Flotsam And Jetsam
This is one page where the editor is not particularly worried about giving credit. Which means that everything on this page is original — with somebody. And practically NOTHING on it is original with the editor. It will be made up of odds and ends (more the former than the latter) that float around an editor's desk--or have been jettisoned by somebody else as being a hindrance at the moment. Hence, flotsam and jetsam. Get it? Okay; now forget it. There's no telling what you are liable to find here; or who said it; or why.
For instance, this one about Hollywood marriages being like a certain brand of potato chip that has had some pretty clever TV advertising. You know, nobody can stop with just one.
Remember H. L. Mencken? He was particularly loathsome to Bible-loving people of a generation back. The Jackson Mississippi News once printed this note: "Mencken, with his filthy verbal hemorrhages, is so low down in the moral scale, so damnably dirty, so vile and degenerate, that when his time comes to die it will take a special dispensation from Heaven to raise him even to the level of the bottom-most pit in hell."!
That "New Testament from 26 Translations" just issued this week by Zondervan sounds like a pretty good idea. It gives you instant access to the complete King James Version plus the most significant alternate renderings from twenty-five other translations. You can get it now for the introductory price of only $9.95; but after December 31 the price will be $12.50. We've ordered a supply, and we HOPE they will be on hand by the time YOU order from us.
Speaking of vituperation (as we were a couple of paragraphs back) have you ever read what Martin Luther wrote about Henry VIII? Among other less pleasant and more earthy epithets he called His Royal Majesty, "a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon, a mad fool with a frothy mouth." Whew!
Then there is the story they tell about J. D. Tant (the editor's father, not his son). Seems like he held a fine meeting for some church somewhere, and the brethren were most anxious to have him return. Said they, "We'd love to have you back next year; but just don't feel like we are able to pay for a meeting. " Said Tant: "Brethren, I'll make you a proposition: Every time you buy a sack of tobacco or a plug or chew, just put an equal amount of money into the treasury and save it for the meeting next year. I will be glad to come for one-half of what you have in the treasury, and be satisfied with it." They were elated --until they got off and did some figuring. Then they informed Tant that they couldn't take him up because, "We've never paid that kind of money for preaching... and don't think any preacher is worth it!"
Some time ago Brother Gayle Oler of Boles Home wrote in the Home NEWS: "A random sampling of 100 congregations in CHURCHES OF TODAY produced some startling and dismaying facts. Every church in the sampling reported more than 200 members... The total amount contributed for benevolence by these congregations for the calendar year 1961 was $114,640. This amounts to the grand total of $3.66 per year per member. The average member contributes SEVEN CENTS per WEEK to benevolent work of all kinds--or less than the price of a cup of coffee." And certainly not ALL the benevolence contributions goes to the "orphan" homes. Which means that for considerably LESS that seven cents per week people have been willing to tear up the Lord's church, disfellowship their brethren, and create the very kind of havoc Satan delights in.
Whatever happened to that lawsuit the Nashville Christian Institute filed against David Lipscomb College, charging an attempted "take over" of the former by the latter? Maybe Clay Pullias and Marshall Keeble ought to get together and talk things over — with Martin Luther King as a neutral umpire.
The Columbia Encyclopedia devotes twenty-three inches to Stalin and only nineteen to Jesus. It gives the United Nations thirty-two inches and the United States Constitution sixteen inches. Christianity gets ten inches, while Communism, the Communist party, Russian revolution, Russian, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics get a total of 152 inches.
- From "The Plea"
Adolph Eichman based his whole defense on the fact that he "only did what his superiors told him to do," Since it was Hitler and the higher-ups who ordered him to slaughter the Jews, he was morally guiltless in doing so. He obeyed orders. Does this have a disturbingly familiar ring? Like the Christian who says, "If the elders misuse the money I contribute, and give it to benevolence societies, missionary societies, and educational organizations, that is their sin, not mine. It is MY duty to give the money; and their duty to spend it scripturally." The late Randall Jarrell (died in 1965) wrote a bitter bit of doggerel that might get the idea across:
"I lived with Mr. Punch, they said my name was Judy, I beat him with my rolling pin, He hit me with his cane.
I ran off with a soldier, he followed in a carriage, And he drew a big revolver and he shot me through the brain.
But that was his duty, he only did his duty-- Said Judy, said the Judy, said poor Judy to the string."
So we wind up with the tale of the young sailor who abruptly found himself transferred to the icy stretches of the snow-bound Arctic. His dear, sweet wife dutifully, and promptly, knitted a warm jacket, tenderly wrapped it in tissue, and air-mailed it with the following letter: "Dearest Jack...postage costs so much for every little ounce that I didn't sew on any buttons. Love and Kisses, Mary, P. S. The buttons are in the right-hand pocket."
Afterthought: There are seven rules for happiness. The first is, stay out of debt. The other six don't matter.