Ultimately, then, Jayber does not keep faith with a place strictly speaking, but with a way of life embedded in a place. And so his loyalty is not transferrable to any party which happens to live in the geographic location once called Port William. Rather, his loyalty is to the way of life that the old Port William allowed to grow and thrive, that shaped people for generations, people whose loves and affections were molded to the life of that small place. Thus there is, in this call to keep faith with Port William, a call to resist those who would threaten it. If those devoted to the old ways of Christendom are to be of any use to the thing they wish to keep faith with, their churches and the commonwealth generally speaking, then they must come to understand this close relationship between fidelity and resistance.
Jake Meador
jdonathan.com 