CONSCIENCE

~ Tardy Bookworm

 A bookworm—apparently a very slow reader—has returned thirty-two books borrowed from the Brooklyn Public Library in 1935. The books, which had run up fines totaling $5,521 were left on the library steps in a box: “Better late than never.”

~ Lawmen Understand Psychology

 On opening day, game protectors put this sign on a main road: “Check-Station 1000 Yards Ahead.” At 500 yards there was a convenient side road. Lawful hunters went straight ahead. Over-limit and doubtful hunters ducked down the side road. The check-station? It was 500 yards down the side road.

—Outdoor Life

~ Pirate Confesses Hardening Conscience

 The pirate Gibbs, whose name was for many years a terror to commerce with the West Indies and South America, was at last taken captive, condemned and executed in the city of New York.

 He acknowledged before his death that when he committed the first murder and plundered the first ship, compunctions were severe; conscience was on the rack and made a hell within his bosom. But after he had sailed for years under the black flag, his conscience became so hardened and blunted that he could rob a vessel and murder all its crew, and then lie down and sleep as sweetly at night as an infant in its cradle. His remorse diminished as his crimes increased.

—J. H. Bomberger

~On With The Card Game

 Madame du Deffant was noted in the high society of France as a bel-esprit before the period of the first French Revolution. Death seized her whilst in the act of playing at cards, in the midst of a circle of her frivolous and thoughtless friends. So little concerned was the rest of the party at the solemn event which had just occurred, that they resolved, with a hardened indifference rarely to be equaled, to play out their game before they gave the alarm.

—Walter Baxendale

~Did Pastor Truett Change?

 “A girl of about seventeen died and her father asked me to conduct her funeral. She was a member of our church, but he was not. Of course, I agreed to help him with the funeral. Then he asked: “Will you ride in my buggy to the funeral? I want to talk with you.”

 “I consented. And as we rode along to the cemetery the father said:

 “ “Dr. Truett, when you first came to town I used to hear you preach every Sunday. I never missed the Sunday morning service, and I’d literally have to hold onto the seat in front of me to keep from going up to the front when you gave the invitation. And when the congregation sang one of those grand old hymns like “Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me,” I just had to hold onto the bench in front of me.

 ““After the service, I would walk the streets for hours. I was miserable. Along about two or three o’clock in the afternoon, I’d sort of pay myself off with a promissory note. I would promise myself and promise God that next Sunday—next Sunday—I would take my life to him. I’d join the church, but when the invitation hymn was sung, I froze. I couldn’t step out into the aisle, I just couldn’t do it. Dr. Truett, I know you are a better preacher now than you were then, but when I hear you preach now it doesn’t move me at all. What’s happened? Has something happened to me?”

 “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there is a line, unseen by men, that when you’ve crossed it you’ve built such a thick barrier that you’ll never let Jesus in.”

—George Truett

~Hat Stayed 45 Years

 In the 1890s, a man drove by the farm of Mrs. John R. McDonald. A sudden gush of wind caught his black derby hat and whirled it into the McDonald property. He looked in vain for the hat and drove off bareheaded.

 Mrs. McDonald retrieved the hat and for forty-five years, it was worn by various members of the family until it wore out. At the end of those years, Mrs. McDonald finally went out and advertised for the owner of the hat. She said it had been on her conscience for forty-five years.

~“He Is Alive To Me”

 A follower of Pythagoras once bought a pair of shoes from a cobbler, promising to pay him on a future day. That day came, and he took the money. But finding the cobbler passed away, he secretly rejoiced that he could retain the money and get a pair of shoes for nothing. But his conscience would allow him no rest. And taking the money, he went back to the cobbler’s shop, cast in the money, and said: “Go thy way; for, though he is dead to all the world, yet he is alive to me.”

—Foster

~Migrating Birds In Cage …

 When the birds are migrating in flocks to other lands, and the instinct is strong upon them, if you catch one and imprison it in a cage, it will beat its breast against the bars and pant back and forth. But let the migratory season pass, you may open the cage and the bird will not fly. You may even take it and throw it up into the air, but it will fall back limp to the ground. The tug on that little heart is gone. For a soul, for a nation, and I suppose even for a world there comes a time when the tug of the Holy Ghost at the heart may pass forever, if they know not the time of their visitation.

—Sunday School Times

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