide. We know that the tide comes up the beach twice every twenty-four hours. It comes; we can't expect it not to. And some days it comes higher than others, and the wind is with it. And I think that image is relevant to the way that evil comes into our lives. It is there all the time; life is a constant struggle against it."
"...the experience of death is perhaps the greatest experience of love that we can have in this world."
"This is an anagnorisis, a recognition scene, and time and again an anagnorisis is something most profound: it touches us deeply—more than anything else in the theater—because it is deeply associated with forgiveness and with repentance. I sometimes think that repentance might be better described as a recognition than as a turning back."
"And one of the major reasons that we need to find out as much as we can about our ancestors is so that we may interpret ourselves through them. Genealogy is important because our families are the extension of ourselves back infinitely and forward infinitely."
"And tradition is a living organism like ourselves—it is in ourselves. A tradition is not a brick wall or a house; it is not something that is added to stone by stone."
"I imagine that when we get beyond the veil, we shall have a different way of dealing with the past, but at the moment, the past is removed from us. A veil covers not only the future, but the past as well: we are between the two."
"Reading good literature makes us more capable of understanding other people, of loving other people, including those whom we don't particularly want to love, even our enemies. Literature is one of the ways in which we can learn to love our enemies as well as those closest to us."
"It is always sinful to do less well than we could."
"[Joseph Smith and Brigham Young] wanted the Saints to take the riches of the world and interpret them according to the gospel so that those riches might refine the Saints and build them up. It isn't all in the scriptures except in the same way as the oak tree is in the acorn. The whole oak tree is there, but it has to grow out. And the scriptures have to grow out in our own minds."
"If we are soaked in the scriptures, we shan't want to look at bad things on our walls or listen to bad music because those things wont' fit. We shall intuitively reject them, just as we shall embrace what is good, because we shall have in our minds a firm and sound sense of what is in good taste."
"We read in the First Epistle of John, the letters of Paul, and the Old Testament, about the bowels, 'his bowels of compassion'... What a wonderful image that is of the reaction of the whole soul. We don't feel that way nowadays. We have lost it. Something has happened in our thorax or abdomen to separate us into two pieces. Our bowels don't move with compassion—they don't move with any language of any kind. And yet they once did when human being were total souls, before we introduced some kind of ideological-neurological plate into our middles.
The scriptures are the word of the whole God to the whole being. And so it is the whole soul of the scriptures that we are to find, and the soul is there as a powerful act of incarnation."
"If we come away from an experience and ask ourselves what it means or what it is all about, we are asking ourselves the wrong kind of question because what we have just experienced is what it is all about. An important experience is an end in itself. It isn't something to prepare us for something else. It already contains the something else if it is worthwhile. Life is its own explanation. The meaning of life is in life."
"There is no such thing as the meaning of a word nor is there such a thing as a category of meanings of the word. We can identify points, as it were, in a word's field, but they don't usually stand alone; other points come in... Therefore, when we look up a word in a dictionary, we want to remember that the word is not to be nailed down but to be pinpointed on the chart. The definition covers perhaps a number of senses that are aroused by its context. There may be a central sense, and there may be a penumbra of senses around it. I remember J.R. Firth once saying that language is an infinite number of infinitesimally small octopuses with an infinite number of tentacles each infinitely interacting."
"We do not want objects to be made unlike themselves, and we do not want objects that are deliberately made to look like other objects. Both of these are evasions of the truth. And truth is beauty."
"The object of art is to make us more awake, more vigilant, to make us notice more things, not to recline us on a kind of miserable, half-warm porridge of daily existence."
"There is a big difference between education and training. We train to achieve certain specific ends; we educate in order to prepare people for life so that they may deal creatively with the unexpected as well as the expected, professionally and otherwise. Education is a broader and more fundamental preparation than training."
June 20, 2016
Not what I was expecting.... but really, really good. Extremely meaty. I will easily be able to read this a half dozen more times before reaching the tip of the iceberg....
Written by a Mormon, there were a few concepts that did not dovetail with my own faith, but many, many that do. So much to think about.
Docked a point because the author was DECIDEDLY opinionated and in a way that brushed aside any other opinions. Still - I thoroughly enjoyed the essays/talks (took lots of notes) and VERY much look forward to my second read-through.
Written by a Mormon, there were a few concepts that did not dovetail with my own faith, but many, many that do. So much to think about.
Docked a point because the author was DECIDEDLY opinionated and in a way that brushed aside any other opinions. Still - I thoroughly enjoyed the essays/talks (took lots of notes) and VERY much look forward to my second read-through.
January 10, 2019
One of the most intensely intelligent books I have ever read. I had to pauses after each chapter and truly digest the rich meat of wisdom. I have written several articles based on a few things he talks about in this book. Every LDS parent should read this book.
2019: now I can add dates read. I’ve read this book several times in between the first date and today. It’s a classic. I’m always a better person after each read.
2019: now I can add dates read. I’ve read this book several times in between the first date and today. It’s a classic. I’m always a better person after each read.
August 11, 2023
2.5 stars. Only took me five years to read this. Ha! Well, some essays I liked, some I liked less, some I agreed with and felt inspired, and some I completely disagreed with. I think I marked at least one passage in each of the essays. I very much disagree with his take on stories, literature, and education; however, King never forgets that all hi does is for the Lord.
I see a little of what Charlotte Mason was up against because King was Assistant Director-General in charge of Education in England, and he thought about education a little differently from her, though King was born only ten years before she died, so maybe it’s better to say she was working to change education in England for his generation. Anyway, in the middle of a few of the essays King proudly informs us he was a student of I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis. Oh dear. That’s where he got a lot of his bad ideas. He said when he was young he followed Matthew Arnold. He claims he ultimately went on looking for another theory because he didn’t believe their argument that the arts could replace religion. Unfortunately, it seems like he still thought the arts should be used to teach… I don’t know the correct word— righteousness, morality, goodness? Well, he thought literature could be used. He was also another one of those educator-administrators who didn’t have experience teaching children, nor did he raise any children past infancy. (Well, he did have a step-daughter. I do not know how old she was when he married her mother.)
All of this must sound like I didn’t like reading King’s essays, but I did actually. I appreciated his ability to tie his interests and thoughts to the gospel and to God. He seems like he was a beloved university mentor.
As for his reading list… I find his selections and the things he left off the list quite fascinating. I have read about 30% and read parts of another 10%. Many of the rest are on my shelf waiting to be read.
One last thing. King said the The Faerie Queene is a failure and Pilgrim’s Progress succeeds. I guess that shows how he views literature and didacticism. Or maybe he didn’t understand medieval cosmology.
I see a little of what Charlotte Mason was up against because King was Assistant Director-General in charge of Education in England, and he thought about education a little differently from her, though King was born only ten years before she died, so maybe it’s better to say she was working to change education in England for his generation. Anyway, in the middle of a few of the essays King proudly informs us he was a student of I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis. Oh dear. That’s where he got a lot of his bad ideas. He said when he was young he followed Matthew Arnold. He claims he ultimately went on looking for another theory because he didn’t believe their argument that the arts could replace religion. Unfortunately, it seems like he still thought the arts should be used to teach… I don’t know the correct word— righteousness, morality, goodness? Well, he thought literature could be used. He was also another one of those educator-administrators who didn’t have experience teaching children, nor did he raise any children past infancy. (Well, he did have a step-daughter. I do not know how old she was when he married her mother.)
All of this must sound like I didn’t like reading King’s essays, but I did actually. I appreciated his ability to tie his interests and thoughts to the gospel and to God. He seems like he was a beloved university mentor.
As for his reading list… I find his selections and the things he left off the list quite fascinating. I have read about 30% and read parts of another 10%. Many of the rest are on my shelf waiting to be read.
One last thing. King said the The Faerie Queene is a failure and Pilgrim’s Progress succeeds. I guess that shows how he views literature and didacticism. Or maybe he didn’t understand medieval cosmology.
March 26, 2018
There's one passage in this book that sums the total experience well:
"We should not use artificial flowers in our homes."
Okay, so far so good.
"It may be argued that artificial flowers can be made to look like real ones so that it is difficult to tell the difference. But is not simply a matter of sight, but of touch and of scent. No artificial petal can provide the soft brush and cool feeling against the cheek that a real petal can."
Yes! My thoughts exactly, and well said!
"Artificial flowers are sometimes said to look "better" than real ones. At the point that we think so, that we prefer plastic flowers to the ones that God has made, we are in serious moral danger."
Wait...what? Serious moral danger? Are you serious? Oh my goodness, you're serious. Not following you that far, Arthur.
And so it went from literature (Shakespeare and Dickens, but certainly not Hemingway, who was an "inferior writer") to music ("I find it difficult to see anything in most of the variants of jazz except sex and violence alternating with self-pity.").
That being said, there are gems aplenty to be found in this collection of essays—most importantly King's analysis of Joseph Smith's account of the first vision. And although I disagree with King on the value of modern literature, I admit that he's probably right that readers should spend more time in classical literature than they do, myself included.
"We should not use artificial flowers in our homes."
Okay, so far so good.
"It may be argued that artificial flowers can be made to look like real ones so that it is difficult to tell the difference. But is not simply a matter of sight, but of touch and of scent. No artificial petal can provide the soft brush and cool feeling against the cheek that a real petal can."
Yes! My thoughts exactly, and well said!
"Artificial flowers are sometimes said to look "better" than real ones. At the point that we think so, that we prefer plastic flowers to the ones that God has made, we are in serious moral danger."
Wait...what? Serious moral danger? Are you serious? Oh my goodness, you're serious. Not following you that far, Arthur.
And so it went from literature (Shakespeare and Dickens, but certainly not Hemingway, who was an "inferior writer") to music ("I find it difficult to see anything in most of the variants of jazz except sex and violence alternating with self-pity.").
That being said, there are gems aplenty to be found in this collection of essays—most importantly King's analysis of Joseph Smith's account of the first vision. And although I disagree with King on the value of modern literature, I admit that he's probably right that readers should spend more time in classical literature than they do, myself included.
December 10, 2017
Challenging reading - deep insight from a true scholar and educator and faithful Latter-day Saint. Worth the time to read carefully.
March 21, 2009
I first found Arthur Henry King on the internet many years ago from an article entitled, "Art and Morality." The article was so inspiring, and of such high thoughts that I had to find everything possible that was written by Arthur Henry King. I found many other articles and then this book, which I absolutely loved as well. I go back to it often for many reasons.
One chapter I particularly love is, "Joseph Smith as a Writer." The insights and examples describe Joseph Smith's modest account of the first vision:
"Plain, matter-of-fact, truthful, simple statements in well-mannered prose. This is no posture. We are not thinking of Joseph Smith; we are just waiting, waiting, waiting to hear. Do you see how beautifully this is built up, how the tesion is built up by his being so modest, so well mannered?"
Fascinating!
He also confirms his testimony of "Joseph Smith as a man who speaks to our time from eternity."
A very inspiring book!
One chapter I particularly love is, "Joseph Smith as a Writer." The insights and examples describe Joseph Smith's modest account of the first vision:
"Plain, matter-of-fact, truthful, simple statements in well-mannered prose. This is no posture. We are not thinking of Joseph Smith; we are just waiting, waiting, waiting to hear. Do you see how beautifully this is built up, how the tesion is built up by his being so modest, so well mannered?"
Fascinating!
He also confirms his testimony of "Joseph Smith as a man who speaks to our time from eternity."
A very inspiring book!
September 7, 2021
I first became acquainted with Arthur Henry King late one night on BYU TV in the documentary Speak That I May See Thee. I became fascinated with his views and experiences. I especially enjoy how he shares things he has learned in a personal way. From this book I learned some very basic and lessons like teaching a child, and the importance of material and objects. The neatest part is how he is a teacher and scholar and he takes on his role of teacher in a very meaningful way.
I love love that he is Traditional English and a writer and his story is SO compelling and inspiring. He had a quest for truth and speaks and explains his journey so exquisitely.
I love love that he is Traditional English and a writer and his story is SO compelling and inspiring. He had a quest for truth and speaks and explains his journey so exquisitely.
February 21, 2009
I have read this completely once and reread parts a number of times. The first time, it took quite a bit to slog through the first time. Honestly, in some ways, he seemed a bit extreme. However, over time I have found myself understanding better the concepts he was trying to convey. There are still some parts I'm not certain about, but overall I think he has a lot of great insights related to how the gospel should inform our understanding of the world and thus our actions.
August 5, 2009
Lovely, lovely book with an extremely unfortunate title. What on earth were they thinking down at the BYU when they chose this title?
King's essay describing his first encounter with Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision is a great read. I also enjoyed his perspectives on culture and the Church.
King's essay describing his first encounter with Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision is a great read. I also enjoyed his perspectives on culture and the Church.
July 12, 2011
An amazing book. Each chapter is self-contained and goes through all sorts of philosophies and ideas. I particularly enjoyed his thoughts about Joseph Smith's writing. But that said, my booked is marked up all over the place. Shakespeare, suggested reading lists, thoughts about the gospel and music, and much more await the reader. I think it should be in everyone's permanent library.
April 27, 2008
This book is hard to read because it is filled with abstract concepts, but it's worth reading. It gave me different perspective in how and what to teach my kids. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what I learned from it, but it changed my frame of mind.
March 1, 2008
Arthur Henry King, ladies and gentlemen...
April 30, 2008
The only thing Mr. King and I disagree on is Jazz.
Read
August 7, 2008So far I am really liking this book. It is not a breeze to read through, but it has great insight.
December 23, 2008
I have read "in" this book several times. Many profound concepts.
February 1, 2009
Oh the beauty of this gifted man-it is so well written and he is right on
May 6, 2009
Probably the closest I can think of to a Mormon C.S. Lewis. Brilliant and opinionated.
April 16, 2010
I liked reading a book by an English professor who makes recommendations in the classics.
February 26, 2011
I really enjoyed this book of essays and talks. They are very thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews