THE KING’S BUSINESS
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R ecently a mother was distressed over the fact that her son, who had returned from one of our small church colleges for a few days’ visit home, was smoking cigarettes. She spoke to him tenderly about his habit. His reply was, “Mother, there isn’t a boy in the college who doesn’t smoke cigarettes and hardly a boy who doesn’t drink beer.” T h e coming of the Lord is a matter of fear only to those who are disobedient and wilfully sinful. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” The great eternal day shall come, but the nearer we live to- Christ the more eager and expectant are we for his coming. For with him “we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” A grocer in Southern Ohio, who had taken an active part against the sale of liquor to boys, was recently visited by a delegation of saloonkeepers. After listening patiently to their threats to destroy his business un less he ceased interfering with theirs, he replied: “You mistake my wares, gentle men.; I sell groceries, not principles.” An answer that transforms an humble trader into a moral hero.— Youth’s Companion. A gentleman , says the Sunday School Chronicle, was once asked if he would take some bread and a glass of wine. His an swer was, “No, I will take some bread and a glass of water.” His friend smilingly answered, “Bread and water! That is prison fare.” “No,” said he, “not prison fare, but garrison fare. We cannot afford to be off our guard.” “What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.” A minister asked a rich man for a con tribution once, and he answered : “I will give you as much as the widow’s mite. I need not give you any more, for that was commended, you know.” “Oh,” said the minister, “you need not give me so much as the' widow’s mite. She gave all that she had. You are worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, and I will ask you for
only half of it. You have not given the widow’s mite until you give it all.” T h e French king, Henry III, said to Pal- issy, the Huguenot potter, one day, that he should be compelled to give him up to his enemies unless he should change his re ligion. “You have often said to me, sire,” was the undaunted reply, “that you pitied me; but as for me, I pity you, who have given utterance to such words as ‘I shall be compelled.’ These are unkingly words, and I say to you, in royal phrase, that neither the -Guises nor all your people, nor your self, are able to compel an humble manufac turer of earthware to bend his knee before statues.” T here is said to be a strange plant in South America which finds a moist place and sends its roots down, and becomes green for a little while until the place becomes dry, when it draws itself out and rolls it self up and is blown along by the wind until it comes to another moist place, where it repeats the same process. On and on the plant goes, stopping wherever it finds a little water until the spot is dry; then in the end, after all its wanderings, it is noth ing but a bundle of dry roots and leaves. It is the same with those who drink only of this world’s springs. They drink and thirst again, and go on from spring to spring, blown by the winds of passion and desire, and at last their souls are nothing but bundles of unsatisfied desires and burn ing thirsts. A good illustration of loving one’s enemy is an incident occurring in a recent fight be tween Germans and English. A young B ritish officer w ho saw a w ound ed G erm an lying in th e line of a re tre a t. In th e face of a galling fire, he ra n back, lifted th e .Germ an, an d stru g g led to reach his own re tre a tin g forces, b u t w as cap tu red by th e G erm an p u rsu ers, w ho found him w ounded also. B oth w ere se n t to a G erm an field h o s p ital fo r a tte n tio n , a n d on th e te s tim o n y 'o f G erm an w itn esses to th e deed, th e B ritish officer, w ho w as dying of h is w ounds, w as d eco rated w ith th e o rd er of th e iron cross,
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