Wheaton College memories...

I was a student at Wheaton College from 1961 to 1965 and 'Mere Christianity' was required reading. I remember not liking the book at first, thinking CSL argued too much to defend the obvious. Later when great intellectual doubt overwhelmed me, Lewis and his books became my best friends. But when I got to the chapter on The Great Sin (pride) I was suddenly smitten by this writer. He cut right to the heart of the matter. How straight an arrow he can shoot. Since that day I have been reading everything of Lewis I can find. 

Lewis was so popular on campus that one professor (not too kindly) called him "the patron saint of Wheaton College"! The bookstore was filled with everything of Lewis. I bought my first copy of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' there. It was a Puffin paperback that said plainly on the cover, "not for sale in the U.S.A."!  I still have the book with its beautiful cover picture of Susan and Lucy and Aslan dancing round the Stone Table. That scene with the green mountains of Narnia in the background created such a longing in me to go there. And one of the most magical moments of my life was when I read the part where Lucy could not find the back of the wardrobe: 

"Then she saw that there was a light ahead of her..... Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air." 

(Nancy Young)