September 26

Johnny Appleseed, Lewis Hine, T.S. Eliott, and George Santayana

Author

David Barnhart
September 26, 2025

Ash trees, Stourhead, England, 2011. Own photo.

Today is the birthday, in 1774, of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. John was a missionary for Swedenborgianism, a non-Trinitatrian offshoot of Christianity that promoted simple living and a reverence for all life. His tree-planting activity was likely more about obtaining applies for hard cider than for sustenance. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1878, of Lewis Hine, photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, whose photographs helped raise awareness and led to the passage of child labor laws. 

Today is also the birthday, in 1888, of American-British poet and author T.S. Eliott, who won the 1948 Nobel Prize for literature. He converted to Anglicanism from Unitarianism, and his faith was reflected in his writing. 

Eliott shares a birthday with George Santayana, Spanish philosopher and poet. Although he was an atheist, he was not antagonistic toward religion, and had an influence on other religious thinkers, including T.S. Eliott and Alfred North Whitehead. 

Reflection: 

Lewis Hine’s photography seared the conscience of America, which led to the passage of child labor laws. It is worth noting that the current fascist regime is endeavoring to roll back some of these protections in its attempt to return the United States to a gilded age of exorbitant wealth disparity and economic exploitation of the poor. 

Fitting with the above reflection, it was George Santayana who first said,

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

and

“What renders man an imaginative and moral being is that in society he gives new aims to his life which could not have existed in solitude: the aims of friendship, religion, science, and art.”

We learned the “Johnny Appleseed Prayer” as a song at camp. It goes: 

“Oh, the Lord’s been good to me,
and so I thank the Lord
for giving me the things I need: 
the sun and the rain and the appleseed.
The Lord’s been good to me.” 

In his book Christianity and Culture, T.S. Eliott wrote these words, which are appropriate for our time: 

“There is one class of persons to which one speaks with difficulty, and another to which one speaks in vain. The second, more numerous and obstinate than may at first appear, because it represents a state of mind into which we are all prone through natural sloth to relapse, consists of those people who cannot believe that things will ever be very different from what they are at the moment. From time to time, under the influence perhaps of some persuasive write or speaker, they may have an instant of disquiet or hope; but an invincible sluggishness of imagination makes them go on behaving as if nothing would ever change. Those to whom one speaks with difficulty, but not perhaps in vain, are the persons who believe that great changes must come, but are not sure either of what is inevitable, or of what is probable, or of what is desirable.”

Prayer: Great Spirit, help us learn from our past so that we do not make the same mistakes repeatedly. Help us to orient our souls around gratitude and compassion for others. Amen.