The Overflow
Air Conditioned—bedlam
We're all in favor of this air conditioning wave that is sweeping the country. Everywhere we go churches are installing, or have installed, or want to install, air conditioning equipment. And some of them cool the air all right, but they make such a din of noise with their roaring fans that it sounds like a combination freight train, cyclone, and Niagara Falls all rolled into one. A preacher has to deliver his sermon in a high scream to be even heard against such thunder. Amplifiers help but little, for who can concentrate on anything in such a bedlam. Why not spend fifty dollars extra and get a competent acoustical engineer to eliminate the noise?
—O—
Jimmy Lovell Says
"The older I get the more I come to the place where I had rather do as Christ did rather than as some of the apostles say." (Gospel Broadcast, August 3) Jesus gave a perfect example, and the apostles gave perfect teaching. Does brother Jimmy think there is a conflict between the two, and that he must choose the one or the other? A statement like he makes gives undeniable evidence of confusion to the point of chaos in his thinking — and further demonstrates his eminent fitness to be a director of Pepperdine College.
—O—
Brownfield Debate
In spite of the frequent complaint of some that "debates don't do any good," all the evidence is to the contrary. Last January a debate was held in the Crescent Hill church at Brownfield on the Bible school class issue. Alva Johnson and Van Bonneau presented the side of the "antis," and L. W. Hayhurst and Logan Buchannan spoke in favor of the class method of teaching. Result: a large number of the "antis," including two preachers and one whole congregation were convinced. Incidentally, the debate has been published, and can be secured from brother Jimmy Wood, Box 786, Brownfield, Texas. Price: $3.00; and it is well worth it.
—O—
Pillar Of The Truth
Then there was our good friend and fine gospel preacher who was bearing down on that statement about the church being the "pillar and ground of the truth." With considerable force he thundered, "You will notice that is p-i-l-l-a-r, pillar, meaning a support or a mighty foundation; it is not p-i-l-l-e-r, piller, like you sleep on!"
—O—
Biblical Names
One of the oddest naming customs of all time is found in the days of Oliver Cromwell. The Puritans delighted in giving their children "scriptural" names. Hence we find in English history and literature references to such men as Be-Steadfast Elyarde, Glory-Be-To-God Ireton, Hew-Agag-In-Pieces Penniman, Flee-Fornication Andrews, Swear-Not-At-All Robinson, and If-Christ-Had-Not-Died - For - Thee - Thou - Hadst - Been-Damned Barebone. This last named became a famous physician, being known to his contemporaries as Dr. Damned Barebone. The reading of such names gives some small comfort to the editor of this page when he finds himself advertised in gospel meetings (as has happened more than once) as Tater Yant.
—O—
Gabriel's Feather
As everybody knows the Catholic Church is more or less crazy on the subject of "holy relics" or souvenirs. In the chapel of Scala Santa Church in Rome, for instance, they will show devout pilgrims a small vial of tears which were shed by Jesus himself, a feather from the wing of the Angel Gabriel, and a bottle of milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary! If all the "true nails" from the cross of Christ were collected from various Catholic Churches and shrines, there is probably enough metal to build a battleship.
—O—
"Make Yourself At Home"
We had heard this one for years before we ever knew whether to believe it or not. But brother Warren E. Starnes told us it actually happened, and that he knew the family involved and the place (near Sherman, Texas) where it happened. The story is that J. D. Tant once came into a community to hold a meeting, and was to make his home with a family who had an unbelievably large number of fantastically dirty children. The lady of the house told the visiting preacher to "make himself at home," and then went on out to the barn to gather up the eggs. Suddenly there came to her ears a bloodcurdling scream of outraged pain and indignation. Rushing breathless back to the house, whence the screams had come, the good sister found—J. D. Tant with a pan of water and a bar of soap holding one of the squirming, protesting small fry between his legs and scrubbing vigorously. The lady wanted to know how come. Tant replied, "Sister, you told me to make myself at home; and, before God, if any child on my place was as filthy as this drove here, I'd scrub him if it was the last thing I ever did."
—O—
He ain't any educateder than we are! Brother Brewer has been using some high-flown literary allusions in his articles, interlarded here and there with Latin phrases. Of course he makes proper apologies and explanations to us uncouth and illiterate barbarians who can't comprehend the significance of such references. Well, we'd just like to say we ain't as uncouth as he may imagine; in fact, at times we're probably even couther with that there Latin language than brother Brewer himself. One of our favorite Latin poems is this here gem by Thomas Ybarra:
"Oh, the Roman was a rogue, He erat was, you bettum; He ran his automobilus And smoked his cigarettum. He wore a diamon studibus And elegant cravattum, A maxima cum laude shirt, And such a stylish hattum."
Licentious Charity And Morbid Sympathies
"Effeminate sentimentalism, and a diluted, licentious charity, are the carbonic acid gas of the kingdom of Christ. No soul of man can live in them or with them. The truth itself dies under their blight, while the church grows cadaverous and lean. Sound men in the pulpit, sound men at the press, sound men in the field,
with hearty elementary preaching—these are what we now need; and what, by the Lord's blessing, we must have. We want no half-way men or half-way work. We want sturdy men, who can grandly and fully round up every period on the old Jerusalem gospel; men of nerve, who would not shrink to hold high a hand against even a father, if he dared to bring in aught new and uncountenanced by the Bible. We want no innerlightists; neither do we want men who erect their morbid sympathies into a standard by which to pronounce their brethren heretics, and the sprinkled sects around us saints."
—Moses E. Lard