“Your Reverence,” said the Emperor, “has asked for an audience, and I have granted it because I, also, have a few words to say to you. Before leaving Alsace-Lorraine I must tell your Reverence that your attitude has greatly displeased me. You were represented to me as a mild and peaceable man; your actions prove the contrary. You have done worse things than the worst fanatic. You have curst a cemetery situated on German soil, the German soil over which I rule. Do not forget, your Reverence, that I, as German Emperor, will never tolerate that even one inch of German soil should be curst—no, not one inch! It is a bishop’s duty to bless, and the moment you begin to curse you cease to be fit for your high position.” (Text.)
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CURVES OF TEMPTATION
An efficient baseball player tries to get at the secret of the pitcher’s curves; and the player in the game of life will look well to the curves of the world. This is a good world, and the men and women in it are of royal lineage—we are of God; but the glorious gift of liberty makes possible temptation and sin.
Because you ought to do right it is possible that you may yield to temptation, and failing to overcome a world curve be compelled to give up your place at the homeplate.—T. E. Potterton.
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CUSTOM
Whether in architecture, or in education, or in dress, or in other affairs of life, custom rules in Korea. Custom explains everything.
“What about this absurdity?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Yes, but see here, why are the dead propt up on sticks and not buried?” “Oh, it’s custom.” “Do you sometimes marry off children as early as nine years of age?” “Yes, that’s custom.”
The reader must learn this word if he would understand old Korea, and if he would read into much of the life of the East still The forefather may have been an imbecile, or may have walked in his sleep, but what he did has come down, down to the present, and custom maintains that it is the sane and right thing to do.