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 AS
it became obvious that the witness was ‘’stretching” the
truth, the judge warned. “Do you realize what the penalty will
I be if you keep lying like this?”
Moved
by shame, the man on the stand dropped his head. “I reckon I’ll
go to hell,” he said.
“Yes,
certainly that,” said the Judge. “But what else?”
The
witness raised his head, and with a wondering look asked, “Ain’t
that enough??”
I’m
in Kentucky again, for meetings in Louisville and Scottsville.
The homey philosophies of my native state are music to my ears,
and I must share a few with you. The dean of early—day
journalist, in this section, called himself “Josh Billings.”
JOSH BILLINGS’ “SQUARE MAN”
“The
square man mezzures the same each way and hain’t got any winny
edge nor cheap lumber in him. He is free from knots and sap, and
won’t warp. He is klear stuff, and I don’t care what you
work him up into, he won’t swell and he won’t shrink.
He
is amongst men what good kiln-dried
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boards are among carpenters; he won’t
season crack. It doesn’t make any difference which side ov him
yu come up to, he is the same bigness each way. and the only way
to get at him ennyhow iz to face him. He knows he is square and
he never spends any time trying to prove it.”
JOSH BILLINGS ON HENS
“The
best time tew sett a hen iz when the hen iz ready.... I kant
tell eqqsactly how to pick out a good hen, but as a general
thing the long-eared ones, I know, are the least apt to skretch
up the garden.”
Needless
to say, the “long-eared” kind of hens are hard to find. In
the same vein, a farmer-preacher informed me that he had
concluded that liberal brethren who really understood sound
scriptural reasons for congregational independence, were the
easiest ones to turn from the error of institutionalism. When
pressed for hard evidence that this was so, he admitted he had
not yet found such a person, but felt “the theory was sound.”
Well, I agree.
Like
setting a hen, the best time to teach a man “iz when he iz
ready.”
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