The Overflow
No paper next week
The first week in July is always "vacation week" with us here, so there'll be no paper next week. But that "vacation" is sort of a joke this year, what with the tremendous task of continuing to mail out thousands of copies of the "Special Issue," getting the papers for bound Volume Seven off the bindery, and in the middle of all of it, packing up all books and possessions and moving back to Abilene, Texas — and at the same time holding a gospel meeting in Decatur, Georgia! Anyhow, don't look for your Gospel Guardian next week; but it will be back in your box as usual the following week.
Outspoken
He was a timid soul, whose very out-spoken wife was always getting the family into hot water, one way or another. Came the time when things went too far, and some of the neighbors began to complain to him about his outspoken wife. But Mr. Timid Soul slowly and sadly shook his head in the negative. He knew they were wrong — nobody could out-speak his wife!
Summer is here
You can tell the advance of summer by ways other than the thermometer. For example, in the early spring some of the women (we started to write "ladies," then changed our mind; started to write "sisters," and then decided we didn't want to claim them, so will just let it stand as "women") in the land appeared among us in Bermuda shorts. A few weeks later they changed to just ordinary shorts; then later to short shorts. And now they are rolling up their short shorts!
Thanks
A few years ago when one of the "copyright" brethren sent Foy E. Wallace a threatening letter telling him his "goose was cooked," and Foy published the statement in the Bible Banner, Dr. C. B. Billingsley of Fort Smith, Arkansas, bought the biggest, fattest goose he could find, crated it up, and sent it to Foy — to take the place of the one that was getting cooked! We remembered that little incident a few days ago when we returned from Virginia to find several staple pullers piled on the desk. Seems more than one reader had read our pitiful plea for brethren to have mercy on the editor's finger-nails and send their articles clipped, not stapled, and had sent the pullers. With them came this little verse from Pittsburg, Texas:
Your plea has gone out
For the plight of your nails;
Our sympathy's aroused,
And so through the mails
As Achaia and Corinth
And Antioch, too,
Sent aid to the brethren;
Poor saint, we aid you.
Since a staple remover
Would be such frivolity;
We send one, and hope
We've produced equality!
Brief period of fellowship
Quotation from a church bulletin that was sent us: "After the Sunday morning service was ended, the brethren and visitors repaired to the basement of the church for a brief period of fellowship." And along with others, we wonder if the "fellowship" ended when the "brief period" was finished?
It's the same old story again: Brethren are equating the good Bible word "fellowship" with the pleasant gustatory experience of "eating and drinking." Smell that coffee? If you'll drop in at the Gospel Guardian office just about any day at 10:00 o'clock when we all take our coffee break, we'll "fellowship" you for a few minutes!
Two returned
One month has passed since we mailed out the first copies of the "Special Issue" of the Gospel Guardian. Within that month more than forty thousand copies have been mailed, and we continue to send them out in every mail. Thus far only two copies have been returned. One had no comment on it; the other was marked in several places with a semiliterate almost illegible pencil scrawl to the effect that we are "trying to divide the church" and that if he had wanted to read the paper, he would have subscribed for it.
Thomas B. Warren - 1952
"The GUARDIAN is doing a great job. It has been the means of awakening some in the 'mission' fields who were participating in super-centralized-plans! (I know! I've had letters from one anyway!)
You cannot afford to relax a moment in the work you have undertaken. Mark 16:9-20 in the 'Overflow.' My Thanks for the 'plug' on my tract on the way, I'm always disappointed when there is no 'Overflow? — (Letter to editor, Dec. 31, 1952.)
Correction
We misquoted the price on Brother Douthitt's tract in review of Brother Thomas B. Warren in our recent announcement. The price is fifteen cents per copy; $10.00 per 100 copies. This is the tract that is now running in the Gospel Guardian. It comprises five chapters. Order from Cecil B. Douthitt, Box 67, Brownwood, Texas. His other tract, "Centralized Control of Church Resources" is twenty-five cents per copy; $2.50 per dozen, or $20.00 per 100. Both tracts are worthy of careful study. They make a real contribution to discussion of present issues.
"Eats like a bird"
Here is another one of those familiar expressions that is far from accurate. Tests by an ornithological society not long ago established that if the average human being ate the same amount proportionate to his weight that the average canary eats, his food intake would approximate fifty pounds a day. If all the brethren started eating like that, we'd really need some "fellowship" in the land to supply the "lack." And we don't mean coffee.
"Hydrophobia"
We do wish the brethren could learn to argue current problems without getting so hot and furious about them. The obvious anger in some recent articles sounds as though the writer were frothing at the mouth as he wrote. And that's bad. It calls to mind the story of the eastern tourist who was visiting Arizona, went far back into the desert ranges, and early one morning was brushing his teeth beside the camp water-bucket, using some of this frothy newfangled tooth-paste. His Arizona guide promptly shot him dead, being convinced the poor fellow had developed a sudden case of "hydrophobia." Now, maybe all this ranting and raving is as harmless as foamy tooth-paste, but to the uninitiated it looks like "hydrophobia," and it ought to be stopped.