Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 31, 8 December 1944, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

"MR JOHN THREE SIXTEEN"

(Supplied by the Whakatr

r?.fe Ministers' Association).

THREE HUMORISTS I "King oi' clowns" they used to call him \vhe.n twenty years ago j he was as prime a favourite as Charlie Chaplin. Dead, in a lonely lodginghouse room, with a pawn ticket and .six dollars in his pockets and a bullet sent through his brain by his own hand! Marcelline, the unforgettable.! But nevertheless forgotten— and dead by his, own act because they didn't find him funny any more. And the biggest wreath on his coffin is from Charlie Chaplin, his successor! It wasn't old age. He was only fifty-four. He was lively as ever when lie tried to make his "comebacks." But they didn't, laugh at him as they used to. II A few years ago Ralph Barton the most popular of New York caricaturists died by his own hand. He left behind him a letter analysing with grim lucidity the. causes of his downfall. It runs thus: "I have run from wife to Avife t from house to house and from country to country in a ridiculous effort to escape from myself. In so doing I am very much afraid that I have brought a great deal of unhappiness to those, who have loved me. No one tiling is responsible for this (suicide) and no one person—except myself. I did it because I am fed up with inventing devices for getting through twenty-four hours u tiay." Mr Barton had notoriously shared in the "pleasures" of life as they arc understood by those, sections of society which have thrown off all moral restraints.. His matrimonial misadventures were.matters of public knowledge and his cynical acceptance of the nco-pagan standards of lit.' age was manifested in his hard and glittering art. This pitiful waste of a brilliant life represents the unwritten last chapter, the. suppressed sixth act of those novels and plays which depict our modern pagan life in such alluring and plausible terms that self-indulgence —miscalled self-expression—is made to appear in the light of a noblephilosophy, and even a religion. 11l Mr Thomas L. Masson—the famous American humorist known as ''Tom Mosson" writes: "I began to read Ihe Bible through, systematically. When 1 blushed, ' i began ail over again. i got a pronouncing Bible so that' i could talk about it ? if necessary. But it wasn't, necessary as nobody 1 knew wan led to talk about il_ even if 1 knew about it. Up i-o tiie time. 1 expv.':'ienee' ; l conversion L luul read tin; Bible over any number of times, and knew mulling of it. It hadn't 'taken' with me. One day l-Jie light, broke. This was the 'great moment' i write of. I suddenly understood that the Bible, was the great source-book of Cod, as 1 have come to think of it. After this, nothing mattered in the j way of criticism. 1 read the Bibletwo hours a day. How did 1 lind time to do this? L will tell you. 1

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

began by reading 15 minutes a day and this increased my general efficiency so much that 1 soon found I could give up an hour and lose nothing, but gain. Then I found I could give up ai.other hour. The Bible is the best misincss textbook there is. It makes you cheerful persistent honest and gives- you the kind of an understanding that looks through a superficial' proposition to the source. It gives you the spiritual power to know how to be. provided all the time with the right equipment to carry on your \vork } and nothing , superfluous." — The Dawn.

It was all a mistake to begin with ? but it had the happiest ending, .and this is how it. happened. There is a big school in Cairo called "The English Mission College" ! It is intended chiefly for Jewish boys and girls;, but the education and the character training based on fine Christian principles are so good that pe. opie of other nationalities like to send their children to it. And there are many nationalities of people living in Cairo—the biggest city in Africa. Even the newspaperboy at the. corner of the street sells, papers, everj T morning in lour different languages! But even when we know that it still comes as a surprise to learn that there are children of twenty-seven different nationalities at the English Mission College. Among them a couple of years were two Japanese children the son and daughter of a merchant and commercial agent in the city. Their parents were Buddhists. One day the headmaster received a letter from the father saying: "Who is, Mr John Three Sixteen? My children are always talking about him." The headmaster replied that "John Three Sixteen" was not. a person but a verse out of a book! Back came another letter from the father to ask: "Can you supply me with a copy of the book?" "Yes," was the answer; and a copy was sent. Nothing move was heard of the matter, and things went oil as before. But in i time the father was ordered back to Japan by his (inn, am! Look lib; family with him. And then one day months a letter from Japan reached the. headmaster in Cairo. Upon opening it he learned to his jo 3* that the. father and all the famil\ T had be.,'ome Christian.?; and had joined the Church in Kobe. So a see sawn in Egypt sprang up and bore fruit in-Japan. You never know, do you? '' r i he good seed 7 ' which the Bibic Society sows is thought of most ofte.n, perhaps, as wheat—a large, heav\ T seed. But In Ill's ce.se it was more like the tii\v seed in a bit of blown b\ r the breath of the Holy Spirit until it lodged where God wanted it, in the "good ground" of an "honest and good heart,"