The Fingernail Of A Saint

Whittaker Chambers in a letter to William F. Buckley Jr.:

It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of western civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury it secretly in some flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth.

From "Odyssey Of A Friend: Letters To William F. Buckley, Jr. 1954-1961"