Themes of The Lord of the Rings This is, according to Shippey, a very modern, 20th-century theme, since in earlier, medieval times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey mentions Lord Acton's famous statement in 1887, that ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men..."" He then goes on to point out authors that were dealing in the same themes of power and corruption at around the same time as Tolkien wrote his work. These authors include George Orwell with "Animal Farm" (1945), William Golding with "Lord of the Flies" (1954), and T. H. White with
The Word of the Lord him hold his hand. In addition to the testimonies of the two "scribes" (Fetting and Draves), the book contains an additional testimony of four witnesses who saw the angel during his final visit to Fetting in 1933. This latter testimony is signed and notarized. In the preface to his first message, and in his 1940 personal testimony about the heavenly "messenger", William Draves wrote the following: Because the messenger could be seen and touched, some in Draves' church have expressed a belief that the messages in the "Word of the Lord" are not revelations, since for a revelation (according to