BEDTIME STORY

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 112, 19 March 1954, Page 6

BEDTIME STORY

RAIN I made no apology to Mr Somerset Maughan for copying the title of one of his famous short stories. This story is about rain, and "rain" it has to be. As I write (Monday, March 1st), there is every sign of a break in the long dry hot spell that has scorched the Taupo gardens and laid a coating of dust on L" every thing, to say nothing of the ' clouds of it stirred up along the roads by motorists anxious to get wherever they were going in a hurry. Those of us who are familiar with the Bible story of the Prophet Elijah will rememuer how he confounded the prophets of Baal by I praying for rain and getting it in abundance, breaking a long drought that had reduced the Israeiites to the point of starvation for the lack of food and water. The prophets of Baal had rather a bad time as a result, and in the narration of the Scriptures were slaughtered right and left.

This little tale I am now about to unfold" is about a district- in Scotland that had been afflicted by a prolonged drought. The streams — "burns" in Scots— had dried up. There was no water for stock, or j gardens, and very little for anything else. Finally the "Meenister" was asked to offer up urgent prayers for rain on a eertain Sunday. He did so at both morning and evening services with all the eloquence and earnestness of which he was capable, inspired as he was by the plight. of his flock. The following morning the drought broke. The rain came down in buckets. As they say in Scotland, it rained "Cats and dougs ana Auld wives." The "burns"

overfiowed their banks, pastures were flooded, stock had to be rescued. The good folk who, in Scriptural phraseology, had been rending their garments, were now putting in overtime wringing them out. it rained the whole week, and was still coming down in torrents when the congregation assembled .in the kirk the following Sunday. The breaking of the drought, of j course, ealled for an offering of I thanksgiving. In the circumstance of the case, however, the "Meenister" considered that some qualification of this gratitude was appropriate. "Oh Lord!" he begari, "We asked for rain, but this is fair rideeculous!" — D.