Pastoral Resources

Perhaps you may remember Hank Luisetti, the great basketball player of a few decades back. When Hank came along, virtually every basketball coach in the country insisted that his players shoot with two hands. Instead of two hands, Hank used a jerky, funny-looking, one-handed jump shot. His coach, looking for results rather than method, was smart enough to let him use it. The rest is basketball history—today almost everybody uses Hank’s one-handed jump shot.

In evil long I took delight,

Unawed by shame or fear,

Till a new object struck my sight,

And stopp’d my wild career:

I saw One hanging on a Tree

In agonies and blood,

Who fix’d His languid eyes on me.

As near His Cross I stood.

Sure never till my latest breath,

Can I forget that look:

It seem’d to charge me with His death,

Though not a word He spoke:

My conscience felt and own’d the guilt,

And plunged me in despair:

I saw my sins His Blood had spilt,

And help’d to nail Him there.

Alas! I knew not what I did!

But now my tears are vain:

Where shall my trembling soul be hid?

For I the Lord have slain!

A second look He gave, which said,

“I freely all forgive;

This blood is for thy ransom paid;

I die that thou may’st live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief, and mournful joy,

My spirit now if fill’d,

That I should such a life destroy,

Yet live by Him I kill’d!

A man passing a small group of children noticed they were all crying noisily. He stopped one lad and asked, "What's the trouble? Why are you all crying?" Between sobs the boy answered, "We all have a pain in Billy's stomach." That's real sympathy for the one who is suffering. Paul possessed such sympathy for the Christian brethren who should have been spiritual but were actually carnal. He still calls them brethren. His desire is not to condemn but to lift them up. This is the spirit of the third chapter of First Corinthians.

Xvxn though my typxwritxr is an old modxl, it works wxll xxcxpt for onx of thx kxys. I’vx wishxd many timxs that it workxd pxrfxctly. Trux, thxrx arx 42 kxys that function, but onx kxy not working makxs thx diffxrxncx.

Somxtimxs, it sxxmx to mx that our organization is somxwhat likx my typxwritxr—not all thx pxoplx arx working propxrly. You might say, “Wxll, I’m only onx pxrson. It won’t makx much diffxrxncx.”

But you sxx, an organization, to bx xfficixnt, nxxds thx activx participation of xvxry pxrson. Thx nxxt timx you think your xfforts arxn’t nxxdxd, rxmxmbxr my typxwritxr, and say to yoursxlf, “I am a kxy pxrson and thxy nxxd mx vxry much.”

“Don’t regard it as losing hair. Think of it as gaining face.”

“The good man always comes out on top.”

“At least it’s neat.”

“God only made so many perfect heads, the rest he covered with hair.”

Wherever anything is to be done, either in the Church or in the world, you may depend upon it, it is done by one man. The whole history of the Church, from the earliest ages, teaches the same lesson. A Moses, a Gideon, an Isaiah, and a Paul are from time to time raised up to do an appointed work; and when they pass away, their work appears to cease. Nor is it given to everyone, as it was to Moses, to see the Joshua who is destined to carry on his work to completion.

God can raise up a successor to each man, but the man himself is not to worry about that matter, or he may do harm. One great object of every religious teacher should be to prevent the creation of external appliances to make his teaching appear to live when it is dead.

One might ask, “How could one man pay the penalty of eternal condemnation for so many sins by so many people in just a few hours on the cross?” He could do it for two reasons. Jesus was infinitely valuable and could take the place of an infinite number of people. And because He was infinitely righteous, He could pay the penalty for an infinite number of sins.

In Ralph Emery’s autobiography, Memories, the country-music D.J. and host of TV’s “Nashville Now” relates one of his early experiences in radio.:

An exuberant man of the cloth came into the studio one day with his wife, another woman and a guitar with an electrical short in its amplifier. I could tell it was defective by the loud hum in his speaker.

I walked from the control room into the studio to exchange pleasantries, and then assumed my position on my side of the glass separating the rooms. I raised the sound as they played their opening theme song and then said, “Here again is Brother So-and-So.”

These fundamentalist preachers, many self-proclaimed and well-meaning, were, however, loud and demonstrative. To escape the screaming, I would simply turn off the monitor in my control room. I couldn’t hear any of his yelling, although I could see through the glass his jumping and straining. Every so often, I would raise my eyes from a newspaper and watch the Gospel pantomime.

Suddenly I heard him yelling through his sheer lung power, “Oh-oh-oh-oh!”—his face contorting.

My God, he’s having a seizure, I thought, and jumped to my feet. Then I noticed his thumb. The instant he had touched the steel string of his guitar and simultaneously reached for the steel microphone in front of him, he grounded himself because of the short in his amplifier. He was jumping and shaking at 110 volts shot through is torso. His moist palm was rigidly clamped to the microphone.

The guy couldn’t let go. He was a captive of voltage. Suddenly his wife raised her arm, and in karate fashion, hit his arm with all her force. The blow broke his grip from the charged microphone, but his painful yells had gone over the air.

As calmly as I could, I said, “one moment please.”

On a recent trip to Haiti, I heard a Haitian pastor illustrate to his congregation the need for total commitment to Christ. His parable:

A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: he would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door.

After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.

The Haitian pastor’s conclusion: “If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation.” - Dale A. Hays

In “One Nation Under God,” a statistical map of American religion, summarized in the Nov. 29 issue of Newsweek, Barry Kosmin and Seymour Lachman of the City University of New York have assembled data from 113,000 respondents, by far the most comprehensive random sample of detailed religious preference ever collected. The survey determined that nearly 1/3 of the adult U.S. population (18 and over) is now “totally secular” in its spiritual outlook! It also found that only 19 percent of adult Americans—about 36 million people—regularly practice their faith. The rest are described as “moderately religious” (22 percent), “barely” or nominally religious (29 percent) and agnostics and atheists (7.5 percent). The survey has an important message for the religiously and politically conservative who are interested in reversing the downward cultural spiral. It is unlikely that the 19 percent whose faith affects their lives and world view can change the moral and social conditions of our country through political means alone.

Did you ever notice in the TV family The Waltons how the father was always available; or in Little House on The Prairie, how Laura's dad was always there for the tight squeezes? Contrast these situations with the modern dad who is gone from morning to night. Things have certainly changed since the 1930s and the earlier house on the prairie days, maybe too much. Years ago, Dr. Charlie Shedd held a contest called "One Neat Dad." He asked contestants to send in letters recommending their dad for this great honor. Here's a list of the ten most appreciated qualities for "One Neat Dad."

He takes time for me.

He listens to me.

He plays with me.

He invites me to go places with him.

He lets me help him.

He treats my mother well.

He lets me say what I think.

He is nice to my friends.

He only punishes me when I deserve it.

He is not afraid to admit when he is wrong.

Qualities one to five are versions of the single word, "time!" Spell it-listen, spell it-play, spell it-help me, spell it-jump in the pickup ...it all comes out in the same four letters, T-I-M-E. Time was the most appreciated trait of "One Neat Dad"!

The power of a successfully communicated thought, from one human mind to another, is one of the greatest forces we know. But like the tango, it takes two to communicate. You can communicate a thought, but your thought may not be understood. In some cases, your thought may not even reach the proper target. That’s why it pays to ask questions to make certain that people understand what you are saying. The great movie maker, Cecil B. DeMille would agree.

DeMille was making one of his great epic movies. He had six cameras at various points to pick up the overall action and five other cameras set up to film plot developments involving the major characters. The large cast had begun rehearsing their scene at 6 a.m. They went through it four times and now it was late afternoon. The sun was setting and there was just enough light to get the shot done. DeMille looked over the panorama, saw that all was right, and gave the command for action.

One hundred extras charged up the hill; another hundred came storming down the same hill to do mock battle. In another location Roman centurions lashed and shouted at two hundred slaves who labored to move a huge stone monument toward its resting place.

Meanwhile the principal characters acted out, in close-up, their reactions to the battle on the hill. Their words were drowned out by the noise around them, but the dialogue was to be dubbed in later.

It took fifteen minutes to complete the scene. When it was over, DeMille yelled, “Cut!” and turned to his assistant, all smiles. “That was great!” he said.

“It was, C.B.,” the assistant yelled back. “It was fantastic! Everything went off perfectly!”

Enormously pleased, DeMille turned to face the head of his camera crew to find out if all the cameras had picked up what they had been assigned to film. He waved to the camera crew supervisor.

From the top of the hill, the camera supervisor waved back, raised his megaphone, and called out, “Ready when you are, C.B!”

One day a very learned preacher was met by an illiterate preacher who despised education. "Sir, you have been to college, I suppose?" "Yes, sir," was the reply. "I am thankful," replied the illiterate preacher, "that the Lord opened my mouth without any learning." "A similar event," answered the learned clergyman, "took place in Balaam's time, when his ass spoke; but such things are of rare occurrence in the present day. Maybe you are one of the rarities."

I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the best means, because we speak to so many at once. But it is usually far more effective to speak it privately to a particular person.

Try this simple experiment. Collect 365 little sticks, toothpicks, if you wish. Tie them together. Now try to break the bundle with your hands. No matter how strong you are, it will be a tough job. Make a smaller bundle, say 30, and it is still too difficult to break. But take just one at a time and, no matter how weak you are, you'll be able to break each one. You're exactly the same person who tried to handle all the sticks together, but this time you changed your way of solving the problem, and it became much easier. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Mat 6:34).

There it was-a tiny rosebud thrown in a heap with other uprooted and discarded rosebushes. Out of the tangled mass, one long stem pushed its way upward, thrusting forth its one tiny bud.

The rosebushes had been thrown away by a disgruntled homeowner who couldn't seem to get them to grow well. As the man passed by the heap, he noticed the little rosebud, but he went on his way. The next day he noticed that the bud still seemed to have life and was trying to bloom.

Donning gloves, he retrieved the bush on which that one bud clung tenaciously to life. He planted the bush and was rewarded several days later when a beautiful rose bloomed. Before long the whole bush came alive. In fact that one bush outbloomed and outgrew other rosebushes the man planted later. Each year the bush seemed to have one especially long stem with an exquisite red rose on it.

Because one tiny rosebud was unwilling to die, the whole bush was saved. In the same way, whole families have been won to the Savior because one child came to know Him first.

May we never lose hope for the children who need to know about Jesus and His love for them!

“Someone who is sent,” often “a messenger.” In the New Testament the word refers particularly to twelve men whom Jesus selected to be with him and whom he sent out to preach and to cast out demons (Mark 3:14-15). Other individuals than the Twelve bore that title--for example, Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:14). Apostles were important figures in the early church (1 Cor. 12:28). They were appointed by Christ, not by men (Gal. 1:1), and they gave authoritative witness to what God had done in Christ (Acts 1:22).

Some people are like the man who said he was afraid he was going to be of no use in the world because he had only one talent. "Oh, that need not discourage you," said his pastor. "What is your talent?" "The talent of judging others, of criticism." "Well, I advise you," said his pastor, "to do with it what the man of one talent did with his, bury it. Criticism may be useful when mixed with other talents, but those whose only activity is to criticize the workers might as well be buried, talent and all."

1. In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England.

2. In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England to be executed.

3. In 1776 one vote determined that English, not German, would be the American language.

4. In 1845, One vote brought Texas into the Union.

5. In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.

6. In 1875, one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.

7. In 1923, one vote gave Hitler control of the Nazi party.

8. In 1941, 12 weeks before Pearl Harbor, one vote saved the Selective Service.

9. In 1960, Richard Nixon lost the Presidential election and John F. Kennedy won it by less than one vote per precinct in the United States.

A Chinese Christian woman was preaching Christ to the scholar of a market town. He heard her courteously and after a little while said, "Madam, you speak well, but why do you dwell on Jesus Christ? Let Him alone. Instead of Jesus Christ, tell us about God." Whereupon she replied, "What, sir, should we know about God if it were not for Jesus Christ?" How true, and this is precisely the meaning of the second clause of Joh 1:18.

One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.

In his early years, American landscape photographer Ansel Adams studied piano and showed some talent. At one party, however, as Adams played Chopin’s F Major Nocturne he recalled that “In some strange way my right had started off in F-sharp major while my left had behaved well in F-major. I could not bring them together. I went through the entire nocturne with the hands separated by a half-step.”

The next day a fellow guest gave Adams a no-nonsense review of his performance: “You never missed a wrong note!”

Michael A. Guido of Metter, Georgia, columnist of several newspapers writes:

“An artist in Mexico lost his right hand while working on a statue. But he did not give up his work. He learned to carve with his left hand. His beautifully finished masterpiece was called ‘In Spite Of.’

A one-legged school teacher from Scotland came to J. Hudson Taylor to offer himself for service in China. “With only one leg, why do you think of going as a missionary?” Asked Taylor. “I do not see those with two legs going replied George Scott. He was accepted.

Former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau fought many duels with various rivals. On one occasion, he surprised his second by asking the attendant at a Paris railroad station for a one-way ticket to the duel. “Isn’t that a little pessimistic?” asked the second.

“Not at all,” Clemenceau replied. “I always use my opponent’s return ticket for the trip back.”

You will find that, as a rule, those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it.

Air travel has great advantages, but have you ever had to sit in a bus three hours while it circled around the depot?

It’s not very encouraging to know your bank deposits are protected by an agency of a federal government that’s $1.6 trillion in debt.

The old Scots minister climbed wearily into the pulpit. Bowed and dejected, he had just faced the harsh criticism of one of his deacons. "Sir, there is something radically wrong with your ministry. Only one person has been saved this year, and he is only a boy."

The words stung him, for he, too, felt heartbroken that so few had responded to the Gospel; yet still he trusted God for the results.

The service concluded, but the weary man of God lingered on in the church, wondering if there was any point continuing in the ministry. A young lad saw him and waited behind. Please, sir... ." "Yes, Robert?" "Do you think if I worked hard for my education that I could ever become a preacher?" "God bless you, my boy," replied the old man with tears in his eyes. "Yes, I think you will become a preacher!"

It was years later that an elderly missionary came back to London from Africa. He had pushed back the boundaries of geographical knowledge and brought savage chiefs under the influence of the Gospel of Peace, given tribes the Bible in their own tongues; but most of all, he had followed the Lord with all of his heart.

Robert Moffat-"only a boy," won to Christ by a tired old man-had become a soul winner!

On one visit to England, Robert told of the need of Africa. Among those who heard him that day was a young Scottish medical student who had given his life to God for missionary service. Robert Moffat's words pierced his heart: "There is a vast plain to the north where I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been."

Filled with the vision of what God wanted him to do, the student asked Mr. Moffat, "Would I do for Africa?" The direction of David Livingstone's life had been changed.

Who can tell what impact was made through the ministry of the first old Scotsman? "Only a boy" it seemed-yet far-off generations and tribes knew the effect of it!

You never know what God is doing and can do through your witness. Do not be discouraged. But trust and pray on!

The donkey awakened, his mind still savoring the afterglow of the most exciting day of his life. Never before had he felt such a rush of pleasure and pride.

He walked into town and found a group of people by the well. “I’ll show myself to them,” he thought.

But they didn’t notice him. They went on drawing their water and paid him no mind.

“Throw your garments down,” he said crossly. “Don’t you know who I am?”

They just looked at him in amazement. Someone slapped him across the tail and ordered him to move.

“Miserable heathens!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll just go to the market where the good people are. They will remember me.”

But the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey as he strutted down the main street in front of the market place.

“The palm branches! Where are the palm branches!” he shouted. “Yesterday, you threw palm branches!”

Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to his mother.

“Foolish child,” she said gently. “Don’t you realize that without Him, you are just an ordinary donkey?”

Just like the donkey who carried Jesus in Jerusalem, we are most fulfilled when we are in the service of Jesus Christ. Without him, all our best efforts are like “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) and amount to nothing. When we lift up Christ, however, we are no longer ordinary people, but key players in God’s plan to redeem the word.

At the Grand Canyon, a guide took a group of tourists to the southern rim. Among the sightseers were an artist, a minister, and a cowboy. After they had beheld the spectacle for a few minutes, the guide asked the artist, "Could you paint a picture like that?" "Never!" the artist replied. "Only God could make that scene." The guide then turned to the minister. "Could you describe such grandeur in a sermon, Pastor?" The minister shook his head. "No, sir. Such majesty defies mortal description." Finally he turned to the cowboy. "And what do you think about this Grand Canyon, partner?" The cowboy answered in wonderment, "I was just thinking-what an awful place to lose a cow!" The unsaved look at Christ and see a good teacher, a moral man but not the Son of God.

In The Last Days Newsletter, Leonard Ravenhill tells about a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village who walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked, “Were any great men born in this village? “The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.” A frothy question brought a profound answer. There are no instant heroes—whether in this world or in the kingdom of God. Growth takes time, and as I Timothy 3:6 and 5:22 point out, even spiritual leadership must be earned.

In 1715 King Louis XIV of France died after a reign of 72 years. He had called himself “the Great,” and was the monarch who made the famous statement, “I am the state!” His court was the most magnificent in Europe, and his funeral was equally spectacular. As his body lay in state in a golden coffin, orders were given that the cathedral should be very dimly lit with only a special candle set above his coffin, to dramatize his greatness. At the memorial, thousands waited in hushed silence. Then Bishop Massilon began to speak; slowly reaching down, he snuffed out the candle and said, “Only God is great.”

We sometimes criticize others unfairly. We don't know all their circumstances, nor their motives. Only God, who is aware of all the facts, is able to judge people righteously.

John Wesley told of a man he had little respect for because he considered him to be miserly and covetous. One day when this person contributed only a small gift to a worthy charity, Wesley openly criticized him. After the incident, the man went to Wesley privately and told him he had been living on parsnips and water for several weeks. He explained that before his conversion, he had run up many bills. Now, by skimping on everything and buying nothing for himself he was paying off his creditors one by one. "Christ has made me an honest man," he said, "and so with all these debts to pay, I can give only a few offerings above my tithe. I must settle up with my worldly neighbors and show them what the grace of God can do in the heart of a man who was once dishonest."

Wesley then apologized to the man and asked his forgiveness.

I knelt and said, “But I am one, only one.”

And the world is so large. And the evil is so strong.

There are so few who care. There are so few who sense.

“But I am one, only one.”

The machines of organization roll on,

crushing the individual into a part of the mass.

The hopelessness of the world-wrought minds spreads

and smothers the hope of the lonely individuals.

“But I am one, only one.”

Entire cities have been destroyed.

Entire nations have reaped their seeds of distrust

and lie writhing in their death throes.

“But I am one, only one.”

While I eat my fill, hundreds die in hunger.

While I close my door in careless safety,

hundreds watch doors in fear and resignation.

“But I am one, only one.”

The powers of mind and thought and measurement

reduce the world to calculated probabilities.

“But I am one, only one.”

And even that one walks in fear and stumbling,

discontent, and lack of strength.

“And I am one, only one.”

And he said, “Stand up, I choose you.”

And I stood up and the earth trembled,

and that is the beginning to which there is no end,

except in God.

Noted Bible teacher E. Schuyler English told of Michael Billester, a Bible distributor who visited a small hamlet in Poland shortly before World War II. Billester gave a Bible to a villager, who was converted by reading it. The new believer then passed the Book on to others. The cycle of conversions and sharing continued until 200 people had become believers through that one Bible.

When Billeser returned in 1940, this group of Christians met together for a worship service in which he was to preach the Word. He normally asked for testimonies, but this time he suggested that several in the audience recite verses of Scripture. One man stood and said, “Perhaps we have misunderstood. Did you mean verses or chapters?”

These villagers had not memorized a few select verses of the Bible but whole chapters and books. Thirteen people knew Matthew, Luke, and half of Genesis. Another person had committed to memory the Psalms. That single copy of the Bible given by Billester had done its work. Transformed lives bore witness to the power of the Word.

Charles H. Spurgeon made a penetrating observation when he said there were many rooms in the ark but only one door. Similarly, there is only one door in the ark of our salvation, and that is Christ.

With a shining quarter, a tiny little boy went into a candy store. With the utmost seriousness, studying each assortment with deep thoughtfulness, he wandered from case to case. Tired of waiting, his mother called, "Hurry, son, spend your quarter. We must be going." The child replied, "But Mama, I have got to spend it carefully; I only have one."

You, too, have only one life. How are you spending it?

When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes the cynic, he asked what he could do for Diogenes. The cynic answered that there was only one thing which Alexander could do for Diogenes, and that was to abstain from standing between him and the sun. There are many great and mighty people who like to stand between God and man, but they only obscure man's vision of God. Only Jesus Christ, God incarnate, can bring God as the regenerating and transforming Spirit into our experience.

About three years ago I was driving home after church, just about sunset. It was one of those cloudy days we have here in Mississippi, where the clouds were streaked across the sky from one horizon to the other. Almost in a matter of minutes the gray sky was transformed by the colors from the setting sun, and I promise you, the sky in the east was just as bright and colorful as the sky in the west. The entire sky was lit up with intensely bright reds, oranges, yellows and even blues. And there was only one response I could make. I had to pull over and get out of my car. I stood there and looked and watched and marveled, and yes, even applauded!� My heart swelled with adoration and praise�and worship. That�s the one response a heart filled with wonder can make, whether it is hearing the wind blow through the trees, or seeing the face of a laughing child, or finding something you had lost, or studying a waterfall, or discovering some marvelous gem from the Scriptures. Worship.

It is said when one of the most noted English physicians was succumbing to a fatal disease, he went from one authority to another until he had reached the highest on the continent. Telling this man his trouble, he received the reply, "The only man who can save you is an English physician, Dr. Darwin of Derby." Sad was the reply, "I am Dr. Darwin of Derby." He was the best, but he could not save himself. Even the best of us cannot save ourselves.

Jane, a deeply religious woman, presumed that the Virgin Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, could do the work of her Son just as effectively as He. And of course, being a woman, she identified more with a female. She was discussing her religious beliefs with a friend who, on the other hand, believed that no one could be what Jesus Christ was and is, and that no one else could effect the work of salvation in the human heart. But nothing could persuade Jane. The friend who believed in the exclusiveness of Jesus Christ to save was employed as a maid in a doctor's home. One day Jane became seriously ill and called for the doctor, her friend's employer. The friend answered the phone and said, "I am sorry, but the doctor is not in." Then this Christian woman, who had put all her trust in Jesus Christ, thought of all the theological discussions that she had had with her friend and added, "But, Jane, you know the doctor's mother is in. Maybe she can help you." "Is she a doctor?" "No, but she is the doctor's mother. She will do, won't she?" Immediately Jane could see what her friend was driving at. She wanted to show her in this vivid way that Mary, although highly respected and honored, cannot do the work of her Son.

CBS News anchor Dan Rather admits he was always fascinated by the sport of boxing, even though he was never good at it. “In boxing you’re on your own; there’s no place to hide,” he says. “At the end of the match only one boxer has his hand up. That’s it. He has no one to credit or to blame except himself.”

Rather, who boxed in high school, says his coach’s greatest goal was to teach his boxers that they absolutely, positively, without question, had to be “get up” fighters. “If you’re in a ring just once in your life—completely on your own—and you get knocked down but you get back up again, it’s an never-to-be-forgotten experience. Your sense of achievement is distinct and unique. And sometimes the only thing making you get up is someone in your corner yelling.”

Thirty young men, dressed in shrouds (and thus, nearly naked), were led to the scaffold. The morning was bitter, the temperature below freezing, as they were compelled to stand for half an hour while the burial service was slowly read.

Facing them stood the soldiers with their muskets. A pile of coffins was stacked suggestively in a corner of the yard. At the last moment, with the muskets actually at the shoulders of the guards, a white flag was waved, and it was announced that the czar had commuted the sentence to ten years’ exile in Siberia.

Several of the prisoners lost their reason under the strain; several others died shortly afterward. Fyodor Dostoyevski passed courageously through the ordeal, but it affected his nerves; he never recalled the experience without a shudder, and he referred to it with horror in several of his books.

On Christmas Eve, 1849, he commenced the dreadful journey to Omsk and remained in Siberia “like a man buried alive, nailed down in his coffin.” On his arrival in that desolate region, two women slipped a New Testament into his hand and, taking advantage of a moment when the officer’s back was turned, whispered to him to search it carefully at his leisure. Between the pages he found twenty-five rubles. The money was a comfort to him; but the New Testament itself proved to be infinitely more.

His daughter, Aimee, tells us in her book Fyodor Dostoyevski: A Study (1921) that during his exile the little New Testament was his only solace. “He studied the precious volume from cover to cover, pondered every word; learned much of it by heart; and never forgot it. All his works are saturated with it, and it is this which gives them their power.

“Many of his admirers have said to me that it was a strange chance that ordained that my father should have only the gospels to read during the most important and formative years of his life. But was it a chance? Is there such a thing as chance in our lives? The work of Jesus is not finished; in each generation he chooses his disciples, beckons to them to follow Him, and gives them the same power over the human heart that He gave to the poor fishermen of Galilee.”

Aimee Dostoyevski believed it was by that divine hand that the Testament was presented to her father that day. “Throughout his life,” she adds, “he would never be without his old prison Testament, the faithful friend that had consoled him in the darkest hours of his life. He always took it with him on his travels and kept it in a drawer in his writing-table, within reach of his hand. He consulted it in the important moments of his life.”

In Siberia, Dostoyevski discovered the beauty of the parable of the prodigal son. Siberia was the far country. It was there that he was the prodigal among the husks and the swine. His companions were the lowest of the low and the vilest of the vile.

“Imagine,” he said, “an old crazy wooden building that should long ago have been broken up as useless. In the summer it is unbearable hot, in the winter unbearable cold. All the boards are rotten. On the ground filth lies an inch thick: every instant one is in danger of slipping. The small windows are so frozen over that even by day one can scarcely read: The ice on the panes is three inches thick. We are packed like herrings in a barrel. The atmosphere is intolerable: the prisoners stink like pigs: there are vermin by the bushel: we sleep upon bare boards.”

In the midst of this disgusting and degrading scene was Dostoyevski. At first glance he was by no means an attractive figure. He was small and slender, round-shouldered and thick-necked. He was clothed in convict-motley, one pant leg black, the other gray; the colors of his coat likewise divided; his head half-shaved and bent forward in deep thought.

His face was half the face of a Russian peasant and half the face of a dejected criminal. He was shy, taciturn, rather ugly and extremely awkward. He had a flattened nose; small, piercing eyes under eyelashes that trembled with nervousness; and a long, thick, untidy beard with fair hair. The stamp of his epilepsy was distinctly upon him. You could see all this at a glance, and the glance was not alluring. But Nekrassov, the poet, gives us a different picture, the scene as the convicts saw it. In this picture Dostoyevski appeared almost sublime. He moved among his fellow prisoners with his New Testament in his hand, telling them its stories and reading to them its words of comfort and grace. He seemed to them a kind of prophet, gently rebuking their blasphemies and excesses, and speaking to them of poetry, of science, of God and of the love of Christ. It was his way of pointing the prodigal to the path that leads to the Father’s heart and the Father’s home. For this was the treasure he found in that New Testament. This was the beauty of the story of the prodigal son. It revealed the way to the Father.

“One sees the truth more clearly when one is unhappy,” he wrote from Siberia. “And yet God gives me moments of perfect peace; in such moments I love and believe that I am loved; in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simply: here it is. I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly and more perfect than the Saviour: I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one.”

On his bended knees, Dostoyevski blessed God for sending him into the Siberian steppes. For it was amidst those stern and awful solitudes that he, a homesick and penitent prodigal, found the road that leads to the Father’s house. The parable that had opened to him a paradise in the midst of perdition was in his thoughts through all the years that followed.

After his return from Siberia, he found life anything but easy. Through voluntarily taking over the debts of his dead brother, his finances had become involved. Moreover, he had fallen into the clutches of an unscrupulous publisher, for whom he had contracted to write a novel on the understanding that, if it was not finished by a certain date, all the author’s copyrights would fall into the publisher’s hands.

As the date approached, the impossibility of the task became evident, and ruin stared him in the face. Somebody advised him to get a stenographer, but no stenographer could be found. There was, it is true, a girl of nineteen who knew shorthand, but lady stenographers were unknown then. And the girl doubted if her people would consent to her taking the appointment.

Dostoyevski’s fame, however, removed the parents’ scruples, and she set to work. On her way to the novelist’s house, she told her daughter afterward, she tried to imagine what their first session would be like.

We shall work for an hour, she thought, and them we shall talk of literature.. But Dostoyevski had been seized by an epileptic fit the night before. He was absentminded, nervous and peremptory. He seemed quite unconscious of the charms of his young stenographer and treated her as a kind of Remington typewriter. He dictated the first chapter of his novel in a harsh voice, complained she did not write fast enough, made her read aloud what he had dictated, scolded her and declared she had not understood him. She was crushed and left the house determined never to return. But she thought better of it during the night and the next morning resumed her post.

Little by little, Dostoyevski became conscious that his Remington machine was not only a charming young girl but also an ardent admirer of his genius. He confided his troubles to her, and she pitied him. In her girlish dream, she had pictured him petted and pampered; instead, she saw a sick man—weary, badly fed, badly lodged, badly served—hunted down by merciless creditors and exploited by selfish relatives.

She conceived the idea of protecting Dostoyevski, of sharing the heavy burden he had taken on his shoulders and of comforting him in his sorrows. She was not in love with this man, who was more than twenty-five years her senior, but she understood his beautiful soul and reverenced his genius.

he determined to save Dostoyevski from his publishers. Begging him to prolong the hours of dictation, she then spent the night copying out what she had taken down in the day and worked with such good will that, to the chagrin of the avaricious publisher, the novel was ready on the appointed day. And, shortly afterward, Dostoyevski married her.

And then, fifteen years afterward, Dostoyevski was dying (the funeral was on the anniversary of the wedding). “He made us come into the room,” his daughter recalled, “and, taking our little hands in his, he begged my mother to read the parable of the prodigal son. He listened with his eyes closed, absorbed in his thoughts. ‘My children,’ he said in his feeble voice, ‘never forget what you have just heard. Have absolute faith in God and never despair of His pardon. I love you dearly, but my love is nothing compared with the love of God. Even if you should be so unhappy as to commit some dreadful crime, never despair of God. You are His children; humble yourselves before Him, as before your father; implore His pardon, and He will rejoice over your repentance, as the father rejoiced over that of the prodigal son.’”

A few minutes later, Dostoyevski passed triumphantly away. “I have been present,” said Aimee Dostoyevski, “at many deathbeds, but none was so radiant as that of my father. He saw without fear the end approaching.”

Russia, which has witnessed so many tragic and dramatic happenings, never was a funeral like that of Fyodor Dostoyevski. Forty thousand men followed the coffin to the grave.

“When I heard of Dostoyevski’s death,” said Tolstoy, “I felt that I had lost a kinsman, the closest and the dearest, and the one of whom I had most need.” Clearly, we have here a man among men; a man who stirred the hearts of thousands; a man who, through his books, still speaks to multitudes. What is the secret of his deep and widespread influence? It is rooted in the story of the prodigal son.

Take up any of his books, and you will catch fitful glimpses of the battered volume in which he learned of the Father’s love for His most wayward children. Near the close of The Possessed, Stepan Trofimovitch is taken ill, and Sofya Matveyevna sits by his couch, reading. What is she reading? Two striking passages from the New Testament.

And in Crime and Punishment there occurs a particularly poignant scene. It describes Raskolnikoff, the conscience-stricken and self-tormented murderer, creeping at dead of night to the squalid waterside hovel in which Sonia lives. Sonia was part of the city’s flotsam and jetsam. The relationship between these two was one of sympathy. Each had sinned terribly, and each had sinned for the sake of others rather than for self.

On a rickety little table in Sonia’s room stands a tallow candle fixed in an improved candlestick of twisted metal. In the course of earnest conversation, Sonia glances at a book lying on a chest of drawers. Raskolnikoff takes it down. It is a New Testament. He hands it to Sonia and begs her to read it to him.“Sonia opens the book: her hands tremble: the words stick in her throat. Twice she tries without being able to utter a syllable.” At length she succeeds. And then —“She closes the book: she seems afraid to raise her eyes on Raskolnikoff: her feverish trembling continues. The dying piece of candle dimly lights up this low-ceilinged room in which and assassin and a harlot have just read the Book of Books.”

This is in the middle of the story. On the last page, when Raskolnikoff and Sonia have both been purified by suffering, Raskolnikoff is still cherishing in his prison cell the New Testament which, at his earnest request, Sonia has brought him. There is Raskolnikoff—most prodigal of prodigal sons— and there is Sonia—most prodigal of prodigal daughters—bending together over the living page that points all prodigals to the Father’s house.

The candle in Sonia’s wretched room burned lower and lower, and at last sputtered out. But the candle that, in a Siberian prison, illumined Dostoyevski’s soul, grew taller and taller the longer it burned.

Arthur Brisbane once pictured a crowd of grieving caterpillars carrying the corpse of a cocoon to its final resting place. The poor, distressed caterpillars, clad in black raiment, were weeping, and all the while the beautiful butterfly fluttered happily above the muck and mire of earth, forever freed from its earthly shell. Needless to say, Brisbane had the average orthodox funeral in mind and sought to convey the idea that when our loved ones pass, it is foolish to remember only the cocoon and concentrate our attention on the remains, while forgetting the bright butterfly.

Believe as I believe—no more, no less;

That I am right (and no one else) confess.

Feel as I feel, think only as I think;

Eat what I eat, and drink but what I drink.

Look as I look, do always as I do;

And then—and only then—I’ll fellowship with you.

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. - Gloria Pitzer

John Bate said, "Today is given us by Him to whom belong days. We have the power to use it as we please; we compass our salvation or our damnation within it; we can travel twenty-four hours of time nearer to heaven or to hell. We are responsible for its proper use. How important that we do the proper work of today in the sphere of today. That man is blessed who, at the close of his day, can look upon his finished work and anticipate tomorrow as bringing nothing but the things which legitimately belong to it. Today God speaks to us in His Word that we harden not our hearts. Today is the day of salvation. All duties, all privileges, all trials, all joys, all sorrows; in one word, everything we have, we have today. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not, only today is ours, and only in today do we hold all our possessions."

“While witnessing for Christ on the streets of a city in California, evangelist H.A. Ironside and his associates were often interrupted by questions from the crowd. “There are hundreds of religions in this country, and the followers of each sect think they’re right. How can poor plain people like us find out what really is the truth?”

Ironside and his friends would answer something like this: “Did I hear you say there are hundreds of religions? That’s strange; I’ve heard of only two. True, I find many shades of difference in the opinions of those comprising the two great schools. But after all, there are but two. The one covers all who expect salvation by doing; the other, all who have been saved by something done.”

“Without God’s explanatory word, God’s redemptive action could not be recognized for what it was. The clearest revelation of God (the incarnation) is nevertheless the most opaque to man.”

There was a gift for each of us left under the tree of life 2,000 years ago by Him whose birthday we celebrate today.

The gift was withheld from no man Some have left the packages unclaimed Some have accepted the gift and carry it around, but have failed to remove the wrappings and look inside to discover the hidden splendor The packages are all alike: in each is a scroll on which is written, "All that the Father hath is thine Take and live!"

In 1887 the coffin of Abraham Lincoln was pried open to determine if it contained his body. What makes that act so remarkable is the fact that Lincoln’s body had rested in that coffin for 22 years. Yet, even more amazing is that 14 years later a rumor circulated again that Lincoln’s coffin was actually empty. The furor so gripped the land that the only way to silence it was to dig up the coffin—again. This was done and the rumor silenced when a handful of witnesses viewed the lifeless body of Abraham Lincoln.

Allan Bloom writes: “Openness—and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”

Allan Bloom writes:

“Openness—and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings—is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”

Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” was a failure when it was first performed. Even though the singers chosen for the leading roles were the best of the day, everything went wrong. The tenor had a cold and sang in a hoarse, almost inaudible voice. The soprano who played the part of the delicate, sickly heroine was one of the stoutest ladies on or off stage, and very healthy and loud. At the beginning of the Third Act when the doctor declares that consumption was wasted away the “frail, young lady” and she cannot live more than a few hours, the audience was thrown into a spasm of laughter, a state very different from that necessary to appreciate the tragic moment!

While serving with Operation Mobilization in India in 1967, I spent several months in a TB sanitarium with tuberculosis. After finally being admitted into the sanitarium, I tried to give tracts to the patients, doctors, and nurses, but no one would take them. You could tell that they weren’t really happy with me, a rich American (to them all Americans were rich), being in a government sanitarium. They didn’t know that serving with O.M., I was just as broke as they were!

I was quite discouraged with being sick, having everyone angry at me, not being able to witness because of the language barrier, and no one even bothering to take a tract or Gospel of John. The first few nights, I would wake around 2:00 a.m. coughing. One morning as I was going through my coughing spell, I noticed one of the older (and certainly sicker) patients across the aisle trying to get out of bed. He would sit up on the edge of the bed and try to stand, but because of weakness would fall back into bed. I really didn’t understand what was happening or what he was trying to do. He finally fell back into bed exhausted. I then heard him begin to cry softly.

The next morning I realized what the man was trying to do. He was simply trying to get up and walk to the bathroom! Because of his sickness and extreme weakness he was not able to do this, and being so ill he simply went to the toilet in the bed.

The next morning the stench in our ward was awful. Most of the other patients yelled insults at the man because of the smell. The nurses were extremely agitated and angry because they had to clean up the mess, and moved him roughly from side to side to take care of the problem. One of the nurses in her anger even slapped him. The man, terribly embarrassed, just curled up into a ball and wept.

The next night, also around 2:00 a.m., I again awoke coughing. I noticed the man across the aisle sit up to again try to make his way to the washroom. However, still being so weak, he fell back whimpering as the night before. I’m just like most of you. I don’t like bad smells. I didn’t want to become involved. I was sick myself but before I realized what had happened, not knowing why I did it, I got out of my bed and went over to the old man. He was still crying and did not hear me approach. As I reached down and touched his shoulder, his eyes opened with a fearful questioning look. I simply smiled, put my arm under his head and neck, and my other arm under his legs, and picked him up.

Even though I was sick and weak, I was certainly stronger than he was. He was extremely light because of his old age and advanced TB. I walked down the hall to the washroom, which was really just a smelly, filthy small room with a hole in the floor. I stood behind him with my arms under his arms, holding him so he could take care of himself. After he finished, I picked him up and carried him back to his bed. As I began to lay him down, with my head next to his, he kissed me on the cheek, smiled, and said something which I suppose was “thank you.”

It was amazing what happened the next morning. One of the other patients whom I didn’t know woke me around 4:00 with a steaming cup of delicious Indian tea. He then made motions with his hands (he knew no English) indicating he wanted a tract. As the sun came up, some of the other patients began to approach, motioning that they would also like one of the booklets I had tried to distribute before. Throughout the day people came to me, asking for the Gospel booklets. This included the nurses, the hospital interns, the doctors, until everybody in the hospital had a tract, booklet, or Gospel of John. Over the next few days, several indicated they trusted Christ as Savior as a result of reading the Good News!

What did it take to reach these people with the Good News of salvation in Christ? It certainly wasn’t health. It definitely wasn’t the ability to speak or to give an intellectually moving discourse. Health, and the ability to communicate sensitively to other cultures and peoples are all very important, but what did God use to open their hearts to the Gospel? I simply took an old man to the bathroom. Anyone could have done that! - Doug Nichols

A Christian farmer was constantly jeered at by a non-Christian because he would not work on Sunday, went to church, and gave his tithes to the Lord's work. At the end of a poor harvest season the non-Christian said to him, "Where is your God? He has certainly failed you, hasn't He?" "Oh, no," the Christian said, "my God does not close His books at the end of the harvest season."

A businessman on his way to prayer meeting saw a stranger looking in the door of the church. He invited him to come inside with him. "All right," said the stranger. That was the beginning of a Christian life for him and his family. He afterward told the man who invited him, "I lived in the city for seven years before I met you. No one had ever asked me to go to church. I wasn't here three days before the grocer, the dairy man, the insurance man, and the politician called on me. You are the first one to invite me to church." And it took seven years! Don't wait to pick and choose among the souls of men, but consider anybody you meet as God's field for you to work in.

There was a very cautious man

Who never laughed or played;

He never risked, he never tried,

He never sang or prayed.

And when he one day passed away

His insurance was denied;

For since he never really lived,

They claimed he never died!

The opposite of wisdom is folly, meaning the short-term self-indulgence which marks out the person who doesn’t think about long-term priorities and goals but lives on a day-to-day basis, asking, “What is the most fun thing to do now?”

I discovered I didn’t feel worth a damn, and certainly not worthy of love, unless I was accomplishing something. I suddenly realized I have never felt I could be loved just for being.

When architect Sir Christopher Wren designed the interior of Windsor Town Hall near London in 1689, he built a ceiling supported by pillars. After city fathers had inspected the finished building, they decided the ceiling would not stay up and ordered Wren to put in some more pillars.

England’s greatest architect didn’t think the ceiling needed any more support, so he pulled a fast one. He added four pillars that did not do anything -- they don’t even reach the ceiling. The optical illusion fooled the municipal authorities, and today the four sham pillars amuse many a tourist.

Psychologist Martin Segilman of the University of Pennsylvania advised the MetLife insurance company to hire a special groups of job applicants who tested high on optimism, although they had failed the normal aptitude test. Compared with salesmen who passed the aptitude test but scored high in pessimism, this group made 21 percent more sales in their first year and 57 percent more in their second. A pessimist is likely to interpret rejection as meaning “I’m a failure; I’ll never make a sale.” Optimists tell themselves, “I’m using the wrong approach,” or “That customer was in a bad mood.” By blaming failure on the situation, not themselves, optimists are motivated to make that next call.

1. Arrival at Golgotha (Calvary), Mt 27:33; Mk 15:22; Lk 23:33; Jn 19:17

2. Offer of a benumbing drink, Mt 27:34

3. The crucifixion, Mt 27:35

4. Cry, ‘Father, forgive...’, Lk 23:34

5. The parting of Christ’s garments, Mt 27:35

6. Jesus mocked, Mt 27:39-44; Mk 15:29

7. The thieves rail on Him, but one believes, Mt 27:44

8. Second cry, “Today you will be with me...’, Lk 23:43

9. Third cry, ‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ Jn 19:26-27

10. The darkness, Mt 27:45; Mk 15:33

11. The fourth cry, ‘My God, my God...’, Mt 27:46-47; Mk 15:34-36

12. Fifth cry, ‘I am thirsty,’ Jn 19:28

13. Sixth cry, ‘It is finished,’ Jn 19:30

14. Seventh cry, ‘Father, into thy hands...,’ Lk 23:46

15. Jesus dismisses His spirit, Mt 27:50; Mk 15:37

The Order of the Mustard Seed founded by Count Zinzendorf had three guiding principles, namely:

1. Be kind to all people.

2. Seek their welfare.

3. Win them to Christ.

When someone asked a missionary if he liked his work in Africa, he replied: "Do I like this work? No, my wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into huts through goats' refuse. We do not like association with ignorant, filthy, brutish people. But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? If not, then God pity him. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to 'go'and we go. Love constrains us" (2Co_5:14).

After physicist Richard Feynman won a Nobel prize for his work, he visited his old high school. While there, he decided to look up his records.

He was surprised to find that his grades were not as good as he had remembered them. And he got a kick out of the fact that his IQ was 124, not much above average.

Dr. Feynman saw that winning the Nobel prize was one thing, but to win it with an IQ of only 124 was really something. Most of us would agree because we all assume that the winners of Nobel prizes have exceptionally high IQs. Feynman confided that he always assumed that he had.

If Feynman had known he was really just a bit above average in the IQ department, we wonder if he would have had the audacity to launch the unique and creative research experiments that would eventually win him the greatest recognition the scientific community can give.

Perhaps not. Maybe the knowledge that he was a cut above average, but not in the genius category, would have influenced what he tried to achieve. After all, from childhood most of us have been led to believe that ordinary people don’t accomplish extraordinary feats.

Most of us fall short of our potential because of little things we know or assume about ourselves. And the most self-defeating assumption of all is that we are just like everyone else.

Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, K. Kantzer, S. Gundry, Baker, 1979, “The Positive Case for the Ordination of Women,” E. M. Howe, p. 267

Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, K. Kantzer, S. Gundry, Baker, 1979, “The Negative Case Against the Ordination of Women,” R. L. Saucy, p. 277

In his book, Men at Work, George F. Will takes a close look at four baseball players. One of those examined is Orel Hershiser (of Dodgers fame), who talks about his philosophy of pitching.

“There are two theories of pitching,” Hershiser says. “One is that you try to convince the batter that a particular pitch is coming and you throw something different. The other theory, that you don’t hear as much, but that I use, is that if the batter expects a particular pitch, you throw it, but you throw it in a place where he can’t hit it.” That is: Know what a batter wants or expects and throw the ball almost there. If he is a highball hitter, throw it a bit too high. His eagerness will prevent him from laying off it, but it will be hard to hit well.

Isn’t that the way the enemy works in our life? He knows just what kind of pitch that we are a sucker for and then throws it our way. But, it is just a little higher or just a little bit more outside than where we like it, and most likely we will bite on it every time. After all, it looks so good. It feels so right.

No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable. It is the test of an organization to make ordinary human beings perform better than they seem capable of, to bring out whatever strength there is in its members, and to use each man’s strength to help all the others perform. The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things. - Peter F. Drucker

When I was a small boy, I attended church every Sunday at a big Gothic Presbyterian bastion in Chicago. The preaching was powerful and the music was great. But for me, the most awesome moment in the morning service was the offertory, when twelve solemn, frock-coated ushers marched in lock-step down the main aisle to receive the brass plates for collecting the offering. These men, so serious about their business of serving the Lord in this magnificent house of worship, were the business and professional leaders of Chicago.

One of the twelve ushers was a man named Frank Loesch. He was not a very imposing looking man, but in Chicago he was a living legend, for he was the man who had stood up to Al Capone. In the prohibition years, Capone’s rule was absolute. The local and state police and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation were afraid to oppose him. But single-handedly, Frank Loesch, as a Christian layman and without any government support, organized the Chicago Crime Commission, a group of citizens who were determined to take Mr. Capone to court and put him away.

During the months that the Crime Commission met, Frank Loesch’s life was in constant danger. There were threats on the lives of his family and friends. But he never wavered. Ultimately he won the case against Capone and was the instrument for removing this blight from the city of Chicago. Frank Loesch had risked his life to live out his faith.

Each Sunday at this point of the service, my father, a Chicago businessman himself, never failed to poke me and silently point to Frank Loesch with pride. Sometime I’d catch a tear in my father’s eye. For my dad and for all of us this was and is what authentic living is all about.

When Oxford and Cambridge Universities decided to admit commoners as students in the 1600s, the unprecedented flood of new innovative thought had a tremendous impact on British society. Each student was listed on the record by name and title. The commoners’ names were listed with the Latin inscription, Sine Nobilitate, meaning without nobility. The abbreviation was S. Nob., which within the rigid class systems of the time had both positive and negative connotations. The word “snob” is still in use today.

The Pledge of Allegiance is not a verse composed by the Founding Fathers of our republic. It was written especially for children in the summer is 1892 to commemorate that year’s celebration of Columbus Day in public schools through out the country.

The pledge first appeared in print on September 8, 1892, in The Youth’s Companion, an educational publication. In its original form, it read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which is stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.” Its author was Francis Bellamy, an assistant editor of The Youth’s Companion, who intended it for a one-time recitation. But its immediate popularity transformed it first into an annual Columbus Day tradition and then into a daily classroom ritual. It became one of the earliest verses memorized by students.

Since its debut, Bellamy’s pledge has undergone two major alterations. In 1923, the National Flag Conference of the American Legion replaced the somewhat ambiguously personal “my Flag” wording with the more explicitly patriotic “the Flag of the United States of America.” And in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill that added the words “Under God.”

When John Todd, a nineteenth-century clergyman, was six years old, both his parents died. A kind-hearted aunt raised him until he left home to study for the ministry. Later, this aunt became seriously ill, and in distress she wrote Todd a letter. Would death mean the end of everything, or could she hope for something beyond? Here, condensed from The Autobiography of John Todd, is the letter he sent in reply:

“It is now thirty-five years since I, as a boy of six, was left quite alone in the world. You sent me word you would give me a home and be a kind mother to me. I have never forgotten the day I made the long journey to your house. I can still recall my disappointment when, instead of coming for me yourself, you sent your servant, Caesar, to fetch me.

“I remember my tears and anxiety as, perched high on your horse and clinging tight to Caesar, I rode off to my new home. Night fell before we finished the journey, and I became lonely and afraid. ‘Do you think she’ll go to bed before we get there?’ I asked Caesar.

‘Oh no!’ he said reassuringly, ‘She’ll stay up for you. When we get out o’ these here woods, you’ll see her candle shinin’ in the window.’

“Presently we did ride out into the clearing, and there, sure enough, was your candle. I remember you were waiting at the door, that you put your arms close about me—a tired and bewildered little boy. You had a fire burning on the hearth, a hot supper waiting on the stove. After supper you took me to my new room, heard me say my prayers, and then sat beside me till I fell asleep.

“Some day soon God will send for you, to take you to a new home. Don’t fear the summons, the strange journey, or the messenger of death. God can be trusted to do as much for you as you were kind enough to do for me so many years ago. At the end of the road you will find love and a welcome awaiting, and you will be safe in God’s care.”

Vernon Grounds

No more convincing evidence of the absence of parental affection exists than that compiled by Rene Spitz. In a South American orphanage, Spitz observed and recorded what happened to 97 children who were deprived of emotional and physical contact with others. Because of a lack of funds, there was not enough staff to adequately care for these children, ages 3 months to 3 years old. Nurses changed diapers and fed and bathed the children. But there was little time to hold, cuddle, and talk to them as a mother would. After three months many of them showed signs of abnormality. Besides a loss of appetite and being unable to sleep well, many of the children lay with a vacant expression in their eyes. After five months, serious deterioration set in.

They lay whimpering, with troubled and twisted faces. Often, when a doctor or nurse would pick up an infant, it would scream in terror. Twenty seven, almost one third, of the children died the first year, but not from lack of food or health care. They died of a lack of touch and emotional nurture. Because of this, seven more died the second year. Only twenty one of the 97 survived, most suffering serious psychological damage.

Oscar Wilde said, “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” So stop getting up at 6:05. Get up at 5:06. Walk a mile at dawn. Find a new way to drive to work. Switch chores with your spouse next Saturday. Buy a wok. Study wildflowers. Stay up alone all night. Read to the blind. Start counting brown-eyed blondes. Subscribe to an out-of-town paper. Canoe at midnight. Don’t write to your Congressman; take a whole scout troop to see him. Learn to speak Italian. Teach some kid the thing you do best. Listen to two hours of uninterrupted Mozart. Take up aerobic dancing. Leap out of that rut. Savor life. Remember, we pass this way only once.