The Scarlet Thread
From Witchery to Sanctity: The Religious Vicissitudes Of the Hawthorne's
by
Otto and Katharine Bird
St. Augustine Press, 2005
(164 pages, $24.00, hardcover)
reviewed by Franklin Freeman
The history of the Hawthornes, more than that of most New England families of the period, focuses on religion. It concerns the vicissitudes of the Christian faith as believed, practiced, and lived by succeeding generations of an extraordinary family.” Thus write Otto and Katharine Bird in the prologue to their new book.
The great merit of this book is the importance with which it treats religion—to be expected from Otto Bird, who worked with Mortimer Adler on the Great Books Program—but something modern academic studies often comment . . .
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Franklin Freeman is a freelance writer living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and four children.
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