Songs at Twilight
The most beautiful sound I have ever heard was created by about a dozen old men in a little church on the island of Lewis and Harris.
You will probably never hear it. It is part of a culture that is fading away.
Lewis and Harris is the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, and it feels like a different world from most of Scotland. Stacks of black peat sit in front of the homes, to burn for fuel, and the smell of it is always on the air. A sign at the start of a path, reading “Please Respect the Sabbath,” does not seem out of place. The sun in the winter rises at 9:00 in the morning and sets at 3:00 in the afternoon. It is a place of desolate beauty and old-fashioned faith.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Daniel Witt is a writer and English teacher living in Amman, Jordan.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Culture from the online archives
29.3—May/June 2016
Our Choice Is Obedience or Jesus as Anti-Christ by Anthony Esolen
33.1—January/February 2020
Do You Know Your Child’s Doctor?
The Politicization of Pediatrics in America by Alexander F. C. Webster
more from the online archives
27.3—May/June 2014
Religious Freedom & Why It Matters
Working in the Spirit of John Leland by Robert P. George
29.4—July/August 2016
Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley J. Birzer by Hunter Baker
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
