We tracked that odor for two days, and then we discovered that it came from the black lacquer hat. The odor of lacquer is one of Korea’s national smells. The second smell is due to a mixture of garlic, onions, cabbage, salt, fish, and other ingredients, that make up the Korean pickle so greatly enjoyed with their rice. This odor clings like that of Limburger cheese, and follows the native to church and into all the other walks of life.—James S. Gale, “Korea in Transition.”
(2233)
OFFENDED FEELINGS
To think about something else is the best and only sure cure for offended feelings. To think about the offense—its unkindness, its injustice, its meanness of spirit, and all its other ugly aspects—only adds to its sting and deepens our own suffering or anger. This hurts us, and helps no one. Eggs are not the only things that are given added life and power by being brooded over. If we want to enlarge and multiply everything unpleasant in that which has offended us, brooding over it will do it. If we want to have done with it and get it out of our life as quickly as possible, to turn deliberately away from it and concentrate our thought and energy upon something else is our sure road to success. “When any one has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense can not reach it,” Descartes is credited with saying. But we can not lift ourselves by mere will power. We can lose ourselves by devotion to something else—and thus we can lose the offense.—Sunday School Times.
(2234)
OFFENSE, ROCK OF
Fred J. Atwood voices the regret of those who, by failing to live, will lead others astray:
Because, professing still to be
A follower of the Lamb of God,
I walk in devious paths where he