James Keller

A young lady had only one complaint about her good husband: "My husband always praises me to other people," she said, "Often I hear from friends the wonderful things he has said about me. But I miss something, because he never gets around to saying these some things to me, to my face."

In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside."

William L. Stidger, in the magazine, Your Life, tells a story about the conductor, Walter D. Famrosch, who once stopped his orchestra when everything was apparently going along smoothly, and asked: "Where is the seventh flute? Where is the seventh flute?" As Mr. Stidger points out, the conductor didn't ask for the first flute, or the second-but the seventh. Even the seventh flute had an important place in creating the harmony the leader desired. "We may feel inferior, untalented, not even beautiful, and some of us uneducated," Mr. Stidger comments, "but each of us has a part to play and should play it well."

One of the big surprises of the 1946 opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York was a forthright statement by Abayomi Cassell, the delegate from Liberia: "Every single human creature is the object of God's interest and care [and there will be no chance for lasting peace] so long as one shred of injustice exists on the globe. "I believe that each time . . . one group of people or one nation takes advantage of the other, retribution follows either from within or from without for that breach of the perfect law of God as well as those of mankind, [which are] products of the Divine within man!"

Christopher Columbus, in a letter addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of Spain: ". . . But these great and marvelous results are not to be attributed to any merit of mine, but to the holy Christian faith, and to the piety and religion of our Sovereigns; for that which the unaided intellect of man could not compass, the spirit of God has granted to human exertions, for God is wont to hear the prayers of His servants who love His precepts even to the performance of apparent impossibilities . . . "Therefore, let the King and Queen, our princes and their most happy kingdoms, and all the other provinces of Christendom, render thanks to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has granted us so great a victory . . ."

The will of a wealthy New York woman, in addition to distributing her worldly goods to her children, left them the following advice: Love one another. Hold fast to that whether you understand one another or not, and remember nothing really matters except being kind to one another in the name of Christ and to all the world as far as you can reach.

When conquering proconsuls returned to pagan Rome to celebrate their triumph, custom was to assign each of them a slave whose only function was to remind the conqueror that the greatest human glory passes quickly. This slave would crouch in the victorious warrior's chariot, whispering as the conqueror rode along triumphantly: "Remember . . . remember thou art mortal.

With his car stalled in a busy intersection, the flustered driver hurriedly got out and lifted the hood. As he did the driver of the car behind began honking his horn. The noise kept on without letup until the driver of the stalled car suddenly walked to the car behind and said calmly, "If you'll fix my car, I'll be glad to keep blowing your horn for you."

During a heavy storm at sea a nervous woman passenger on a large liner went to the captain, seeking reassurance. "Captain," she asked tremulously, "are we in great danger?" "Don't worry, madam," he answered, "after all, we in the hands of God." "Oh," she gasped, terror written on her face, "is it as bad as that?"

A suburban local was stalled by a blizzard one winter's night, and so deep was the snow that its passengers were unable to leave the car. Next morning the hundred and fifty-odd half-frozen commuters were startled to see a manned signal tower only a few hundred yards away. The signal-station attendant had seen the stalled train the night before, but when asked why he'd done nothing about it, he answered, "It's not in my territory."