“THE BEST I REMEMBER.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16928, 30 December 1922, Page 3

“THE BEST I REMEMBER.”

A COLLECTION OF GOOD STORIES. “ Mr Roberts, you can take it from an old man with a long religious experience that a theology without a bell is not worth a damn.” This was tho rebuke administered to a young preacher by an old Northumbrian miner for omitting the element of fear from his gospel. The story is told by Mr Arthur Porritt. the well-known writer of the “Christian World.” in his admirable volume of reminiscences. " The Best T Remember,” and it is related in his first chapter apropos of w r hat he calls ‘* Spurgeon’s stranglehold on V ictorian evangelism” Mr Porritt wonders whether this hold was not due to the famous preacher’s ” power to terrorise his hearers by the sheer exuberance with which he dangled the unrepentant over the bottomless pit,” and the author is convinced, that the absence of this element in modern theology explains some of the lost grip of the churches upon the people.

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE MINERS’ LEADER.

The dominant note of Mr Porritt’s book (says <fc - .John o’ London’s Meekly”) is gay humour, and his chapters are crammed with good stories, sectarian and secular, for his journalistic experiences have not been wholly confined to the religious world. Here is

one about Mr Lloyd George. The exPremier was facing a deputation of miners just before the great coal strike of 1921. One of the miners’ leaders made repeated but vain efforts to explain what the men’s demand for a " pool ” really implied : - -

" After one more effort. also in vain, the miners’ leader lost patience. ‘You’re daft, you silly beggar!’ he ejaculated at the puzzled Prime Minister. And Mr Lloyd George sat back in his chair and roared with laughter. Thirty years ago a Minister would have turned his eyes upward, confidently expecting the heavens falling.” A CAUSTIC WIT. Some of the best stories in this boots arn about that caustic wit, Dr AV. L. Watkinson, the veteran Wesleyan Methodist preacher, who was once described as a converted Heine. “ On one of liis preaching engagements he was entertained by an ostentatious parvenu, who showed the guest with pride over his grounds. * I've cut a new carriage drive/ he said, ‘ and planted trees to make an avenue. They’re elms ; they’ll never be any use to me—they grow too slowly. But I’ve planted them for my posteriors.’ Dr Watkinson sniffed ominously, 4 Wouldn’t birches have been better?’ he asked dryly.” “ To a host who smilingly chided him for getting up late by saying that he was a' bad pupil of John Wesley, whose habit it was to be up and in his study by 5 a.m.. Dr Watkinson promptly retorted: ‘Yes, and if I had been married to Airs John Wesley I should have l.een in my study by four o’clock in the morning.’ ” I suppose that the most ardent Wesleyan would admit that Mrs Wesley was a veritable Mrs Caudle.

“ In Rome Dr Watkinson shocked the curator of the fowls, whose descent is tiaced direct from the cock that, crowed when Peter made the great betrayal, 1 y asking in the most matrer-of-fact tone: 4 Now just tell me one thing—do those hens lay?’ ”

An experience of a politician in 1906, hoping to he selected as a candidate in a by-election:—

“ He addressed a meeting of the electors, and sought through his speech to discover the prevailing religious tendency of the constituency. ‘ My greatgrandfather.’ lie said, * was an Episcopalian ’ (stony silence), ‘ hut my great-grandmother belonged to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland ’ (continued silence). *' My grandfather was a Baptist ’ (more silence}, ‘ hut my grandmother was a Congregationalist ’ (still frigid silence). ‘ But T had a great aunt who was a Wesleyan Methodist ’ (loud applause), 4 and—and T have always followed my great aunt- ’ (loud and prolonged cheering). He got in.” DR PARKER. A story of Dr Parker, author of the “ People’s Bible ” : ” Ail old lady who attended Dr Parker's ministry onoe went int-o his vestry to thank him for the inspiration ir\ gave her. ‘ You do throw such wonderful light on the Bible, doctor/ she said. ‘ Do you know that until this Morning T had always thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were man and wife?’ ” GLADSTONE AND THE GINGERNUT. A memory of Dr De Witt Taira age, a great oratorical preacher:- “ It was just after a silly woman had thrown a ginger-nut at Air Gladstone and cut the (Land Old Alan’s eye. Talr;age was furious at the outrage, and m his sermon declared that before the sun went down that day America’s thundering denunciations of the vile eked would reverberate across the Atlantic. I watched the cables for the thunder, but the reverberations did not come. A fortnight later the “ New Y ork Herald ” came to hand with a single-line note on the incident—“ As usual, Gladstone takes the cake.” “ In New York, so the story goes,” writes Air Porritt, “a group of men were discussing who was the greatest Iran that ever lived. Caesar. Homer, Alexander, Napoleon, Lincoln—all the gieat world heroes were mentioned and ca li v ashed. Then someone suggested the name of Jesus, and in the silence that fell unanimity seemed certain, when a Jew broke in with the remark, ‘ Yes. but the fellow who invented interest was no fool/ ” Air Porritt recalls a story of an Armenian student at New College, who, in sermon class, took the text-, iS As the hart panteth.” He rendered it: " As the heart pants after the water biooks.” and in announcing his divisions said he wished to speak (1) on the pants of the Psalmist, (2) on pants in general, and (3) on some Free Church pants.” DR. FATRBAIRN Dr Andrew Fnirbaim, first Principal of Mansfield College, had p. rolling elowhich sometimes landed him into curious predicaments from which hp escaped with glory, n* in tho fallowing, When addressing n mixed audience i>t Aberdeen and Oxford Universities : “ Ho drew a vivid picture of the h.r.rdsliips of the .Scottish un-dergrnds at Aberdeen in his young days, spoke of their spurt-n oatmeal diet and their

dreary, bore lodgings. Against this* austere background he painted a vivid word-picture of the sybaritic luxurious-L-ees of the Oxford undergraduate. ! Look at him/ ho said, 1 as he sprawls in his sumptuously upholstered study chair, with his legs stretched across to another chair—a. cushion under his lend, another cushion under his feet, and a third cushion under his —(then he remembered, his mixed audience) — under his—his superincumbent mass/ Everyone gasped : then they cheered at the clever recovery out of the rough.” A SPIRITUALIST’S FUNERAL. Air Porritt writes of Robert Burdette. the American preacher who reluctantly conducted the funeral of a spiritualist. After the service he gave a short address, referring in terms of Christian faith to the happy life of the dear departed brother. When he sat down, the widow jumped up and said that while Burdette had been speaking she had been in spiritualistic, communion with her dead husband, who assured her that Biu'dette’s picture of the after-life was wholly fictitious. When the lady had finished. Burdette rose and quietly replied that he had been a Christian minister for nearly forty years and in the course of his ministry had delivered over two thousand funeral addresses. “ But,” he added, ” this is the first time in all mv long experience that T have ever had any back-chat from the corpse.”