Make-Believe

If all difference could be atoned as easily as that described in this extract from the Popular Magazine, much bloodshed would be saved:

Not long ago a Paris journalist, who had by some criticism offended a politician, received from him the following letter:

       "Sir--One does not send a challenge to a bandit for your species: one simply administers a cuff on the ears. Therefore, I hereby cuff both your ears. Be grateful to me for not having recourse to weapons

       "Yours truly, _______"

The journalist answered:

       "My Dear Sir and Adversary -- I thank you, according to your wish, for having sent me cuffs by post, instead of slaughtering me with weapons. Cuffed by post, I respond by dispatching you by post six bullets in the head. I kill you by letter. Please consider yourself dead from the first line of this epistle.

       "With a respectful salutation to your corpse, I am, 
       "Very truly yours, ________"

The intent to kill is present. Is not that reckoned in morals as bad as the overt act?

More On Malice:

• Treasuring Christ Together Above All Things
• The End of Malice

Accidental Discovery

       Argand, the inventor of the famous lamp which bears his name, had been experimenting for some time in trying to increase the light given out by his lamp, but all to no purpose. On a table before him one night lay an oil-flask which had accidentally got the bottom broken off, leaving a long-necked, funnel-shaped tube. This Argand took up carelessly from the table and placed almost without thought, as he afterward related, over the flame. A brilliant white light was the magical result. It is needless to add that the hint was not lost by the experimenter, who proceeded to put his discovery into practical use by "inventing" the common glass lamp-chimney. Hundreds of discoveries which have been heralded to the world as the acme of human genius have been the result of merest accident, the auger, calico printing and vulcanization of rubber being among the number. 

• It may or may not be a happy accident that you stumbled upon this post, now read another...that could change your life!

Hidden Sins

Donald Sage Mackay, in "The Religion of the Threshold," writes in substance as follows:

       Henry Drummond vividly describes the ravages of the African white ant. One may never see the insect possibly in the flesh, for it lives underground. But its ravages confront one at every turn. You build your house, perhaps, and for a few months fancy you have pitched on the one solitary site in the country where there are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and lintel and rafter come down together with a crash. You look at a section of the wrecked timbers and discover that the whole inside is eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the thickest of them you can push your little finger. It is a vivid picture of the way in which concealed sins eat out the pith of the soul. To the outward eye everything may remain the same, but the fiber of character has been punctured through and through, till the whole nature is corroded.

http://www.ted.com Speaking at TED in 1998, Rev. Billy Graham marvels at technology's power to improve lives and change the world -- but says the end of evil, suffering and death will come only after the world accepts Christ. A legendary talk from TED's archives.