GOOD STORIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1915, Page 9

GOOD STORIES.

The Tommy on leave from the Front had beeen given a froe railway pass to take him home to see his people, and he utilised part of his brief holiday to get married. On the return journey when the ticket inspector asked to see his pass he produced by accident his marriage lines. The inspector handed the paper back with: a glimmer of a smile. This is a ticket for a very long and wearisome journey; young man," he said, "but not on this line."—Pearson's Magazine. A gentleman who had married his cook was giving a dinner party, and between the courses the good lady sat with her rather red hajids spread on the tablecloth. Suddenly the burr of conversation ceased, and in the silence that followed a young man on the right of his hostess said pleasantly: "Awful pause!" "So they might be," said the old-time cook, with heightened colour; "and yours would be like them if you had done half my work."—Royal Magazine. A musketry instructor, after watching a private miss the target with nineteen consecutive shots, exclaimed "Ugh! Don't waste your last bullet; go behind that wall and blow your brains out." The private disappeared behind the wall and a shot rang out—"Heavens! the fool's done what I told him," howled the sergeant; but a minute later the private reappeared: "Sorry, sergeant," he said apologetically; "another miss,"—St. Martin's-le-Grand. An Irishman bought a. ticket and then, going out on the platform, said: "How soon does the train start?" "Why, there she goes now,".said a porter. "You've just missed her." The Irishman leapt on the line and set out in pursuit of the train with all his might. Cut in a few minutes he came trudging hack, A laughing crowd had gathered. "Well, did you catch her!" asked the porter. "No," was the answer, "but, be jabers, I made her puff!"—Cassell's Magazine. "A train leaves London," said the teacher, "travelling forty miles an hour. It is followed thirty minutes later by a train travelling eighty miles an hour. At what point will the second train run into the first?" The class seemed at a loss; that is, all except Willie Green, who was standing in the aisle, vigorously wagging his hand. "Well, Willie," said the teacher. "At the back end of the rear car.''—Bairn's Magazine. There were visitors at school one afternoon, and the teacher was very anxious that her pupils should appear to advantage. "Now, children," she said, during an examination in geography, "what is the axis of the earth?'' There was silence for a moment, and then a small girl raised her hand. "Well, Dorothy," said the teacher, 'how would you describe it?" "The axis of the earth," said Dorothy, proudly, "is an imaginary line which passes from one pole to the other, and on which the earth revolves." "That's correct," nodded the teacher, approvingly. "Now could you hang clothes on this line, Dorothy," "Yes, ma'am," was the reply. "Why, Dorothy!" exclaimed the teacher, in surprise. " "What sort of clothes?" '•lmaginary clothes, madam," said the child calmly.—Hamper's Magazine. At the Wesleyan Chapel in a Lancashire village, a double base had been introduced to assist the organ. One Sunday morning during the sermon, a big bull got out of a lield and came down the road bellowing as he went. This discomposed the minister, who, looking back towards the singers' seats with a grave face, said: "I will thank the musicians not to "tune" during service time; it annoys me." Everyone was surprised, but nothing was said, and the sermon was resumed. Presently the bull gave another vent to his feelings, and then the minister became frantic. Stopping short, he faced round to the double bass player and said: "Mr. L., I particularly request you not to tune your instrument while lam preaching." This was altogether too much. Poor Mr. L. rose in his place and snapped out at the preacher: "It isn't me, sir; it is Farmer B's old bull."—The Choirmaster and Organist

Sunday Reading p|draitsuM(l

"WE ABE WOOLS FOR CHRIST'S SAKE." SERMON preached bv REV. A H. OOLVILiE, M.A., at St. Mary's Church, New Plymouth. I cxipect you have heard it said thait the average Englishman would much rather be called a sinner than considered a fool. It is quite true. We most of us resent such an imputation both forcibly and bitterly. The nearer it comca to being true the more fiercely we resent it; for we feel, as t a well-known legal axiom has it, "the greater th» trutfh the greater t'he libel." Now we see 'here' that St. Paul is not the least little hit frightened of that humiliating imputation. He claims it boldly, gladly, ( almost exultantly. "We are fools," he says for himself and his fellows, "for Christ's sake; for the sake of our faith, for tdie sake of a great ideal, for the sake of what we know and feel to be the true life, we will be brave enough to appear fools in the eyes of itdie materialists of this world. We will dare to go further than the evidence of our sense. We will dare to take risks in obedience to the prompting of the Christ-nature within us and follow the guidance of the holy spirit wherever He ipoints the way." That, my friends, is the folly of Christians. Without this sort of folly a man may label himself a Christian, and may perhaps be accepted as such by those about him, but he is not a follower of Christ. It was because St. Peter was so frightened of being made a fool of that he denied his Master. It is because so many men in this town and every other town regard what the Church stands for as foolishness that you never see them at public worship. It is because others, who do come to clmrch, dislike so heartily the imputation of folly that they MAKE SO LITTLE OF THEIR CHRISTIAN PROFESSION in their every-day lives. One can almost hear them saying one to another, "Oh, come, let us sit down together and humbly worship the god of'consistency and then there will be no danger of ever having the charge of foolishness flung a,t us by those who make no Christian profession at all." Now, don't let us make any mistake about it. Nowhere does the Bible uphold foolishness in itself as something to be copied; nowhere do our Lord or His Apostles exalt the qualities of stupidity or ignorance, of rashness or frivolity. So far from that we are told that we would do well to borrow some of the prudence, foresight and wisdom of those who make this world and its use t'he be-all and the end-all of existence. It would 'be absurd to think that we must abandon our reasons when we approach God in prayer and sacrament —just as absurd as to expect a business man to leave behind his shrewdness when he comes to sit on the vestry. All our best qualities are needed for the ser. vice of God. - Nor axe we told to play the fool, or to make fools of ourselves in our religion. "Let all things be done decently and in order," says St. Paul. In the very Bame epistle from which my text is taken, he draws a picture of a disorderly place of worship where men and women allow their emotions to master them so completely as to produce the impression that they are inmates of a mental asylum; 'and," he says, "if a stranger come in will he jiot say you are mad?" No; we are to keep our selfrespect in our religion both in God's House and out of if. That most precious gift—« sense of humor—will help us greatly to keep us from the folly of extravagance and preserve us from "making fools to ourselves" to no purpose. But to be accounted fools for Christ's sake is another thing. It is THE HALL-MARK OF A GENUINE • ratOFESSION. Let me repeat that what St. Paul means is that we are to live daring lives —to live as those who seriously wish to follow Christ, and who must, however great their inconsistencies, constantly strive to rise above the ordinary standards of this world and regulate their lives and actions by the consciousness of another life to come even though they be thought fools for their pains. Aid what, after all, my friends, does this imputation of folly amount to? All exceptional men have had to hear it —all who live for something deeper than the material, Columbus was despised as a visionary because he went aliead of his evidence. Gordon was accounted half-crazed. Wordsworth's fellow-vil-lagers made him the subject of contemptuous criticism. One said that "he had seen him wander about at niglit and look strangely at the moon." Another had heard him mutter as he walked in some outlandish gibberish that no one could understand." In their opinion he was just a fool. Darwin's gardener thought liis master a driveller because he spent hours gazing at a flower, and not much of a flower at that. The world always labels what it doesn't understand foolishness. And so to-day there are certain expressions of the Christian life the world respects. You can help your neighbor and give your money in charity without being thought a fool by the materialists; but to be a regular and earnest communicant, to think of the souls of others as well as their bodies, to be loyal to your church, to believe that such things as penitence arre forgiveness, prayer and sacraments, are really vital things, necessary to salvation, to follow Christ in daily life, unashamed to own yourself his disciple, ready to take a higher standard if necessary to ll'rs. -So-and-So, who lives next door, is often and often to be considered a fool, particularly by those nominal Christians who dislike above everything to see anyone else making the Christian profession mean more than they do. Almost my last words to those whom I had the privilege of preparing far confirmation were these: " TAKE RISKS." And I believe that if this were the last sermon I was to preach in New J'lymoutli I should say to you exactly the same thing. Many of yoxi are rc.idy to take risks in the development of your town. You who are anxious, and rightly anxious, that this town should make great material progress, do not mind being considered fools by more slowmoving people. You don't mind, because you believe so thoroughly that yon are right. So let us all be vca ).j to take risks in our religion, in our spiritual life. For the development of the industrial and social life of this place will do little for us unless there is a corresponding development of its spiritual life. This Church of St. Marys and what it 9tand9 for is worth nrtjj time more to the town than the tramway, the harbor, the oil-fields, or even than the picture shows and the golf links, and that ia just what our many nominal Christians forget.

I ".FOOLS FOB, CUEIST'S SAKE.'! Remember how beautifully our Lord turned idle tables on the materialists. What was Bis conception of a fool? Exactly opposite to the world's, "I will say to my soul, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry.' But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night is thy soul required of tfliee.' So is lie that layeth up treasure for himself and iB not rich towards God." Pvieh towards God—let that, my friends, be our ideal, our prayer for our country, foT our town, for our fellow-Christians, for ourselves; may we all 'be rich towards God, gathering those riches through the years of our earthly life, the riches that grow greater the more freely we spend them, rich in self and rich in kindly deeds, ill noble thoughts and words, rich in the spirit, the Christ-light within us, fed by the oil of sacrament and prayer, burning ever brighter and brighter, shining out before men to the glory of our Father in Heaven—"fools for Christ's sake," but filled at last with the eternal wisdom of God.