SAYINGS OF SIR ORACLE.

Evening Star, Issue 12067, 12 December 1903, Page 10

SAYINGS OF SIR ORACLE.

Tn ' Maciuulan's,' a paper entitled 'The Sayings of Sir Oracle.' deals with the funny and outre remarks made by and about local dignitaries. In Kennaquhair a witty bailie tried to get the better of the minister. He asked him publicly if fools were oftener found in the town council than in the pulpit? "There's nae great faculties needed in the pulpit, meenister," said the bailie. "The maist that ony of ye hae to do there is just to gie us a sermon without writing it doon first; and what's that ? For as simple a body as you may think me, 111 wager yon I could baud forth ony day from ony test that you might find me." The minister thought he could find the bailie a text tl at he would not preach from. He was right. The bailie declined to preach from it For what he read on the paper the minister put into bis hand was : " Numbers xxiL, 28, And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass." A municipal visitor to a board school was astonished to find that the pupils could not give him a definition of a miracle, and proceeded to teach a boy himself by a " com-mon-sense method." Addressing tho bov, he said : "You don't know -what a miracle is, eh?" Boy confesses it by his silence. " Now, listen to me ! Suppose you got up in the middle of thefhight and saw the sun shining, what should you say it was?" Boy (promptly) : " 1 should say it was the moon," Visitor (argtrmentatively): " But you couldn't, you know, if you saw it was the sun." Boy (doggedly): " I should see it wasn't." Visitor (recovering from a disconcerted pause): " But suppose someone told you that it was the sun?" Boy (emphatically): " I should say he was a liar." Visitor (angry at snch persistent stupidity) : " But suppose I told you that it was really tie sun, and not the moon, that you had seen shining in the middle of the night, what would you say then 1 You wouldn't dare to tell me that I was a liar, would you?" Boy (hesitates a moment; then, in accents of conviction): " I should say you were werry drunk," he answered. The visitor abandoned tie Socratic method.