His personal concerns as expressed in these passages include such topics as 'Sharing with Others,' 'To Be in Peace,' 'Consumer Society,' 'Family Prayer,' and 'The Great Divine Trial,' about the meaning of his near-assassination. Through these pages of calm reflection each day of the year, all will find a moment of peaceful repose from the occupations of life.

Drawing deeply from Aristotle and biblical teaching, Politic presents a unique vision of the commonwealth as a harmonious ordering of natural associations. According to Althusius, the purpose of the state is to protect and encourage social life. The family is the most natural of human associations, and all other unions derive from it. Power and authority properly grow from more local to more general associations.

Of particular interest to the modern reader is Althusius's theory of federalism. It does not refer merely to a division of powers between central and state governments, but to an ascending scale of authority in which higher institutions rely on the consent of local and voluntary associations.

Johannes Althusius (1557?1638) was a German political and legal philosopher.

Frederick S. Carn was Professor Emeritus of Ethics at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.

Daniel J. Elazar is Director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University and Professor of Political Science at Temple and at Bar Ilan University in Israel.